December 29, 2007 - No. 215
Foreign Interference in Pakistan's
Sovereign Affairs Must Stop
- Statement of the Communist Party of
Canada (Marxist-Leninist) -
December 29, 2007
• Foreign
Interference in Pakistan's
Sovereign Affairs Must Stop - Communist Party of
Canada (Marxist-Leninist)
• Pakistan -- A Nation without Direction
- Sandra L. Smith
• Pakistan's Bhutto Killed in Attack
• Anglo-American Ambitions behind the
Assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the Destabilization of Pakistan
- Larry Chin, Global Research
• Musharraf Must Be Supported - Conrad
Black, National Post
• U.S. Steps up Plans for Military Intervention
in Pakistan - Bill Van Auken, Global Research
• U.S. Prepares to Increase Occupation Forces
in Afghanistan - Joe Kay, Global Research
Foreign Interference in Pakistan's
Sovereign Affairs Must Stop
- Statement of the Communist Party of
Canada (Marxist-Leninist) -
December 29, 2007
The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist)
condemns the
assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the U.S. interference in Pakistan's
internal affairs. Politics of assassination are carried out by those
who oppose the political solution of the problems facing the polity and
the people's movement for empowerment.
The ensuing anarchy and violence are symptoms of a society in which the
rulers have become an impediment to the advance of the society. It is
they who refuse to permit the people to deal with the problems they
face politically and who in the name of democracy and other high ideals
criminalize all economic, political,
social and cultural issues by treating them as law and order questions.
All the global powers and their annexed mercenaries are
telling the
people of Pakistan how to manage their internal sovereign affairs. U.S.
imperialism in particular has no shame in openly championing this or
that Pakistani political leader as "its" man or woman to lead the
country. Aside from the public
declarations of support for "its" Pakistani politician, U.S.
imperialism funds the Pakistan military and secret service with
billions of dollars annually.
This crude very imperial foreign interference through
support and
funding for particular political personalities, parties and armed
forces can only result in repression of the genuine leaders who emerge
from popular struggles to resolve the country's many social, economic
and political problems. This
foreign interference also results in violent clashes among those within
the ruling elite who are favoured or disfavoured by U.S. imperialism or
other foreign powers.
Imperialist interference in Pakistan is evidenced in a
society that
does not guarantee the social, economic and political rights of the
people or solve any of its outstanding problems. Social and political
paralysis strangles the polity and denies the emergence of modern
political and social leaders and institutions
to serve the people. Everything is geared to favour the foreign
imperialists and a fawning local privileged elite. No social, economic
or political problem is resolved in a modern way.
During the recent struggle of the Pakistan judiciary,
the world
witnessed the unilateral manipulation and changing of the constitution,
which is a country's basic law, in a most expedient manner to serve the
interests of the elite in command of the military at this time and to
oppose those voices demanding
fundamental change and sovereign development.
U.S. imperialism's direct funding and promotion of
certain Pakistani
military leaders and others in official opposition has led to
assassinations and violent clashes among rivals. Political leaders in
the province of Balochistan and now Benazir Bhutto from Sindh have been
murdered. The country is driven
to wage a reactionary civil war or at least continuing violent clashes
and repression. Some commentators speak of a break-up of the country
into four competing regions: Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and Pakhtunkhwa
(North-West Frontier Province). Is this not what U.S. imperialism led
by George W. Bush and its
annexed mercenary Canada led by Prime Minister Harper want? The break
up of Pakistan would provide justification for the CBC's howls of a
"failed" state and the "necessity to protect" the people and Pakistan's
nuclear arsenal. The colonial invasion and occupation of Afghanistan by
the U.S.-led murderers could
then move south directly into South Asia to seize in bloody conquest
and destruction the biggest prize to date, Pakistan and its Port of
Karachi. This would mark the retaking by the colonialists of the famed
city first seized by British colonial gangsters in 1843. The invasion,
destruction and occupation of Pakistan
would be the crown jewel in U.S. imperialism's march of conquest
through West and Central Asia and south to the Indian subcontinent.
U.S. imperialism and their annexed mercenaries such as Canada would now
surround China and be positioned to confront Russia. The European
empire-builders would mostly be blocked
from Asia, at least militarily.
The foundation would be set for a World War to conquer the globe and
establish the U.S. as the thousand-year Empire that Adolf Hitler
dreamed about but failed to achieve because the peoples' of the world
united in a popular front of resistance to retrogression and war.
And so it is today. The social responsibility of people
everywhere
is to confront the U.S. imperialists and their annexed mercenaries and
stay their murderous hand of war, retrogression and interference. The
people united in resistance to war and retrogression must block the
empire-building of the big
powers, especially the U.S. imperialists. This demands the immediate
removal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan. This demands the
dismantling of all U.S. military bases throughout the world and the
repatriation of all U.S. troops. This demands the dismantling of all
the aggressive military alliances such as NATO,
NORAD and the U.S. Northern Command. This demands a renewed commitment
to the defence of national sovereignty by establishing anti-war
governments and the solving of problems among nations through peaceful
means and enlightened diplomacy.
U.S. imperialism and its annexed mercenaries such as
Canada should
stop interfering in the political affairs of sovereign Pakistan and
stop funding Pakistani political parties and personalities and its
armed forces. The ancient peoples of south and central Asia, if left to
express and modernize their own thought material,
traditions and experience, are quite capable of building a bright
future for themselves based on modern definitions.
CPC(M-L) calls for the unity of all political forces
that want the
renewal of society, in other words all those who wish to see an end to
the prevalence of anarchy and violence and the use of state terrorism
and foreign interference must rise to the occasion and provide the
solutions society is calling
forth at this time.
Stop foreign interference in Pakistan's sovereign
affairs! U.S.
imperialism and its Canadian and other mercenaries, get out of Central
Asia!
