HISTORICALLY when one country wished to exploit the resources of another country and it succeeded in defeating it militarily, the country would be occupied, the ruling elite would generally be displaced and in its place the elite of the conquering country would take over and exploit the occupied country and its natural resources.

This pattern remained more or less intact until the middle of the twentieth century when, after the termination of World War II we saw the British Empire, the largest known to the world so far, broken up into its constituent parts.

The most important was India which gained independence in 1947 for the simple reason that it was far too big for the British to control through occupation. The “Indian National Army” — soldiers of the Indian army who had defected to the Japanese — probably represented the mood prevailing in the Indian army. Militarily the task seemed impossible. The Labour party was also of the view that India should be given independence and they had won a large majority in the 1945 elections.

Mr Churchill (who had in a manner of speaking) helped Britain win the war against Germany, was somewhat unceremoniously ejected. Had he been returned to power, the independence of India may have been delayed and he would undoubtedly have made comments on his inability to hand over the jewel of the crown to an Indian mendicant a.k.a. Mahatma Gandhi.

However, there were certain parts of the British Empire which had a large number of white settlers such as Kenya and Southern Rhodesia. The British attempted to hang on to these countries but were driven out of Kenya by Jamo Kenyata and his Kikuyu. Southern Rhodesia. The British attempted to hang on to these countries but were driven out of Kenya by Jomo Kenyata and his Kikuyu. Southern Rhodesia remained much longer under white control through the mechanism of Ian Smith declaring UDI but here again they had to finally hand over the country to Mr Mugabe.

The position of the Dutch and the French, after their debacle at Dien Bien Phu, more or less handed over the conduct of further war to the Americans.

In Algeria where the French were settled in large numbers, much slaughter ensued but they finally got General de Gaulle to disentangle them from this involvement.

It is therefore safe to say that imperialism through occupation had been accepted as being no longer cost-effective. Imperialism through other means was still possible and is being regularly practised.

The United States seems to be reversing this process by deciding to occupy Iraq and rule it through a locally adopted democratic dispensation. They have been confirmed in the illusion by the apparent success in Afghanistan which, by the way, they have not occupied except for leaving a praetorian guard to look after the health and welfare of their nominee, Mr Karzai; the rest of Afghanistan continues to be ruled by the warlords as it has been for centuries. There are some desultory operations going on to round up the so-called Al Qaeda members who are actually being captured from towns in Pakistan.

The best way of dealing with Afghanistan, as the British realized after the first Afghan war, was to march to Kabul, seize it, declare victory after changing the ruler and march back. If the present Afghanistan occupation is being treated as a pilot project for a larger exercise in Iraq it is based on very optimistic assumptions. There are no oilfields to occupy and operate in Afghanistan, so there is no need to deploy protective forces in such places.

The United States itself has had rather unpleasant experiences even in minor attempts at occupation — for instance in Lebanon where 240 marines were blown up in a terrorist attack and in Somalia where a much smaller number were killed by Somali rebels. In both cases, the US decided to withdraw.

As far as democracy is concerned, it is not a readymade structure which can be put into place at a short notice. The US State Department thinking appears to be to remove Saddam Hussein and his sons and a couple of top-level functionaries of the regime but otherwise leave the tyrannical/autocratic Ba’ath regime in place. This is probably in the best interests of the US. For how long such a government will cooperate with the US in its economic and other objectives remains far from clear and is a cause for concern at least among the more important European countries such as France, Germany and Russia.

Occupation has its own dynamics, as revealed in recent histories of the struggle that was dismissed by British historians as the Indian Mutiny. It was apparently a pretty close thing and the British reestablished their power through extremely draconian and brutal means. To impress the natives one British officer almost simultaneously hanged 136 people on the branches of one tree. It must have been one of the most well-hung trees in history and should have made the Guiness Book of Records.

The British officer was sending a messages “O ye natives, behold my work and despair.” This incident is related in Saul David’s recent book “The Indian Mutiny.” The US can recall the My Lai massacre. Today, the Russians are aware of their problems in Chechnya although compared to Russia it is a tiny country. If the war leads to Iraq’s break-up we might then have three parts: the Northern Kurds, the Central Sunnis and the Southern Shiias. The Northern Kurds already have their eyes on the Kirkuk and Mosul oilfields which will no doubt be denied to them by the US. However, if that does not happen and the Northern Kurds get a foothold in the oil-bearing region, they will become a rich community and pose a threat to Turkey and its neighbours, Syria and Iran, and may lead to an agitation for reunification of all the Kurds, assuming that they can manage to cooperate amongst themselves.

