| 09 August 2004 | Monday | 22 Jamadi-us-Saani 1425 |
Unpopularity of US policies
'Two gods' and one candidate
A faithful sepoy
The daring suicide attack on prime minister-designate Shaukat Aziz on July 30 was not an isolated incident. It should be viewed as part of a series of events in the past few years, in which Islamist extremists of various kinds have managed to emerge as a lethal force.
In fact, the explosive mix of Islamic fundamentalism and extremism has acquired a momentum ever since the jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan during the 1980s, the Intifada of the Palestinians as also the uprising in Kashmir since the 1990s, and the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.
The root causes of Islamic extremism are both national and international. In some instances, however, the two dimensions have merged and assumed a more complex shape.
The extremists have gained, on the one hand, by organizing themselves better; and, on the other as a consequence to the relative inaction of governments to counter them. Another factor is the apathy of the masses towards their activities.
Taking the case of Pakistan first, it can be said that, here, Islamic militancy has been the outcome of the indiscriminate growth of madressahs (religious schools) and the rise of sectarian and religious parties.
In particular, the decision by President Ziaul Haq in 1980, with the backing of the US and others, to train and arm Islamic insurgents in Afghanistan - a policy that did achieve short-term success by forcing Soviet withdrawal - has, in the long term, produced a Frankenstein who is out to destroy not only its perceived foes but also its own creators.
During the first two decades after its independence in 1947, Pakistan was a fairly stable and tolerant society. There was hardly any sectarianism amongst Muslims and little Shia-Sunni tension.
Religious minorities were living in relatively secure and peaceful conditions. For instance, Muslim students constituted the overwhelming majority in the Christian missionary institutions, inherited from the colonial period that continued to provide better quality education.
However, all this was to change with the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in various forms. No doubt, the majority of the Pakistani people did not share the extremist views but, in retrospect, it can be said that their sin has been that they allowed the firebrands to hold the centre stage.
They did not challenge the semi-literate Mullahs spewing sectarian hatred. The Mullahs became more and more inflammatory in their Friday sermons and did cast a spell on a section of younger people.
To begin with, the target of criticism of the Islamist extremists was religious deviation, but later on, it covered all kinds of political issues as well. Some of these religious groups first launched a sustained campaign to get the Ahmadi sect declared non-Muslim.
Eventually, constitutional sanction was secured for this demand after a series of ugly acts of religious intolerance. For the sake of political expediency, the Bhutto government, which claimed to be progressive, yielded on this issue in 1975.
The pattern for religious intolerance was now set. The various religious parties like the Jamaat-i-Islami and the Jamiat-ul-ulema-i-Islam became more active. The division between the Deobandi and Barelvi schools of thought amongst the Sunnis also sharpened.
But worse was to follow with the intensification of the sectarian divide amongst Muslims and the emergence of Sunni groups like Sipah-i-Sahaba and Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, as also their Shia counterparts.
The common characteristics of these organizations have been an intense propaganda campaign, bordering on brainwashing of their followers, military training, clandestine political activities and fanning religious emotions through false claims that they alone are the protectors of true Islam, and that the other groups are somehow anti-Islam.
Allegations of heresy and apostasy have been made against the rival sects, and killing of opponents has been described as a requirement of faith. There have been acts of terrorism leading to counter-terrorism in which several leaders of these sectarian groups themselves have perished.
Apart from the above-mentioned national dimension, there is also an international dimension to Islamist extremism. In the 1980s, the Afghan jihad against the Soviet occupation militarized some Pakistani religious groups.
The government and the international community were opposed to the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. Pakistan also saw it as a threat to its own national security.
Accordingly, arms and ammunition became easily available and even military training was imparted to religious elements that were willing to join the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan.
Thus, Pakistan, the US and Iran welcomed Arab militants like Osama bin Laden who arrived in Afghanistan to join the jihad. It was not realized at the time that the arms and training given to the fundamentalists for fighting the Soviets could be and, later on, was actually used against moderate regimes not subscribing to the extremist views of the militants.
In the same period, the advent of the Iranian Islamic revolution raised sectarian tensions in Pakistan between Sunnis and Shias. There were reports of backing from Iran for the Shias and support for the Sunni groups by some Gulf countries.