Pakistan -- A Nation without Direction
- Sandra L. Smith* -
Torrents of blood have been shed by the people of
Pakistan in their
struggles for national and social liberation against foreign and native
exploiters, against their agencies and collaborators. Yet, in spite of
all these sacrifices, Pakistan stands today without direction. Which
way to go forward is the question uppermost
on peoples' minds. How to advance? What does the future hold for the
people of Pakistan? How can they achieve their cherished desire to end
the anarchy and violence, end the grinding poverty and suffering which
are becoming worse the more the big powers strive for domination over
all
of Asia? How can the people
end the uncertainty?
Following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the
representatives of the U.S., Canada and other NATO powers and their
monopoly-owned media are full of talk about democracy. They suggest
that by finding who benefits from the
assassination
of Benazir Bhutto
the culprit can be brought to justice and the cause of democracy will
be served. It is impossible to wrap one's mind around discussion of who
will benefit from anarchy
and violence but it is certainly not the peoples of Pakistan, South
Asia, Central Asia, Western Asia or the world. It is distressing indeed
to hear the U.S., Canada and other NATO powers try to justify anarchy
and violence and dictate the course of events by raising the banner of
high ideals. Their talk about democracy is accompanied by the
demand from
the U.S. and other NATO powers that elections be conducted on schedule
irrespective of the developments. No doubt the "return of democracy" is
the greatest desire of the U.S., Canada and other NATO powers so that
their interference
in the region has the veneer of legitimacy. But it defies the
imagination of just what kind of an election and democracy they have in
mind given
the disarray of the electoral parties at this time. To even speak of
Pakistan and democratic institutions in the same sentence is
irrational. Pakistan is the product of the bloody division of
India engineered by the British Raj sixty years ago when the Punjabi
nation was divided on a communal basis. It was the so-called reasonable
accommodation of the day to achieve what in democratic parlance is
called
responsible government so as to preserve British interests in the
region and block the people from going
for socialism. Since then, torrents of blood have been shed as one
corrupt government after the other has preserved the self-serving rule
of the feudal landlords and established the stranglehold of the
international financial oligarchy over the people of Pakistan.
Furthermore, the imperialists' rhetoric that the
killing of Bhutto "has
further
undermined the internal security of Pakistan" begs the question as to
what institutions the imperialists are referring to that provide
"internal security." In Pakistan since 1956
(initially the Dominion of Pakistan after partition in 1947, later
becoming the Islamic Republic of Pakistan
in 1956) the only developed institutions have been the armed forces and
police agencies. To reduce the issue of democracy in Pakistan to one of
eliminating military rule for civilian rule reveals the sorry state of
the democracy and democratic institutions the imperialists seek to
impose.
The preoccupations of the
CBC, a mouthpiece of Canada's policy in Afghanistan, are revealing in
this regard. The CBC has turned the tragic developments in Pakistan
into talk about the need to stay the course in Afghanistan because
allegedly 50 per cent of new Taliban
recruits that come in to Afghanistan are from Pakistan. In this way,
the events in Pakistan are cynically
manipulated to persuade NATO members to step up to the plate by putting
more of their troops on the front lines in Afghanistan.
The polls show 67 per cent of Canadians say the results
of Canada's alleged
reconstruction in Afghanistan do not warrant the losses in terms of
dead and injured Canadian soldiers. This has led Prime Minister Stephen
Harper to use year-end interviews to
patronize the polity and marginalize public discourse on the matter by
wondering whether Canadians understand the importance of remaining in
Afghanistan. He said the soldiers and diplomats understand the
importance of staying despite the heavy price they are paying and he
hopes the allegedly non-partisan "blue
ribbon" panel he established to review what comes next, headed by
former Liberal
cabinet member John Manley, will serve the purpose of convincing
Canadians to stay the course.
"All we can only hope from the Manley exercise is that
it causes
Parliamentarians, particularly in our Official Opposition -- which as
you know commenced this mission -- to sit back and think about what is
in the best interest of the country before a vote is actually held," he
said.
"We really have got to avoid -- on this one -- taking a
decision
for reasons of short term politics. We must take a decision that is in
the long-run interest of the country, its international reputation and
the respect we should all show for the sacrifice our men and women have
made to secure it," he added.
The CBC has also used the tragic events in Pakistan to
declare there is a need to avert the danger of Pakistan's nuclear
arsenal falling into
the hands of the Taliban should the central government fall apart. The
CBC even raises the spectre of a
pre-emptive strike from India to seize the weapons and therefore ensure
the security of the region! These are not scenarios acceptable to the
people.
The quality of being human presupposes that the public
feels
revulsion towards the killing of Benazir Bhutto, as they do for the
poverty of the majority workers, peasants and tribal peoples,
the suffering of children, mothers and the elderly. If this is the
case, why do such things continue? How
is it that the majority of the human voice and feeling is unable to
assert itself at the time it is so sorely needed? What is blocking the
solution of the problems?
To divert the people
from taking up the renewal of the democracy
by establishing their own institutions based on their own thought
material and reality, deafening propaganda is carried
out that the problems are due to the rise of religious extremism in
Pakistan. This is intended to force a "solution" based on the
"civilized values" of the big powers. But it is not enough to say it is
the old system or foreign interference and internal reaction and their
disinformation that are blocking the solution to the problems in
Pakistan and the world.
What is it about the old system that is blocking if not its ability to
eliminate the human factor/social consciousness from taking up the call
of the times?
The assassination of Benazir Bhutto is another warning
to people to
come forward and provide solutions through the democratic renewal of
the society. Only those who have no other interest but to create a
society fit for human beings can end this dangerous state of affairs
which is bound to lead to
a world war. There is a chance for such forces to emerge at this time.
Pakistan's Bhutto Killed in Attack
On Thursday, December 27, Pakistan opposition leader
Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in a suicide attack that also killed or
injured at least 20 others at a campaign rally, news agencies report.