The Southern Shiias may join up with the Iranian brethren across the river and may also link up with the Shiias in Eastern Saudi Arabia which also has oil. This combination may create the development of a new and more powerful combination of Muslim power, and would perhaps not be a happy event according to Professor Huntington’s analysis of the ‘clash of civilizations.’

One of the interesting points is that general anti-Muslim feelings generated in the West and particularly the US has sparked off vague outlines of the formation of a Muslim Ummah. The Ummah of course is divided between Arabs and non-Arabs by language if not by faith and culture. The major difference between them is that there is a not a single Arabic-speaking country which has any liberty of thought and speech or some form of acceptable democratic institutions, whether the country is a monarchy or has a president. It would not be in the United States’ interest to have anything other than autocratic governments in this region.

The non-Arabic speaking countries such as Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia have partial forms of democracy. The biggest threat is Iran which has at least successfully experimented with democracy, although its further modernization is being held up by the cleric hierarchy which has the ultimate power. Given the tide of history, it will be the liberals who will probably win out in the end.

Whether the break-up of Iraq will have a destabilizing effect on Saudi Arabia, which has the ideal government for the United States in its complete and total collaboration, is an open question when we consider the state of public opinion in that country. This anti-US feeling found its focus on the Twin Towers.

The Saudi militants had these in their sights for many years and finally succeeded in one of the most spectacular acts of terrorism. On television the whole world watched this great building, a symbol of US power and prosperity, reduced to rubble in about an hour. The injury was grievous as more than 3,000 lives were lost, belonging to many nationalities, but the insult to US power was unforgivable. Will reducing Baghdad to rubble and killing thousands of Iraqis provide an appropriate answer? The writer is former chairman of NDFC.

IT was like a scene from a spaghetti western. A group of heavily armed rancheros, their huge moustaches bristling in the spring breeze, drove into town, hurled rocket-propelled grenades and opened fire from automatic weapons which left 18 people dead and 26 injured, and drove away after kidnapping eight people in the bargain.

The only problem is that this wasn’t a Clint Eastwood movie, with its translucent effects of atmosphere and its inevitable happy ending. This was a horrific and dreadful event which shattered the calm of a normal morning in the lives of the citizens of Kashmore, in a country which is becoming increasingly engulfed by waves of violent tribalism, ethnocentrism, sectarianism and so forth.

For half an hour , trigger-happy gunmen in militia uniforms , twisting and turning light machine guns mounted on three double-cabin pick-ups, went on an orgy of killing which was reminiscent of the massacres in Congo after the Belgians pulled out. Eye-witnesses thought they were being attacked by para-military soldiers from another country, so fierce was the tempo of the onslaught. The firing was continuous and indiscriminate, and the marauders moved about with impunity.

The police, as so often happens in such cases, were conspicuous by their absence, and when subsequently questioned, the local station house officer stated that the tyres of his van had been punctured. Even if these upholders of the law, who have the most appalling sense of timing, had arrived on the scene when they were supposed to, it is doubtful if they would have been able to do very much against gangsters armed with machine guns, rocket launchers and trench mortars. And who knows, they might have even had a couple of Russian helicopters in reserve.

It is generally believed that this brutal attack by Bugti tribesmen, which was unprecedented in its ferocity and the speed with which it was executed, is part of an on-going feud between the Bugti and Mazari tribes, a rivalry that had its genesis about two decades ago. This view has been disputed by Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani, a former federal minister, who believes that the Kashmore attack was not part of a tribal feud, but a pure terrorist activity designed to send a message to the police that the latter was powerless to oppose them.

Nevertheless, given the nature of tribal culture, there is bound to be severe retaliations. And there is a real danger, looming large over the western part of the country, of a full-scale tribal war, triggered by the fact that in the recent episodes, some of the people who have been killed were neither Bugtis nor Mazaris.