These tensions often deteriorated into acts of terrorism. As a combination of these national and international factors, more so since the 1980s, Pakistan continues to be plagued by gruesome acts of sectarian violence.
Next, the fundamentalist Taliban regime seized power in Afghanistan in the 1990s. It agreed to provide sanctuary to Osama bin Laden, a veteran of the Afghan jihad, who had since founded the terrorist organization Al Qaeda. Several extremist Islamic groups from Pakistan - the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and others also found a safe haven in Afghanistan for training and sabotage.
For strategic reasons, Pakistan decided to support the Taliban regime in the hope that its western flank would become secure. Ethnically also, the Taliban were mainly Pakhtuns like the population of Pakistan's bordering provinces with Afghanistan.
Apart from such strategic and political considerations, it is also believed that some Islamic fundamentalist elements in the Pakistan military, which were leftovers from the Zia regime, had an ideological attachment with the Taliban regime.
By the 1990s, political terrorism had emerged as a potent factor in many parts of the world, including Europe, South America and Sri Lanka where the Tamil Tigers first used the suicide bombing as a destructive weapon. The Palestinians adopted this tactic sometimes later.
The Al Qaeda gave suicide bombing a high international profile with their attacks in New York and Washington on 9/11. Suicide bombing has ever since become a trademark of Islamist extremists. It has been used extensively against the US occupation forces in Iraq since 2003.
So far as Al Qaeda is concerned, its roots are in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. It is an extremist Sunni Wahabi organization that started with the aim of removing American military presence from the holy land in the Arabian Peninsula. But the rabid anti-Americanism of Al Qaeda is really fuelled by the injustice done to the Palestinians by Israel (backed by the US) for the last sixty years.
To begin with, Al Qaeda mainly sought to strike against US targets. But since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001 and the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, Al Qaeda has also been targeting the royal regime in Saudi Arabia and the Musharraf government in Pakistan, as well as those in Turkey and Jordan, which it regards as pro-US regimes. Besides, Al Qaeda has struck against targets in Indonesia, the Philippines, Spain and elsewhere.
The members of Al Qaeda are totally committed to what they regard as the holy cause and are imbued with a martyr complex. Similar is the mentality of fanatical Islamic religious groups in Pakistan, some of which apparently have links with Al Qaeda.
Their members evidently believe that suicide bombing is a sure ticket to paradise. Besides suicide bombing, they are also engaged in other acts of terrorism and sabotage. This includes kidnappings, brutal murders of captives and attacks on churches.
The Islamist extremists accuse the Musharraf government of following a pro-US policy and for abandoning the Taliban regime in 2001. In actual fact, even Pakistan's continued support for the Taliban regime could not have saved it against the overwhelming force of the US, which was backed by Russia, China and most countries in the world.
On the other hand, by changing course in 2001, Musharraf actually saved Pakistan. Had this not been done, Pakistan itself would have been declared a 'terrorist state' and its security would have been greatly imperilled. Aid to Pakistan would have been cut off and its trade curtailed.
Our nuclear assets could have been destroyed and India could have been given a free hand against Pakistan. Would the destruction of Pakistan have been in the interest of Muslims? Is it also not a fact that the worst security scenario for Pakistan would be if the US were to join an anti-Pakistan alliance consisting of India and Israel? The critics of Musharraf's U-turn after 9/11 need to reflect on these realities.
The Islamist extremists also need to consider if it is possible to bring down the US, or Russia, for that matter, through suicide bombings and other terrorist activities. There is no use living in a world of illusions and unreality.
On the contrary, the activities of such terrorists have distorted the image of Islam all over the world. Their fanaticism, senseless violence, bigotry and narrow-mindedness have probably done greater harm to the interests of the Muslims than any acts committed by anti-Muslim forces.
On the other hand, the US, Israel, India and others must understand that the grave injustice being done to the Muslims in Palestine, Kashmir and elsewhere is the main cause for the spread of Islamic religious extremism.
Currently, the continued US occupation of Iraq is a cause for provocation and anger for Muslims all over the world. It is undeniable that the peace and security of the world - and this includes the US, Israel and India - has been imperilled by the cruel treatment of Muslims in these areas.