A security adviser for Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party
said Bhutto was shot in the neck and chest as she got into her vehicle
to leave the rally in Rawalpindi near the capital Islamabad where she
was campaigning for the January 8
parliamentary election. The gunman
then blew himself up.
"At 6:16 pm she expired,"
said Wasif Ali Khan, a member of Bhutto's party who was at Rawalpindi
General Hospital where she was taken after the attack, the Associated
Press reports.
"The attack came just hours after four supporters of
former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif died when members of
another political party opened fire on them at a rally near the
Islamabad airport Thursday, Pakistan police said.
"The BBC's Barbara Plett says the killing is likely to
provoke an agonized response from her followers, especially from her
loyal following in Sindh Province.
"Analysts note that Rawalpindi, a garrison city, is
seen as one of the country's most secure cities, making the attack even
more embarrassing for the military authorities," AP writes.
"The attack shows that there are still those in
Pakistan trying to undermine reconciliation and democratic development
in Pakistan," a U.S. state department official said.
Russia's foreign ministry condemned the attack, offered
condolences to Ms Bhutto's family and said it hoped the Pakistani
leadership would "manage to take necessary steps to ensure stability in
the country," Pravda reported.
France spoke of an "odious" act and said it was deeply
concerned, Agence France Presse said.
The Reuters news agency reported:"Gold and Bonds Rise
after Bhutto Death."
"Gold and government bonds rose while U.S. stock
futures fell on Thursday after news Pakistani opposition leader Benazir
Bhutto was killed in a gun and bomb attack after a rally in the city of
Rawalpindi. [...]
"Analysts say the shock of the Bhutto news triggered a
classic capital flight to assets which are considered as safe havens in
times of geopolitical stress.
"'(Bhutto) is just a concern. The move to gold is the
flight to safety and quality on the headlines on a quiet illiquid day,'
said Camilla Sutton, currency strategist at Scotia Capital in Toronto.
"U.S. government bond prices were up 78 ticks for a
yield of 4.1872 percent. Euro zone government bond prices also rose
after the Bhutto news and U.S. data, paring earlier losses to standing
slightly down on the day."
According to Pravda, "Bhutto was the first woman
elected to lead a post-colonial Muslim state. She was twice elected
Prime Minister of Pakistan. She was sworn in for the first time in 1988
but removed from office 20 months later under orders of then-president
Ghulam Ishaq Khan on grounds of alleged
corruption. In 1993 Bhutto was re-elected but was again removed in 1996
on similar charges, this time by President Farooq Leghari.
"Bhutto went into self-imposed exile in Dubai in 1998,
where she remained until she returned to Pakistan on October 18, 2007,
after reaching an understanding with General Musharraf by which she was
granted amnesty and all corruption charges were withdrawn.
"She was the eldest child of former premier Zulfikar
Ali Bhutto, a Pakistani of Sindhi extraction, and Begum ("Lady") Nusrat
Bhutto, a Pakistani of Iranian-Kurdish extraction. Her paternal
grandfather was Sir Shah Nawaz Bhutto who came to Larkana Sindh before
partition from his native town of
Bhatto Kalan which was situated in the Indian state of Haryana."
Anglo-American Ambitions behind the Assassination of
Benazir Bhutto and the Destabilization of Pakistan
- Larry Chin*, Global Research, December
29, 2007 -
It has been known for months that the Bush-Cheney
administration and its allies have been manuevering to strengthen their
political control of Pakistan, paving the way for the expansion and
deepening of the "war on terrorism" across the region. The
assassination of Benazir Bhutto does not change this agenda.
In fact, it simplifies Bush-Cheney's options.
Seeding Chaos with a Pretext
"Delivering democracy to the Muslim world" has been the
Orwellian rhetoric used to mask Bush-Cheney's application of pressure
and force, its dramatic attempt at reshaping of the Pakistani
government (into a joint Bhutto/Sharif-Musharraf) coalition, and
backdoor
plans for a military intervention. Various American destabilization
plans, known for months by officials and analysts, proposed the
toppling of Pakistan's military.
The assassination of Bhutto appears to have been
anticipated. There were even reports of "chatter" among U.S. officials
about the possible assassinations of either Pervez Musharraf or Benazir
Bhutto, well before the actual attempts took place.
As succinctly summarized in Jeremy Page's article, "Who
Killed Benazir Bhutto? The Main Suspects," the main suspects are 1)
"Pakistani and foreign Islamist militants who saw her as a heretic and
an American stooge," and 2) the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, a
virtual branch of the CIA. Bhutto's
husband Asif Ali Zardari directly accused the ISI of being involved in
the October attack.
The assassination of Bhutto has predictably been blamed
on "Al-Qaeda," without mention of fact that Al-Qaeda itself is an
Anglo-American military-intelligence operation.
Page's piece was one of the first to name the man who
has now been tagged as the main suspect: Baitullah Mehsud, a purported
Taliban militant fighting the Pakistani army out of Waziristan.
Conflicting reports link Mehsud to "Al-Qaeda," the Afghan Taliban, and
Mullah Omar (also see here). Other
analysis links him to the terrorist A.Q. Khan.
Mehsud's profile, and the reporting of it, echoes the
propaganda treatment of all post-9/11 "terrorists." This in turn raises
familiar questions about Anglo-American intelligence agency propaganda
involvement. Is Mehsud connected to the ISI or the CIA? What did the
ISI and the CIA know about Mehsud?
More importantly, does Mehsud, or the manipulation of the propaganda
surrounding him provide Bush-Cheney with a pretext for future
aggression in the region?