If one studied the recent history of the Baloch tribes, there is evidence to suggest that the deck has been heavily stacked against the Mazaris, many of whom hold a Punjab domicile. To start with, the Mazaris live largely in the plains, while the Bugtis reside in the hills which provide ideal cover for hit-and-run attacks. Any retaliatory skirmishes by the plainsmen can easily be spotted by the uplanders placing the former at a considerable disadvantage.

The Bugtis also appear to have access to the latest sophisticated weaponry including surface-to-surface short-range missiles, thanks to the legacy of Ziaul Haq. The Mazaris have not been quite so lucky. Efforts to purchase assault rifles have frequently landed them in anti-terrorist courts in Punjab where the police continue to fabricate all kinds of cases against them.

The unfortunate aspect of this pointless, wasteful carnage, is the attitude of the government, which appears to have been largely conciliatory. Instead of enforcing its writ and apprehending the culprits responsible for the Kashmore killings, it has given the impression that it is willing to show its usual accommodation for the vagaries of a vendetta culture, by leaving the tribes to their own devices in settling disputes. Perhaps, as a newspaper wag acidly commented in a recent article, it is helping to restore the gender balance in the country tilted by the so-called ‘honour killing’ which is said to claim an average of three women a day!

Dacoits have operated in this part of the subcontinent even during the days of the British, who ruthlessly suppressed them. But then, they were up against a government that believed that the fundamental duty of an administration is to enfane and uphold the rule of law and to protect the lives and property of its people. Dacoits are still there in the cities and the villages. But the difference is that these days they are better armed than they have ever been, and have to do with an administration for which stamping out organized crime is not much of priority.

Today bandits operate with apparent freedom, secure in the knowledge that they can do what they please, when they please, because there is really no one to stop them. What other explanation can there be for a story filed by the reporter of this paper from Sukkur, who wrote that on April 3 dacoits belonging to a notorious gang fired rockets at the residence of one Tahir Wasan, in Basan Soomar village near Kandhkot. The attack blew off the roof of his house and was accompanied by a terse demand that either the villagers of the area pay up a lakh and a half rupees or face the consequences. Apologists for the government have attributed the latter’s failure to curb crime and violence to the fact that the attention of the law enforcement agencies has, since the war in Afghanistan, been diverted by the need to hunt down terrorists and supporters of Al Qaeda. The attention of the president and the prime minister, and indeed of the members of the parliament, has, in recent days, been diverted by the size and potential militancy of protest demonstrations against the world’s only superpower, which has set out to make a terrible example of Iraq for its long defiance of the US.

These people forget that the test of true statesmanship lies in following the right priorities in a given situation and doing the job at hand well — without distraction or dithering and without hiding behind one excuse or another. The blowing up of the gas pipeline by the Bugti tribesmen, occurred long before the first American cluster bomb fell on Basra, and before the Q-League had begun its manoeuvres to ensure that the PPP was cut down to size in the Senate.

It was an incident which was widely reported in the local media. The government stepped in with 350 Rangers and 120 members of the Punjab Constabulary. But that did not stop the Bugtis from repeating their performance a few days later and blowing up the pipeline for the second time.

Perhaps the Bugtis have a grievance which stems from the time when work started in 1993 on the Kashmore-Rajanpur 110-kilometre link of the Indus Highway. Sand and gravel were freely available in the Mazari area bordering on Balochistan. And it is generally believed that the Bugtis wanted a share of the financial cake. Whether or not this is true, surely this is something that should have been sorted out by the relevant authorities so that some kind of compromise could be worked out, instead of letting the wound fester until it reached the boiling point.

Blowing up the gas pipelines came at a most inappropriate time, when talks were being held to construct a major pipeline from Iran to India. An Indian spokesman turned to his Pakistan counterpart and asked him, with a straight face, how the Pakistan government proposed to protect somebody else’s pipeline when it could not protect its own!

It has now been reported that 35 bandits have been booked under sections, 302, 305, 306, 324, 353, 396 and 429 of the Pakistan Penal Code, for the Kashmore carnage. It is not very clear why section 396 was thrown in. This section refers to five or more persons committing murder while committing a dacoity. The Kashmore attack was a straightforward case where sections 302,305 and 306 apply. The addition of section 429 too is interesting. “Whoever commits mischief by killing, poisoning, maiming or rendering useless, any elephant, camel, horse, mule, buffalo, bull, cow or ox, whatever may be the value thereof, or any other animal of the value of fifty rupees or upwards, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to five years, or with fine, or with both”, the section reads. Apparently, the PPC has not kept up with inflation.