Islam has always prided itself on being a religion of peace and moderation. The opening line of the Holy Quran is "In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate." The Holy Prophet (PBUH) was described as the "bringer of mercy to the two worlds."
His life set an example of kindness, compassion and forgiveness. The Holy Quran says "there is no compulsion in religion." Islam believes in freedom of religion in the Quranic verse "to you (non-Muslims) your religion and to me mine." Killing of a Muslim by another Muslim is described as an unforgivable sin.
Taking lives of innocents is strictly forbidden in Islam. Clearly, the terrorists of Al Qaeda and the sectarian groups in Pakistan have been acting contrary to the teachings of Islam.
The failure of the silent majority of the Muslims in Pakistan and elsewhere to condemn these terrorists sufficiently strongly is one reason why the extremists have flourished. Even more reprehensible is the failure of the governments to crush these fanatics who are destroying the political fibre of Muslim societies.
The writer is a former ambassador.
Unpopularity of US policies
In the light of the current situation in Iraq and Palestine in particular, and in the Muslim world in general, little surprise was shown at the results of an opinion poll conducted recently by organs of US print and electronic media in a number of Arab/Islamic states, excluding Pakistan.
The results showed a high increase in the unpopularity ratings of US policies. While this was not unexpected, what was surprising, and in fact disturbing, was the expressed preference in the poll in respect of world leaders, placing Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein in the top bracket.
It may be assumed that the poll preference does not reflect the major segment of public opinion in the Islamic world. Even as a minority strand, however, it is disturbing and needs to be noted by Islamic societies for corrective action involving the need for inculcating greater sensitivity, tolerance and balance in the thought processes of its citizens.
The results of the poll, even if limited in scope are disturbing for the state of mind they reflect and spell out the dangers of self-destructive policies being repeated in future.
Never in recent history has an act of violence, perpetrated by a militant Muslim group had such disastrous consequences for the Islamic world as 9/11 did. If September 11 had been a case of run-of-the mill terrorism, it could have been explained as an act of bitter and frustrated revenge, without due thought given to the consequences.
But to the perpetrators of the attack, with its meticulous, long-term planning, technological expertise and sophisticated operation, the intensity of the backlash by the strongest military power in history and the likely fallout on global Islamic interests should have been more than evident.
Apart from humanitarian reasons for which 9/11 is to be condemned, the chain of events set in motion was much less likely to serve any Islamic interests than to provoke the sort of catastrophic backlash against the Islamic world that it did.
With the end of the cold war and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US had been suffering from a "rent an enemy psychosis", to sustain the rationale for its gigantic military establishment and its unchallenged military power, essential for the realization of its strategic aims.
The clash of civilizations concept and the perception of Islamic militancy as the main emerging threat in the post-cold war world had already created a psychological climate for the assertion of United States power on a wider scale. The September 11 attack provided for the United States a heaven-sent opportunity and a great launching pad for its post-cold war, global designs.
The immediate price was paid and is still being paid by Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden showed a shocking disregard for the interests of the Afghan people by using their country as a sanctuary and a base for his attacks against the world's sole superpower.
On their part, the Taliban rulers criminally sacrificed the interests of their land and of the Afghan people under the suicidal influence of a handful of non-Afghan Al Qaeda zealots, tilting at the windmills of western hegemony.
A state like Afghanistan which had never been colonized or occupied by a foreign power, even when most Third World nations were under foreign domination, has perforce to live with the indefinite occupation of United States military power which has also established bases in neighbouring Central Asia.
But for the intense climate of insecurity and hostility against the Arab/Islamic world created by 9/11, there was no way that the Bush administration could have rallied American public opinion to a unilateral, pre-emptive attack on Iraq with the tragic consequences which have followed for the Iraqi people.
A number of other Islamic states are wary of their place in the US hit list, with Iraq and Syria under unremitting pressure. Freedom movements such as those in Kashmir and Palestine have been dealt crushing blows by the post 9/11 Western identification of liberation struggles of Muslim peoples as terrorism.
This has enabled India and Israel to establish an ostensible commonality of interests with the US in the fight against Islamic militancy and titled the balance heavily against the Palestinian and Kashmiri resistance.
Resistance movements, including Hezbollah which single- handedly drove out the Israelis from South Lebanon, Hamas and others have been classified as terrorist organizations and are being treated as such, in the aftermath of 9/11.