Classic "War on Terrorism" Propaganda
While details on the Bhutto assassination continue to
unfold, what is clear is that it was a political hit, along the lines
of U.S. agent Rafik Harriri in Lebanon. Like the highly suspicious
Harriri hit, the Bhutto assassination has been depicted by corporate
media
as the martyring of a great messenger of western-style "democracy."
Meanwhile, the U.S. government's ruthless actions behind the scenes
have received scant attention.
The December 28, 2007 New York Times coverage
of the Bhutto assassination offers the perfect example of mainstream
Orwellian media distortion that hides the truth about Bush-Cheney
agenda behind blatant propaganda smoke. This piece echoes White House
rhetoric proclaiming that
Bush's main objectives are to "bring democracy to the Muslim world" and
"force out Islamist militants."
In fact, the openly criminal Bush-Cheney administration
has only supported and promoted the antithesis of democracy: chaos,
fascism, and the installation of Anglo-American-friendly puppet regimes.
In fact, the central and consistent geostrategy of
Bush-Cheney, and their elite counterparts around the world, is the
continued imposition and expansion of the manufactured "war on
terrorism"; the continuation of war across the Eurasian subcontinent,
with events triggered by false flag operations and
manufactured pretexts.
In fact, the main tools used in the "war on terrorism"
remain Islamist militants, working on behalf of Anglo-American military
intelligence agencies -- among them, "Al-Qaeda," and Pakistan's
Inter-Services Intelligence, the ISI. Mehsud fits the same profile.
Saving Bush-Cheney's Pakistan
In an amusing quote from the same New York Times
piece, Wendy Chamberlain, former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan (and a
central figure behind multinational efforts to build a trans-Afghan
pipeline, connected to 9/11), proudly states: "We are a player
in the Pakistani political system."
Not only has the U.S. continued to be a "player," but
one of its top managers for decades.
Each successive Pakistani leader since the early 1990s
-- Bhutto, Sharif and Musharraf -- have bowed to Western interests. The
ISI is a virtual branch of the CIA.
While Musharraf has been, and remains, a strongman for
Bush-Cheney, questions about his "reliability," and control -- both his
regime's control over the populace and growing popular unrest, and
elite control over his regime -- have driven Bush-Cheney attempts to
force a clumsy (pro-U.S., Iraq-style)
power-sharing government. As noted by Robert Scheer, Bush-Cheney have
been playing "Russian roulette" with Musharraf, Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif
-- each of whom have been deeply corrupt, willing fronts for the U.S.
The return of both Bhutto and the other former Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif has merely been an attempt by the U.S. to hedge
its regional power bets.
What exactly were John Negroponte and Condoleeza Rice
really setting up the past few months?
Who Benefits from Bhutto's Murder?
The "war on terrorism" geostrategy and propaganda
milieu, the blueprint that has been used by elite interests since 9/11
to impose a continuing world war, is the clear beneficiary of the
Bhutto assassination. Bush-Cheney and their equally complicit
pro-war/pro-occupation counterparts in the Democratic Party
enthusiastically support the routine use of "terror" pretexts to impose
continued war policies.
True to form, fear, "terrorism," "security" and military
force, are once again, the focuses of Washington political rhetoric,
and the around-the-clock media barrage.
The 2008 U.S. presidential candidates and their elite
campaign advisers, all but a few of whom enthusiastically support the
"war on terrorism," have taken turns pushing their respective versions
of "we must stop the terrorists" rhetoric for brain-addled supporters.
The candidates whose polls have slipped,
led by 9/11 participant and opportunist Rudy Guiliani, and hawkish
neoliberal Hillary Clinton, have already benefited from a new round of
mass fear.
Musharraf benefits from the removal of a bitter rival,
but now must find a way to re-establish order. Musharraf now has an
ideal justification to crack down on "terrorists" and impose full
martial law, with Bush-Cheney working from the shadows behind Musharraf
-- and continuing to manipulate or
remove his apparatus, if Musharraf proves too unreliable or broken to
suit Anglo-American plans.
The likely involvement of the ISI behind the Bhutto hit
cannot be overstated. ISI's role behind every major act of "terrorism"
since 9/11 remains the central unspoken truth behind current
geopolitical realities. Bhutto, but not Sharif or Musharraf would have
threatened the ISI's agendas.
Bhutto, Militant Islam, and the Pipelines
Now that she has been martyred, many unflattering
historical facts about Benazir Bhutto will be hidden or forgotten.
Bhutto herself was intimately involved in the creation
of the very "terror" milieu purportedly responsible for her
assassination. Across her political career, she supported militant
Islamists, the Taliban, the ISI, and the ambitions of Western
governments.
As noted by Michel Chossudovsky in America's "War on
Terrorism," it was during Bhutto's second term that
Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) and the Taliban rose to prominence,
welcomed into Bhutto's coalition government. It was at that point that
ties between the JUI, the Army and the ISI were
established.
While Bhutto's relationship with both the ISI and the
Taliban were marked by turmoil, it is clear that Bhutto, when in power,
supported both -- and enthusiastically supported Anglo-American
interventions.
In his two landmark books, Taliban: Militant Islam,
Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia and Jihad: The Rise of
Militant Islam in Central Asia, Ahmed Rashid richly details the
Bhutto regime's connections to the ISI, the Taliban, "militant Islam,"
multinational oil interests,
and Anglo-American officials and intelligence proxies.
In Jihad, Rashid wrote:
"Ironically it was not the ISI but Prime Minister
Benazir Bhutto, the most liberal, secular leader in Pakistan's recent
history, who delivered the coup de grace to a new
relationship with Central Asia. Rather than support a wider peace
process in Afghanistan that would have opened up a
wider peace process in Afghanistan, Bhutto backed the Taliban, in a
rash and presumptuous policy to create a new western-oriented trade and
pipeline route from Turkmenistan through southern Afghanistan to
Pakistan, from which the Taliban would provide security. The ISI soon
supported this policy because its
Afghan protégé Gulbuddin Hekmatyar had made no headway in
capturing Kabul, and the Taliban appeared to be strong enough to do so."