It is not enough to dole out compensation for the victims of the Kashmore carnage. Even though there is a consensus that our times reflect a massive deviation from leadership responsibility, the government must step in and apprehend the culprits, and hold them accountable.

Email: a-mooraj@cyber.net.pk

ONE day after the war officially started, Tony Blair met the European Union leaders to discuss the “re-construction of post- war Iraq”.

Re-construction, after the wilful destruction of the country through US and UK bombing raids. Re-construction, after the destruction of the houses, institutions and infrastructure by target-oriented missiles. Re-construction, after destroying, through economic sanctions, a society that was among the most literate and well off, not just in the Middle East but the world until the 1990s.

What hopes can one attach to American and British plans of ‘reconstruction’ that are being talked about and publicized even as wanton destruction goes going on? The example of Afghanistan’s reconstruction is not too reassuring. The White House forgot to ask for any money in this year’s annual budget for the reconstruction of Afghanistan.

It was only after a fuss was made in Congress by some representatives that $300 million was set aside, with no commitments for subsequent years. Compare this with the $4.5 billion that was spent on bombing Afghanistan. Can the $300 million even begin to reverse the permanent damage done to fertile land, destruction of many crops, civil war, resurgence of tribal warlords, and resumption of poppy cultivation (let us not even mention the thousands of innocent casualties, termed collateral damage)? Did not the Americans know this? Of course they did, but the purpose of bombing was never to restore Afghanistan to normality but its ‘reconstruction’ as a colony.

That we could easily see this coming, and yet failed to stop it, is perhaps the most depressing aspect of it all. We were told, through international media, that a ‘representative government’ is being formed for Afghanistan in Bonn, and we went along (perhaps thinking that everything made in Germany is bound to be more durable than if made in Afghanistan). And there is much that the international media forgot to report.

At a recent talk focusing on building on anti-war movement in Cambridge University, renowned US dissident Michael Albert reported how dumbfounded he was to learn that while an extremely well researched story regarding the potential for three million civilians to die of starvation if the US were to bomb Afghanistan was wired to all newspapers, only one carried that story and that too buried deep in back or inside pages. He says he is unable to comprehend how the newspaper editors could read that story and yet decide not to carry it.

Even when such reports are not published in newspapers, the US government has access to them, and of course to similar researches on the impact of a war on Iraqi civilians that have been carried out. That George Bush and company have a clear idea of the destruction they will unleash on the Iraqi people is beyond doubt.

However, that did not deter them from following this disastrous course of action. Washington is prepared to spend around $12bn on military operation in Iraq. So far it has offered only $65 million to provide with the basics of life. This $65 million is expected to last less than six months but that is all right according to the calculations of the Bush administration. By then, the world media would have moved on to some new crisis, just as Afghanistan is now consigned to the inner pages of newspapers. This $65 million should help contain the misery of the Iraqi people within some parameters for the brief period of time that they expect the world to pay attention to Iraq.

The real ‘reconstruction’ of Afghanistan or Iraq has the multinationals of the US and UK, and their allies salivating. In the name of reconstruction they will receive lucrative contracts for their respective private sectors. In the case of Iraq, for instance, the oil company Halliburton, which, incidentally, was headed by US-Vice President Dick Cheney between 1995 and 2000, has already been awarded a multi-million dollar contract to clean up the Iraqi oilfields after the devastation of war, especially if retreating Iraqi army puts them on fire.

Other American and British oil companies are likely to gain control of Iraqi oilfields. Since the market for oil is relatively price-inelastic, and does not lend itself well to brand differentiation, control of supplies is everything in this industry.

Other companies being considered by US Aid also happen to be fairly close to the White House. These include construction giant Bechtel, the Fluor Corporation and Louis Berger group which is also involved in Afghanistan. The interesting aspect of these contracts is that these companies are being asked to list what they may be able to do within $900 million. Of course, there is a generous margin for profits.