The environment for Muslim communities in the West (and even elsewhere) has sharply deteriorated. Opportunities have plummeted in respect of livelihood, education, security and dignity.
The Muslim diaspora lives under a cloud of harassment, uncertainty and even persecution. In a number of Islamic states including Pakistan, the Al Qaeda is playing a highly disruptive, terrorist role, impeding stability, peace, development and investment; fomenting extremism, hatred and violence and blocking the path of progress for Islamic societies.
The assassination attempt on prime minister - designate Shaukat Aziz, for which responsibility has been claimed by Al Qaeda, is the latest in the long list of terrorist outrages in Pakistan and other Islamic countries.
Next to Osama bin Laden it was Saddam Hussein who received top ratings in the poll in a number of Arab/Islamic states. While it is clear that he bore little responsibility for the war imposed on Iraq a year ago by the Bush administration, Saddam Hussein was directly responsible for the war over Kuwait's occupation, which entrenched the US massively in the Gulf; imposed a Western protectorate on Iraq and gave the US a decisive say in the region's affairs.
On August 1, the eve of the invasion of Kuwait, Iraq was a strong state with a prosperous people. It had, in Gulf terms, a developed industrial base, the fourth largest oil production in the world, a high standard of living by regional standards and the largest military force in the Gulf.
By February 27, 1991, (the end of the Gulf war), the Iraqi infrastructure had been smashed, its armed forces decimated and its prosperous society in shambles. The bitter winter of the Iraqi tragedy had begun.
The argument over Saddam's responsibility for the war over Kuwait is meaningless. For notwithstanding US/Israeli designs of neutralizing Iraq's military strength and controlling its oil resources, their designs could not have been achieved (in the period before 9/11) without the Iraqi president's suicidal folly.
For it was crystal clear that the US, with its very significant energy and geo-political interests in the Gulf, would not accept the occupation of Kuwait or any other GCC state.
It was equally clear that if it came to a war, there could be only one result and that, contrary to the expectations, in certain quarters, there was no realistic prospect of popular uprisings in regional states in support of Saddam.
As for the question of the US having set a trap over Kuwait, Saddam had full six months (the period given by the US) to extricate himself from the presumed trap, which he failed to do in spite of the urgings of Iraq well wishers.
It is the failure to sense the interests and capabilities, the fears and concerns, the priorities and values of the other party concerned in a given situation that has led to historic miscalculations at the crucial crossroads of world history.
Such significant misjudgments stem from failure to anticipate the response of the other party involved in a developing situation. Peoples and states responsible for such miscalculations pay a high price, for unlike domestic situations, it is much more difficult in foreign affairs to turn the clock back, since events impinging on other states acquire a momentum of their own, rarely susceptible to reversal or back pedalling.
'Two gods' and one candidate
"I'm John Kerry. And I'm reporting," he said with a smart salute and perhaps a click of the heels, "for duty." As opening lines go, this one had class even in the full stops.
The stage was set, literally. The Democrats had gathered in Boston to nominate John Kerry as their candidate to challenge George Bush for the most powerful job in the world. No Democrat could have united the party as closely as Bush has managed to, and the delegates were tense with both the excitement of hope and the dread of an anti-climax.
But those nine opening words pulled the ultimate trick in political rhetoric. They defined both the proponent and the opponent. Here was Kerry, the war hero, reporting for duty that could lead to death despite a privileged background, and there was Bush, the war coward, who used his wealth to stick out the Vietnam days in the comfort of his friends and family.
The evasion of war did not make much difference in 2000 when Bush won, because he was seeking an office that had been occupied by another man who did the same, Bill Clinton.
But when you have sent some two hundred thousand Americans to a punishing battlefield increasingly reminiscent of Vietnam, when nearly a thousand Americans have died and some 6,000 wounded, then the mother who has lost a 20-year-old in Falluja has a right to know what you did when your country called you at the age of 20.
A combat veteran had in two sentences and a gesture made Bush look merely combative. And he did it without mentioning George Bush's name. That was the class part of the act.
A speech is not the best way to discover a politician. Political speeches come and go, and in worst-case situations they go on forever. They are intrinsically self-serving.