In Taliban, Rashid provided even more
historical detail:
"When Bhutto was elected as Prime Minister in 1993, she
was keen to open a route to Central Asia. A new proposal emerged backed
strongly by the frustrated Pakistani transport and smuggling mafia, the
JUI and Pashtun military and political officials."
"The Bhutto government fully backed the Taliban, but the
ISI remained skeptical of their abilities, convinced that they would
remain a useful but peripheral force in the south."
"The U.S. congress had authorized a covert $20 million
budget for the CIA to destabilize Iran, and Tehran accused Washington
of funneling some of these funds to the Taliban -- a charge that was
always denied by Washington. Bhutto sent several emissaries to
Washington to urge the U.S. to intervene
more publicly on the side of Pakistan and the Taliban."
Bhutto's one mistake: she vehemently supported the
pipeline proposed by Argentinian oil company Bridas, and opposed the
pipeline by Unocal (favored by the U.S.). This contributed to her
ouster in 1996, and the return of Nawaz Sharif to power. As noted by
Rashid:
"After the dismissal of the Bhutto government in 1996,
the newly elected Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, his oil minister Chaudry
Nisar Ali Khan, the army and the ISI fully backed Unocal. Pakistan
wanted more direct U.S. support for the Taliban and urged Unocal to
start construction quickly in order
to legitimize the Taliban. Basically the USA and Unocal accepted the
ISI's analysis and aims -- that a Taliban victory in Afghanistan would
make Unocal's job much easier and quicken U.S. recognition."
Her appealing and glamorous pro-Western image
notwithstanding, Bhutto's true record is one of corruption and
accommodation.
The "War on Terrorism" Resparked
Every major Anglo-American geostrategic crime has been
preceded by a convenient pretext, orchestrated and carried out by
"terror" proxies directly or indirectly connected to U.S.
military-intelligence, or manipulated into performing as intelligence
assets. The
assassination of Benazir Bhutto is simply one more brutal example.
This was Pakistan's 9/11; Pakistan's JFK assassination,
and its impact will resonate for years.
Contrary to mainstream corporate news reporting, chaos
benefits Bush-Cheney's "war on terrorism." Calls for "increased
worldwide security" will pave the way for a muscular U.S. reaction,
U.S.-led force and other forms of "crack down" from Bush-Cheney across
the region. In other words, the assassination
helps ensure that the U.S. will not only never leave, but also increase
its presence.
The Pakistani election, if it takes place at all, is a
simpler two-way choice: pro-U.S. Musharraf or pro-U.S. Sharif.
While the success of Bush-Cheney's 9/11 agenda has met
with mixed results, and it has met with a wide array of resistance
("terroristic" as well as political), there is no doubt that the
propaganda foundation of the "war on terrorism" has remained firm,
unshaken and routinely reinforced.
As for Nawaz Sharif, who now emerges as the sole
competitor for Musharraf, he, like Musharraf and Bhutto, is legendary
for his accommodation to Anglo-American interests -- pipelines, trade,
and the continued U.S. military presence. As Jean-Charles Brisard and
Guillaume Dasquie noted in the book Forbidden Truth, the
October 1999 military coup
led by Musharraf that originally toppled Sharif's regime was sparked by
animosity between the two camps, as well as "Sharif's personal
corruption and political megalomania," and "concerns that Sharif was
dancing too eagerly to Washington's tune on
Kashmir and Afghanistan."
In other words, Bush-Cheney wins, no matter which asset
winds up on the throne.
Musharraf Must Be Supported
- Conrad Black, National Post, December
29, 2007 -
The murder of Benazir Bhutto is tragic and dreadful, but
is far from unprecedented in Pakistan. After the independence of India
and Pakistan was proclaimed in 1947, 17 million people fled between
Hindu and Muslim areas, and 500,000 people were killed. The first prime
minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan,
was assassinated in 1951. His three successors were pitched out of
office each within two years with an abruptness unfamiliar to
constitutional monarchies. Pakistan was set up as a republic in 1956.
The first president, Iskander Mirza, yielded power to General Mohammed
Ayub Khan, in 1958.
As East, (Bangladesh), and West Pakistan started to
break up, separated as they were by a thousand miles of a hostile
India, Ayub was driven from office in 1969, and replaced by General
Yahya Khan. He blundered into war with India in 1971; Bangladesh
seceded, taking more than half the population
of Pakistan with it, and Yahya was replaced by Benazir Bhutto's father,
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
General Mohammed Zia ul-Haq sent Bhutto packing in 1977,
and hanged Bhutto on trumped up charges at a drumhead trial in 1979.
Zia was assassinated when his airplane (PAK 1), was blown up in 1988.
Benazir Bhutto governed for a year and was then dismissed. Nawaz
Sharif, now the leading
surviving opposition leader, was installed after elections in 1991, and
was dismissed two years later. Benazir was back from 1995 to 1996, and
then driven out of the country again. Sharif was back in 1997, forced
out the president and the chief justice, and was himself overthrown and
expelled by the present president,
General Musharraf, in 1999.
The region is dodgy to holders of great offices. Mahatma
Gandhi, the supreme pacifist, and father of an independent India, and,
with Mohammed Ali Jinnah, of Pakistan, was assassinated, as was India's
first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru's daughter, Indira Ghandi, and
her son, both prime ministers
of India, which, unlike Pakistan, is a more or less genuine democracy.
The George Washington and Mahatma of the new country of Bangladesh,
(immortalized by Henry Kissinger as "a basket case, but not our basket
case" in 1971), Mujibar Rahman, was murdered, with his family and even
household pets, in 1975.