Other equally substantial payoffs await these companies in the new future. For instance, apart from the immediate profits and control of natural resources, first mover advantages in these markets are bound to be enormous. As Steven Schooner, a George Washington University law professor, maintains, “the most sophisticated firms that come in first, and establish goodwill with the locals obviously will reap huge benefits down the road. These are going to become brand names in Iraq.” The Americans are fairly blunt about promoting their corporate interests. A US Aid spokeswoman was quoted recently pointing out that it should not come as a surprise that all of the companies short-listed for work in Iraq are American. Her advice to non American companies is to pressure their own governments. And this is driving the agenda of the European Union meeting in Brussels.

President Chirac and others opposed to war have declared that while they condemn this war, they are willing to work with the UK and the US on the reconstruction of Iraq. No doubt the popular sentiment in Europe favours providing support to the Iraqi people after a terrible devastation has been inflicted on them. However, these governments are also under pressure to provide a role for their corporations in post-war Iraq, a resource rich country.

Thus, before the war has ended, the more divisive fight over the spoils of war has already started. In the now marginalized United Nations lies France’s and Germany’s best hope of making the division of the loot somewhat egalitarian. But the Americans are prepared, more than ever, to keep the UN out of the picture and impose direct rule on Iraq.

The British are hoping to receive their fair share of the crumbs for their loyalty. However, this comes at a heavy price of alienating the rest of Europe. It is likely that this battle to divide the spoils will lead to important decisions concerning the future of the United Nations as well as the future relationship between America, Britain and Europe.

WHERE are the flowers? Where are the cheers and the singing? The laughing welcoming crowds? According to the Pentagon script for this war, the troops of America and Britain were supposed to be greeted with these when they entered Iraq.

The mere arrival of allied forces on Iraqi soil was to trigger a popular revolt against Saddam Hussain: soldiers would surrender, civilians would rejoice, the Shias would rise up and by now — week two of the war — the ‘coalition’ would be victorious.

Unfortunately, someone forgot to give the Iraqis their lines. Because they are not following the Pentagon script, but one of their own in which all the roles have been reversed. Saddam Hussein is the hero; the Americans and the British are the enemy; Iraqi soldiers are fighting instead of surrendering to them; the Iraqi people are cursing instead of cheering them; the Shias are doing nothing. All of which means that, far from entering Baghdad as victors, American and British forces are struggling to keep their front-line troops fed and supplied as reinforcements are hastily rushed in.

Something has clearly gone wrong. Bad direction? Bad acting? Yes, but more than that a very bad script. The scriptwriters — credit here goes to both the Pentagon and White House — have the flaws of all bad writers: huge overconfidence in their own talent; failure to see the world through the eyes of their characters; and an inability to break out of the last script and write something new.

In planning this war, the Pentagon and White House basically rewrote the script of the last 1991 Gulf War: Iraqi surrender, popular revolt, negligible allied casualties, a clear run to their target — Baghdad and Saddam Hussein. (‘Cakewalk’ was the term used by one US administration official.) That script produced a big hit in 1991, but times and tastes have changed since then. 2003 needed a new, very different script.

One of the biggest changes is in Iraqi popular thinking. American scriptwriters have focused on just one aspect of the Iraqi mindset: their hatred of Saddam Hussein. That hatred undoubtedly exists, and the Iraqis would dearly like to be rid of their dictator. But what the Americans blithely ignored are the other thoughts going through the Iraqi mind: distrust and hatred of their Anglo-American ‘liberators’ and nationalism — the urge to protect their homeland from invaders. It is these overlooked factors that are now determining Iraqi actions, not their hatred of Saddam.

Why would the Iraqis distrust Washington and London? Perhaps because, unlike Americans who remember only the easy Iraqi capitulation in the first Gulf War, they remember the brave Iraqi civilians (especially Shiias) who had heeded the call in 1991 to rise up against Saddam, believing that George Bush Senior would back their revolt and who were then abandoned to face the wrath of Saddam Hussein alone. As they say, once bitten, twice shy.