They have to be. It is a poor speechwriter who cannot serve sufficient nourishment to feed the master's needs as well as ego. There is safety in intellectual boredom. It is too risky to suggest an unusual idea that might become counterproductive.
The argument, if any, must suggest competence, not imagination. A politician's arithmetic is unambiguous. Long before you can add any vote, you must take care to ensure that you have not subtracted any.
Flourish and drama, modulation and inflexion - arts that an elocution teacher or an acting guru would applaud - are confined to reinforcing known positions. A new thought that might illuminate minds? Leave for after the elections.
Ironically, Kerry entered the 2004 race with the same advantage that Bush had in 2000: he was underestimated. Bush was dismissed as mentally challenged in 2000. To be fair, he provided some evidence for the accusation.
His principal enemy during that campaign seemed to be the English language, with which he conducted a running battle. Remember all those laughs we had as he hatcheted a verb and eloped with a noun? And remember who had the last laugh of the 2000 US elections? We've been crying for four years because we had the first laugh and Bush had the last one.
Kerry came to Boston either unknown to most Americans or, worse, known as a long face wrapped around a double tongue. This was the image that Republicans had dumped him with once it was certain that he would challenge Bush.
They positioned him as unreliable long before he had the chance to define himself. This mask was carefully designed to weaken his case when he dismissed Bush as either ludicrously naive or mendacious.
Kerry was trapped in his record over two decades as a senator. A practical politician on the loose, often bipartisan American system of voting has no option except to nuance a complication or finesse a complexity.
Kerry had to look at every side to survive. Bush, in contrast, is a simplifier, a black-and white-man who can insist that black is white because black is also the absence of colour.
Such simplicity appeals to Mr Average Joe, who thinks it must be right precisely because it is simple. However, it would be an error to call Bush the Simplifier Bush the Simpleton. Bush is too crafty to be a simpleton.
I suspect that most of Kerry's supporters would forgive him every mistake, including a prevarication or two, if he could defeat Bush. Leading the country by misleading the voter is hardly unknown.
Bush campaigned in 2000 as the "compassionate conservative." He then turned out to be the most right-wing president in memory. Where did the compassion go after he was elected? To Halliburton, of course. And the two per cent at the top who got tax cuts. The rest of America was given the bill for such compassion.
Kerry delivered the line that much of America and the rest of the world wanted to hear: "I will be a commander-in-chief who never misled us into a war." Amen. A little cynicism is permitted, I hope, to us plebs outside the golden circle of American power. The point, however, is that we want that commitment to be honoured. That will keep not only Americans safe, but the rest of us too.
It is a commonplace that American elections are won or lost over the economy. But if that were completely true then this election would have been over before it had begun, with Bush preparing for four more successful years of misleading. He has built enough residual goodwill after 9/11 by just being there, spreading his arms, cowboy style, ordering a worldwide hunt of terrorists and invading Afghanistan.
It is Iraq that could cost Bush the White House. For Iraq is not just the story of a battlefield, it is a metaphor for a range of values that Americans, as much as any other electorate in a democracy, hold dear. Kerry dealt with Iraq splendidly.
It is easy to blow off your own leg in that nest of minefields. He mentioned Iraq minimally, but referred to it constantly. He did not preach to the converted; he tried to persuade those in doubt. "Mislead" is the polite way of saying "lies". When you accuse a president of misleading a nation, you are challenging his sense of values.
It was no accident that Kerry used the word "values" nearly thirty times, according to those who had the time and patience to count. And since Kerry is comfortable with English, he was able to deliver a few powerful lines as well: he would, for instance, go to war when "we had to", and not when "we want to".
The big boys will not admit it, but the maverick filmmaker Michael Moore has had an impact on this campaign. That is why Kerry made it a point to take an angular swipe at the Saudi royal family.
It is Moore who has made the Saudi connection an issue, rather than the Democrats. Bush's links with certain elements of the Saudi elite are well known, but Democrat fat cats are hardly immune from similar social camaraderie.
For me the most important part of the speech came towards the end. 9/11 and Iraq have created the rhetoric of "two Gods", yours and mine, Christian and Islamic. We are in a time when respectable newspapers like the Sunday Telegraph of Britain can hire columnists who rage against the "black heart" and "black face" of Islam.