It is a chronically unstable area, and since both India
and Pakistan tested nuclear weapons in 1998, and Pakistan now has at
least 100 nuclear weapons, the question of Pakistan's political
security is more important, as well as more unsettled, than ever. It
was a fairly academic question whether Pakistan
was governed by generals or ostensibly democratic leaders, for most of
the country's history. But it is not now.
Musharraf is no Jeffersonian democrat, but in this horse
race, he is the only entry the U.S. and the West has. As so often in
the past, from Diem in South Vietnam and Somoza in Nicaragua, to the
Shah of Iran, to Maliki in Iraq and Kharzai in Afghanistan, the U.S.
has celebrated its alliance with Musharraf,
and then, as the pressure came up, the Democrats have raised the issue
of whether this particular ally is worthy of alliance with the U.S. The
time for such considerations is when the alliance is forged, not when
it is tested.
The problem is compounded in this case by the current
administration's brief promotion of the panacea of democracy. We saw in
Iran in 1979, as in Palestine in the last two years, that democracy can
bring in democracy's greatest enemies. In Algeria, the constitution
gives the army the ultimate authority
and duty to preserve democracy, an obligation it has discharged by
interrupting elections about to produce an anti-democratic and
fundamentalist Islamic majority, and conducting a civil war of almost a
decade in which 300,000 people died violently, to keep the Islamic
fundamentalists out of power.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, of the elder
Somoza, in Nicaragua, "He may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he's our
son-of-a-bitch." President Richard Nixon warned that, "If we don't
support our allies, we won't have any allies." There certainly comes a
point where an ally is too disreputable to support,
as even the Chinese found with the infamous Pol Pot in Cambodia. But
Musharraf is not in that category.
It was a blunder of mindless moralistic naivete for the
Clinton administration to have boycotted both India and Pakistan in
1998, when both became nuclear powers. This replicated Carter's equally
fatuous blunder in engineering a Persian Gulf in which both major
powers, Iran and Iraq, were anti-Western.
One of the comparatively scarce foreign policy successes
of the present Bush administration is the rapprochement with India.
Obviously, Musharraf must be supported. Bush and Condoleezza Rice must
stop badgering him about democracy, which has never produced a
satisfactory result in Pakistan,
and give enough assistance to make a concerted attack in the Waziristan
sanctuary of bin Laden, al-Qaeda and the Taliban, militarily and
politically practical.
Musharraf does not now convey the impression of being a
strongman, and already the U.S. television networks are profiling the
new army commander as a potential replacement, as they did the
now-forgotten General Lebedev as a replacement as Russian president for
Boris Yeltsin. If the U.S. does
not reinforce Musharraf in the most unambiguous and tangible terms,
Pakistan could deliver a sizeable nuclear arsenal to a fanatic Islamic,
replacement government, many years ahead of the Iranian nuclear
timetable.
The status quo is intolerable. The U.S. has done nothing
serious to reduce oil imports from those who bankroll terrorism and
promote the overthrow of friendly Middle Eastern or southern Asian
governments. American suburbia gambols about in its gas-guzzling SUVs,
fattening the wallets of the promoters
of terrorism. The Saudis and others complain about Israel being a
Jewish state, which is what the United Nations, including Stalin's
U.S.S.R., set it up as, but do not allow a Christian or a Jew to visit
Mecca.
Almost the entire conventional military capacity of the
United States is tied up in Iraq, a war the country vaguely wishes to
abandon, despite a general awareness that this could bring terrorism
back to New York and Washington. The current president has not received
the credit he deserves for the fact
that not so much as a firecracker has gone off in the Americas since
9/11. Having removed the ghastly and internationally lawless regime in
Iraq, the U.S. must produce an improvement; feckless meddling won't do.
And Bush or his successor must be the first president since Nixon to
take energy policy seriously.
The Democratic nominee for president will probably be
Senator Clinton. The country could do worse, and better. If the
Republicans have a brokered convention, they should consider returning
to the estimable tradition of nominating successful generals, from
Washington to Eisenhower, including a majority
of elections in the first century of the United States. General David
Petraeus has infused hope into the Iraq operation, and would be a
refreshing new face. Dr. Rice would be an admirable candidate for
vice-president. If the primaries decide the Republican nominee, as they
have in both parties since 1956, the best
they have is John McCain. He is a war hero and has a sense of the
nation's strategic interest. He is not unblemished, but neither were
former congressman Lincoln, or the handicapped governor Roosevelt, and
they were the greatest leaders any country has produced in the last two
centuries.
U.S. Steps up Plans for Military Intervention in
Pakistan
- Bill Van Auken, Global Research,
November 22, 2007 -
In the midst of public statements of support for
"democracy" in Pakistan and the recent visit to Islamabad by the
American envoy John Negroponte, Washington is quietly preparing for a
stepped-up military intervention in the crisis-ridden country.
According to the New York Times Monday, plans
have been drawn up by the U.S. military's Special Operations Command
for deploying Special Forces troops in Pakistan's frontier regions for
the purpose of training indigenous militias to combat forces aligned
with the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Citing unnamed military officials, the newspaper reports
that the proposal would "expand the presence of military trainers in
Pakistan, directly finance a separate tribal paramilitary force that
until now has proved largely ineffective and pay militias that agreed
to fight Al Qaeda and foreign extremists."
American military officials familiar with the proposal
said that it was modeled on the initiative by American occupation
forces in Iraq to arm and support Sunni militias in Anbar province in a
campaign against the Al Qaeda in Iraq group there.
According to the Times report, skepticism that
the same strategy can be adapted to the deteriorating situation in
Pakistan centers on "the question of whether such partnerships can be
forged without a significant American military presence in Pakistan."
The newspaper adds that "it is unclear
whether enough support can be found among the tribes."