That betrayal alone would be sufficient to explain why the Iraqis hate America. But there are other reasons. Iraq in 2003 is a country crippled by twelve years of sanctions — sanctions that have left its economy in ruins, its people malnourished, its hospitals without medicines, its children dying. Iraq’s people — not its regime — have borne the brunt of international sanctions. While other countries have tried to ease the sanctions or have them lifted, one has stood firm in its determination to enforce them: the United States of America. Nobody should be surprised if Iraqi civilians refuse to see their former tormentors as ‘liberators’.

For those who would counter that the Iraqi regime, not the US, is responsible for depriving its people of food and medicine, the simple answer is: that is not how the Iraqi people see their tragic plight. The same question could be posed about the motives for this war: Do ordinary Iraqis share Washington’s and London’s view that this is a war for their liberation? Given that most of the non-American world does not share that perception, that Saddam Hussein’s propaganda machine has vigorously conveyed America’s aggressive intentions and its desire to control Iraqi oil, and that the West was not concerned about liberation in the previous 24 years of Saddam’s dictatorship, Iraqi scepticism is assured.

Why else would Iraqis hate the US and Britain? Perhaps because, unlike Washington and London, they do not see the bombs being dropped on their markets and homes as part of their liberation. Perhaps because they see those bombs more literally: as tools of war that are killing their families, friends and neighbours. When a war of ‘liberation’ hits those it is supposed to liberate, their enthusiasm for it tends to dissipate.

War brings other suffering too: refugees, food and water shortages, malnutrition and disease. In Iraq’s case that suffering is made more likely by the previous twelve years of sanctions. Its people simply do not have the stamina or resources to withstand the rigours of conflict. So far, the war has disrupted water supply in the southern battle zones, around Basra and in Safwan, for example. People there are desperate for assistance. Who do they blame for their added suffering? Not Saddam but those who have started the war: Bush and Blair.

Both London and Washington repeatedly stress that their war is against the Iraqi regime, not the people. This is proven — so they claim — by the fact that their bombers and missiles are avoiding civilian targets, and their troops are distributing humanitarian aid in the areas they have ‘liberated’. Such claims are belied by reality.

Scores of civilian casualties (not to mention several ‘friendly fire’ incidents) dispel any notion of a clean, surgical war. Handing out bottles of water and rations to a few thousand Iraqis is doing little to ease their suffering, or their bitterness. If anything, the arrogant assumption that such paltry assistance will win hearts and minds and will cause people to forgive the bombing and killing by the invaders fuels Iraqi bitterness.

The BBC reported the other day that busloads of young Iraqis were leaving the relative comfort and security of exile in Jordan to return to their homeland. To fight on the side the coalition and against Saddam Hussein? No, to fight with Saddam against the coalition. Only one factor can account for this approach and spirit: nationalism. Nationalism is one of the most potent ideological forces in the world today, rivalled only by religious fundamentalism in its ability to induce sacrifice in its followers.

The scriptwriters for this war ignored nationalism. They assumed that hatred for Saddam and deep Kurd-Shiia-Sunni fault lines within Iraqi society had wiped out all traces of shared Iraqi nationalism. But as the marines and other coalition troops are painfully finding out, Iraqi nationalism is alive and vibrant. Iraqis are reacting to foreign invasion as any other nation would: fighting back, resisting, protesting.

They still hate Saddam, but many of them hate the Americans even more. That greater hatred is leading them to make common cause with Saddam Hussein, to fight alongside him against the aggressors. As US missiles kill more Iraqi civilians, and as human suffering brought on by this conflict increases, Iraqi nationalism grows stronger and more assertive.

There is one final reason for the absence of flowers: fear. In condemning the coalition, its motives and actions, one should not lose sight of the fact that their opponent — Saddam Hussein — has inflicted infinite suffering on his own people, and that he rules through brutal methods and coercion. Fear of the regime is an undeniable part of the Iraqi scenario.

But even when Saddam is defeated — for the outcome of this war can only be delayed, not changed — it would be unrealitic to expect the Iraqis to change their attitude to the Americans. They will be relieved to be rid of their tyrant dictator, but they will still not welcome either a puppet regime or a viceregal ruler.

Washington’s plans for post-Saddam Iraq — rule by a US military governor, contracts to American companies, nurturing of a pliant Iraqi administration — are far from the freedom, justice, democracy and independence that the Iraqi people want and need. There are no flowers for American troops today, and there will be none tomorrow.