Kerry, describing his own beliefs to a nation which values belief, said: "I don't wear my faith on my sleeve. But faith has given me values of hope to live by, from Vietnam to this day, from Sunday to Sunday. I don't want to claim that God is only on our side. As Abraham Lincoln told us, I want to pray humbly that we are on God's side."
The loudest cheer of the evening welcomed this conviction. Amen. And this time my heart may be in my mouth, but my tongue is not in my cheek.
The writer is editor-in-chief of Asian Age, New Delhi.
A faithful sepoy
The Pakistan government has taken many decisions in recent years that have seriously undermined the nation's honour and national self-interest. Ditching stepchild Taliban and allowing Afghanistan to fall under communist, Russian, and Indian influence; stabbing Kashmiri mujahideen in the back; and renting the army and ISI to Washington are the most grievous examples.
These humiliating acts were done, we are told, because Washington put a gun to Islamabad's head and threatened to brand Pakistan a "terrorist nation," or were caused by the need for billions in American aid.
Now, Washington is pressuring Islamabad to broaden its new-found role as faithful sepoy in the American Raj by sending troops to help prop up Iraq's embattled, US-imposed regime.
Not content with pushing Pakistan into a little civil war in its formerly autonomous tribal belt, undermining one of the nation's most basic constitutional understanding, the Bush administration is bent on turning Pakistanis into cannon fodder to spare the lives of its own troops in Iraq.
Saudi Arabia supposedly advanced this bizarre plan. But few doubt the Bush administration, which is in a panic over its falling domestic support because of the disastrous Iraq invasion, was behind the move.
As American deaths in Iraq near the politically explosive 1,000 mark, the White House is moving heaven and earth, and secretly spending billions, to force or entice its allies and vassals to replace US troops with their own men. Rent-a-nations like Romania, Bulgaria and Ukraine have eagerly complied.
Pakistan is not a rent-a-nation. Pakistan's superb armed forces and its renowned intelligence service should not be for lease or sale. The era of faithful sepoys is long, long past.
Pakistan has not an iota of national interest in interfering in the bloody affairs of chaotic Iraq. It should not be in any way involved in the neo-colonial repression of an important Muslim nation and the theft of its resources.
Nor should Pakistan aid an imperialist adventure engineered and promoted by Israel's Zionist expansionists. Pakistan's soldiers were not raised to be mercenaries nor to act as police against a hostile population as the ghost of General Tikka Khan should remind one and all.
The brutal murder of two unfortunate Pakistanis in Iraq would be only a foretaste of what is to come if the army's jawans are sent to garrison Iraq. There is no acceptable reason why Pakistan should endanger the lives of its soldiers or civilian workers, or make enemies where it has no need to do so.
The US-British occupation of Iraq is a disaster for all concerned. The only nation to benefit from the US invasion of Iraq is Israel. Misery loves company, and Washington's last hope is to try to force its friends, allies and vassals to send troops to die in place of American GIs.
Iraq's so-called "sovereign interim government" is a puppet regime in all but name, with even less independence than the Soviet-installed communist regimes in Afghanistan.
Prime Minister Ayad Allawi is a longtime CIA and British MI6 agent who admits to supplying the preposterous lies used by Tony Blair to justify aggression against Iraq.
Far from abating, national resistance to foreign occupation in Iraq is growing in numbers and intensity. US forces have gone on the defensive in Iraq as a result of orders from on high to reduce casualties before elections.
They are avoiding urban areas and cutting down on road movement. US and so-called 'coalition' forces have lost the military initiative in Iraq, a key sign of growing weakness and falling moral.
All counter-insurgency conflicts corrupt and brutalize the nations and the armies that wage them. This writer has seen this happen from Algeria to Vietnam. The same thing will happen to Pakistan's soldiers if they are thrown into Iraq. Equally, Pakistan's jawans might end up committing the same brutalities and crimes against civilians as Indian forces do in Kashmir. Isn't the bulldozing of homes in South Waziristan enough?
Sending troops to Iraq would likely be the final straw that alienates ordinary Pakistanis from their government which too often appears to represent the interests of foreign powers rather than those of the nation. Pakistan has enough problems without seeking new ones abroad.-Copyright