While the Pentagon admits to only about 50 U.S. troops
currently stationed in Pakistan as "advisors" to the Pakistani armed
forces, that number would swell substantially under the proposed
escalation. The Times cites a briefing prepared by the
Special Operations Command that claims the
beefed-up U.S. forces would not be engaged in "conventional combat" in
Pakistan. It quotes unnamed military officials as acknowledging,
however, that they "might be involved in strikes against senior
militant leaders, under specific conditions."
In other words, American Special Forces units would be
used to carry out targeted assassinations and attacks on strongholds of
Islamist forces.
In addition to the plan to recruit and train new
paramilitary militias in the frontier region, Washington has developed
a $350 million program to train and equip the existing 85,000-member
Frontier Corps, a uniformed force recruited from among tribes in the
Pakistan border region.
There is also considerable skepticism about the
prospects for this program. "The training of the Frontier Corps remains
a concern for some," the Times reports: "NATO and American
soldiers in Afghanistan have often blamed the Frontier Corps for aiding
and abetting Taliban insurgents
mounting cross-border attacks. 'It's going to take years to turn them
into a professional force,' said one Western military official. 'Is it
worth it now?'"
There are growing concerns in Washington that the
martial law regime imposed by the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez
Musharraf, at the beginning of this month might unleash revolutionary
convulsions that could topple the military regime, which has served as
a lynchpin for American interests in
the region.
The Bush administration has repeatedly demanded that
Musharraf take action against Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in the
areas bordering Afghanistan. Residents on both sides of the border are
ethnic Pashtuns. The latest U.S. National Intelligence Estimate
released last July charged that Al Qaeda had
reestablished "safe havens" in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal
Areas (FATA).
Taliban-aligned forces have been able to extend their
influence from the Waziristan region along the Afghan border further
into Pakistan, establishing control to the north over a large portion
of the Swat valley in the North West Frontier Province.
According to press reports, over 1,000 civilians,
members of the security forces and Islamist fighters have been killed
in fighting in the region over the past five months.
Senior Pakistani military officials announced over the
weekend that the army had massed nearly 20,000 troops backed by tanks
and artillery for a major offensive in the Swat district aimed at
wresting control from militias loyal to Mullah Maulana Fazlullah, a
pro-Taliban cleric.
Such offensives have proven ineffectual in the past,
however, in no small part due to the support that the Islamists enjoy
within influential sections of the Pakistani military and intelligence
apparatus, a relationship that was solidified during the CIA-backed war
against the Soviet-supported regime in
Afghanistan in the 1980s.
These forces have also gained strength as a result of
popular hostility to the slaughter unleashed by the U.S. occupation in
neighboring Afghanistan, combined with resentment over the poverty and
social inequality produced by the economic policies of the Pakistani
regime.
A clear indication of the depths of concern in
Washington over the unraveling of its client regime in Pakistan came
Sunday in the form of an op-ed piece published by the New York
Times under the bylines of Fred Kagan and Michael O'Hanlon. Kagan,
a member of the right-wing American
Enterprise Institute, is a longstanding supporter of the U.S. war in
Iraq and was a signatory of the Project for a New American Century
letter in 2001 demanding that the Bush administration invade the
country in response to 9/11. He drafted a document that served as a
blueprint for the recent "surge" that sent 35,000
more U.S. troops into Iraq.
O'Hanlon, a member of the supposedly more liberal and
Democratic-oriented Brookings Institute, has also emerged as a
prominent supporter of the "surge" in Iraq and last April co-authored a
paper with Kagan setting out a "grand strategy" for U.S. imperialism.
This envisioned a war against Iran as
well as interventions in North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and
elsewhere. The document urged "finding the resources to field a
large-enough standing Army and Marine Corps to handle
personnel-intensive missions."
The Times piece, entitled "Pakistan's
Collapse, Our Problem," advocates the immediate consideration of
"feasible military options in Pakistan."
It states: "The most likely possible dangers are these:
a complete collapse of Pakistani government rule that allows an extreme
Islamist movement to fill the vacuum; a total loss of federal control
over the outlying provinces, which splinter along ethnic and tribal
lines; or a struggle within the Pakistani
military in which the minority sympathetic to the Taliban and Al Qaeda
try to establish Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism."
The article cautions against complacency that the
Pakistani military command and the country's ruling elite will manage
to maintain stability. "Americans felt similarly about the shah's
regime in Iran until it was too late," it warns.
The two military analysts lay out alternate "scenarios"
for U.S. interventions. The first, consisting of a full-scale
intervention and occupation, would, they say, require more than a
million troops, making it politically and militarily unfeasible.
Instead, they suggest a possible Special Forces
operation aimed at seizing control of Pakistani warheads and nuclear
materials.
They put forward an additional "broader option" that
would involve the deployment of "a sizable combat force" with the
mission of propping up the Pakistani military and waging war on the
pro-Taliban forces in the border regions.
"So, if we got a large number of troops into the
country, what would they do?" the article asks. "The most likely
directive would be to help Pakistan's military and security forces hold
the country's center -- primarily the region around the capital,
Islamabad, and the populous areas like Punjab Province
to its south."
It adds: "If a holding operation in the nation's center
was successful, we would probably then seek to establish order in the
parts of Pakistan where extremists operate. Beyond propping up the
state, this would benefit American efforts in Afghanistan by depriving
terrorists of the sanctuaries they have
enjoyed in Pakistan's tribal and frontier regions."
Whatever limited lip service the U.S. State Department
gives to the call for ending the martial law regime imposed by
Musharraf in Pakistan, the real aims and methods of the American ruling
establishment -- Democratic and Republican alike -- emerge clearly in
the Kagan-O'Hanlon article.
What is now being seriously contemplated is yet another
colonial-style war in a region that stretches across the Middle East
and Central and South Asia, from Iraq to Pakistan, with the objective
of salvaging, with or without Musharraf, the Pakistani military -- the
corrupt and repressive instrument with
which Washington has been aligned for decades.
The crisis in Pakistan is symptomatic of the
ever-widening instability created by the two wars -- in Afghanistan and
Iraq -- which Washington has waged to tighten the U.S. grip over the
region's energy resources.
Now, with open and simultaneous discussions of possible
military interventions in Iran and Pakistan, what is emerging is the
growing threat of a global military conflagration.
U.S. Prepares to Increase Occupation Forces
in Afghanistan
- Joe Kay, Global Research, December 27,
2007 -
The Bush administration is preparing to significantly
increase U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan in an attempt to quell
growing popular hostility to the U.S. and NATO occupying forces. It is
doing so with full confidence that it will face no significant
opposition from the Democratic-controlled Congress.
On the contrary, much of the criticism from leading
Democrats of the administration's conduct of the war in Iraq has been
based on the charge that the U.S. preoccupation with Iraq has diverted
troops and resources from what they claim is the real center of the
"war on terror" -- namely, Afghanistan.
Leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination such as
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have pledged, if elected, to increase
U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan.
The entire American political establishment supports an
indefinite U.S. presence in the country, which occupies a critical
geo-strategic position bordering Iran and Pakistan.
These preparations were underscored at a press
conference held December 21 by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint
Chiefs of Staff General James Cartwright. Gates insisted, "NATO's
efforts to rebuild and secure [Afghanistan] must be sustained and
expanded into next year and beyond." He
indicated that about 7,500 more troops were needed to bolster the
occupation.
There are currently about 26,000 U.S. soldiers in
Afghanistan, 12,000 of whom operate independently and 14,000 of whom
are part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force
(ISAF). The NATO force, which consists of 40,000 personnel, includes
soldiers from Canada, Australia, Britain,
Germany, France, and other European countries.
In its report on the news conference, the Wall
Street Journal noted, "A senior Pentagon official said sending
additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan was 'clearly something that is
being strongly considered.' He said it likely would be several months
before any new forces were deployed, given
the military's manpower strains because of the Iraq war."
There have been growing concerns within the U.S.
military and the ruling elite as a whole that the situation in
Afghanistan is spiraling out of control. Any partial drawdown of U.S.
troops from Iraq in the coming months, as the tours of duty of troops
sent there as part of Bush's "surge" come to an
end, will likely be accompanied by an escalation of the U.S. presence
in Afghanistan.
The U.S. is also looking for ways to increase the size
of its military to confront a severe shortage of soldiers resulting
from the simultaneous colonial-style operations in Afghanistan and
Iraq. At the same time, the Bush administration has by no means ruled
out military action against Iran.
According to a New York Times article on
December 16, the Bush administration is "deeply concerned about the
prospect of failure in Afghanistan" and has initiated three separate
reviews to develop a new strategy. If these reviews do not lead to a
"surge" on the same level as the increase
in U.S. forces in Iraq earlier this year, the Times noted,
this is "mostly because there are no American troops readily available."
A United Nations report published earlier this year
found that 2007 was the most violent year in Afghanistan since the
invasion in 2001. The violent incidents tabulated by the UN did not
include casualties of U.S. and NATO military operations.
Though there is no official calculation of this latter
figure, air strikes against towns and presumed Taliban targets were up
sharply this year. Earlier this month, NATO troops recaptured the city
of Musa Qala in the south after a protracted operation. The town was
controlled by Taliban forces for 10
months.
Gates said at his press conference that the increase in
violence in Afghanistan was due in part to "much more aggressive
actions on the part of the NATO alliance and the U.S. forces that are
there."
The growth of opposition to the U.S.-led occupation of
Afghanistan has been brought on by an escalating social crisis in the
country. A December 17 article in the Washington Post noted,
"Administration officials say the White House has become more concerned
in recent months about
the situation in Afghanistan, where grinding poverty, rampant
corruption, poor infrastructure and the growing challenge from the
Taliban are hindering U.S. stabilization efforts. Senior administration
officials now believe Afghanistan may pose a greater longer-term
challenge than Iraq."
Gates alluded to Democratic support for increased U.S.
troop levels in Afghanistan in his press conference. Asked if he
thought sending troops returning from Iraq to Afghanistan would cause
political problems for the administration, he replied, "I don't think
there's a political constraint."
In addition to increasing its own presence in
Afghanistan, the U.S. is also pressing other members of the NATO
coalition to increase the size of their forces and remove restrictions
on the type of operations these forces are allowed to engage in. At a
NATO meeting earlier this month, Gates criticized
European powers for not doing enough to aid the occupation in
Afghanistan.
At his press conference, Gates's tone was less
confrontational, and he acknowledged that many of the governments
participating in the ISAF confront a hostile population at home. Gates
said that the U.S. must find ways to "help the European governments
perhaps persuade their people of the value
and importance of the mission in Afghanistan." He suggested that it was
necessary to "look for more creative ways in which the allies can be
helpful."
Other comments have been more critical. Democratic
Representative Joe Sestak, a retired admiral and former staff member of
the National Security Council, complained earlier this month, "The
Germans, the Spanish, the Italians don't send any troops to the south
except for 250 troops by Germany."
He said that some of the countries "refuse to do combat ops at night
and some don't fly when the first snowflake falls."
In an apparent response to this pressure, French
President Nicolas Sarkozy made a surprise trip to Afghanistan on
Saturday, where he announced that France might increase the number of
its soldiers in the country. There are currently some 1,100 French
troops in Afghanistan. Sarkozy has sought to
align French foreign policy closer to that of Washington, and has
backed the Bush administration's threats and provocations against Iran.
The British Labour government of Gordon Brown is widely
expected to increase its forces as well, which are currently at 7,800.
Australia's new prime minister, Kevin Rudd of the Labor Party, was in
Afghanistan over the weekend, pledging continued support for the
U.S.-backed government of Hamid
Karzai.
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