Resistance is the first step towards Iraqi independence

Good for Chowk for posting this piece by Mr. Ali! Perhaps some of our interactors will be forced to complicate their world views a bit...

re: Dost-Mittar # 67

You have made a valid point. I suggested a paradigm shift, because in a strategic sense it does signal a change of intentions. No American president has ever admitted to this truth in public even though they may have grudged their choices in the private. On the tactical level, your statement might be more appropiate. United States` support of Musharraf and its change of tune was made necessary by the events of September 2001.

The comment was striking in the sense that Bush suggested that it was the lack of democracy and personal liberities, which encouraged terrorism and the United States was identified as the source of all the evil, because of its support for those undemocratic regimes. This is a radical change in the logical process of the United States as it considers the parameters of its future foreign policy. The United States`s support to Musharraf might exist, but the conclusion is that Musharraf cannot gurantee the United States` long term security; only a democratic Pakistan, where the supremacy of the parliament is supreme in a political sense. Within this framework or rationalization, what is is interesting is that United States is moving away from its idea and support of the Pakistani military as the bulwark of its interests in the region and seems to think that only democracy can protest its interests in the region.

This is good news for any one concerned about democracy in Pakistan and the role of the military in retarding the growth of political institutions in Pakistan through its interventions in politics. In the near foreseeable future, you are right that not much is going to change, but in the distant future, this could only mean good things for democracy in Pakistan.

Ciao

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Ferozk # 66

I think Bush`s so called policy shift is too little and too late. Now someone please tell me one good reason why would the current ``illiberal`` regimes in the area not want to keep US bogged down in Iraq. Why shouldn`t they send their rag tag fighters into Iraq and provide financial and militaristic support to those who are fighting americans in Iraq. It is their turn to be deposed right after America is done in Iraq; is there any other way to interprett Bush`s new policy shift? America now wants to turn Iraq into a beacon of democracy and freedom in the region; but people ask why it didn`t turn Israel into a beacon of hope and democracy first - a role model in the region. Instead Israel is the most hated country in the region alongwith US for their excesses and untold misery that they have unleashed upon the whole region - what to talk of a role model. I think it is a myth about the people of middle east that they hate their own governments more than US which US propaganda machinery disseminate to misguide its own people. I think the masses (and not the pro-US elite) know very well that if there ever will be a democracy in this region it will be without America and not because of it.

The same argument extends to Paksitan, wrt US`s unflinching support of military despots in Pakistan and the sitiuation in Afghanistan. Or Pakistan is an exception to US`s crusade for the rule of democracy around the globe? Or US is waiting until it is done with Iraq and Afghanistan first and then ``take care`` of ``illiberal`` regime in Pakistan?

nazar:
I agree with you. My comment ``joint defense against whom?`` was meant to convey that, just like Nehru in 1960, there wont be too many takers of this proposition among Pakistanis today, even among the elite at chowk.

ferozk:
``George Bush in a speech suggested a major paradigm shift in United States foreign policy``
I very much doubt it. Who is Bush`s big bad buddy these days? Isn`t it your own man in shining armour? Would he prefer MMA to Musharraf, even when Bush knows that MMA serves a very convenient raison d`etre for Musharraf? The basic policy remains the same and it was best expressed by Bush himself, ``You are either with us or against us``. Only the enemy has changed, the axiom remains the same!

George Bush in a speech suggested a major paradigm shift in United States foreign policy. He said that the past United States` policy of appeasing illiberal regimes at the cost of personal liberty and democracy has not worked. It has not worked in the sense, that United States` security was not enhenced by supporting such regimes, but rather diminished.

This is a major addmission by an American president. United States has admitted, coyly, that its support of non-democratic regimes was the reason for the levels of resentment in Middle East against United States` foreign policy and against Washington in general. This was an oft-stated truth that Arabs/Muslims do not hate the United States as much they hate its support for regimes, which deny them their basic human rights and political rights.

This suggests a major change, because Bush also hinted in that speech that political change, or reform, has to be generated internally to be viable and can be not externally imposed. If this is the case, then it hints at a possible dilutation of the doctrine of regime change through military means and also implies that the United States is rethinking its unilateralist policies. In any case, this is a welcomed comment from Washington, because it offers the hope that the administration is moving towards the dynamics of diplomacy. This change, in the internal political rubric of the administration, protends that State Department and Colin Powell have re-emerged as significant players and the role of Pentagon and Donald Rumsfeld has been down graded in the formulation of the United States` foreign policy. If this caveat is taken under consideration that a few weeks back the National Security Council and its head, Condi Rice, were given the responsibility of creating policy in Iraq at the cost of Pentagon, it means that civilian control over foreign policy is being reimposed and the influence of Pentagon in making foreign policy limited.

What ever happens, it was nice to know that the United States has admitted that in quest of its national security and economic, it supported the worst regimes in Latin America, South America, Middle East, Pakistan and West Asia (Iraq and Afghanistan). Credit goes to the United States for admitting a spade as a spade.

Ciao

Nazar, I agree with you.

Nazar, I agree with you.

Nazar,

I do not find any chance of pakistan willingly moving away from the jihadic path. Unlike many claim, the jihadic evolution of pakistan has nothing much to do with afghan jihad, at best it only accelerated a trend. Unless a country is multi ethnic as in malaysia, a majority muslim country will always converge to the jihadic roots, a totalitarian kind of set up, as in saudi arabia and turkey. There is something inherent in the book, islamic republic of pakistan cannot be anything other than jihadic and is evolving nicely along that path. Only interruption to this can be iraquisation of pakistan, something I had been advocating for more than 4 years on chowk.

Nazar,

Most likely scenario for pakistan is that it will be kept on drip feed for quite some time, as it happened with iraq, and will be iraquised by india. Only alternate path is a radical change in pakistan including control of the madrassas, removal of k for kafir education, and removal of the bomb. This would need complete domination of pak by the uS, the FBI will control ISI, along with budgetery controls and democratisation of politics, with army back in the barracks. I do not imagine this happening, and any move in that direction will produce counter action by the jihadists.

I do not see any indications of a change for peace in the pak society, after interacting with the educated pakistanis on chowk. There is total denial of the reality of pakistan even at the elementary level.
For example I have not seen a single post on the increasing poverty in pakistan, incresed from 20 percent in 1970 to 35 percent now. To me this shows that all of the economic growth data that the romairs are quoting is all wrong, not supported bt anecdotal evidence, while the increased poverty is every where , at road intersections and public lands.

The Clash of Interests

Whilst we munch away at the polemics and divine aspects of whats happening in Iraq, we forget that much of this is just for money, For the halliburtons and the Oil Barons that sits on the throne of Imperial USA. Yet we forget(ignore), instead, even here on this very board the interests groups are so very visible. You have those whose souls have weighed heavely in favour of US Imperialism because they keep refering back to their own experiance and achievement in the west and particularly in the USA and will not for a moment grudge the US Motives as that would mean to reanalyse their existence and their real acheivements. These are the Globalised group, the Western Proxies, the enlightened ones who feel they are just better conditioned and have absolutely no bias within them, unless offcourse the biases that are the dictate from their Imperialist Lord. They love the west, as the west is the ultimate grand simulation of how their world should be.

Then there are those who are burning with hate. Who mutate religion to nurture their grudges and prejudice, however they do not make much of a presence felt on this board.

Then there is a third who have been exposed to the both sides of the so called divide. Whose judgement although scaled and wounded at times, are a lament of reality. Tariq Ali is one of those who can in the sheer face of defiance still come up with the facts and the arguments.

Where have we heard this argument before, Vietnam, What happened there, bloody escape for the imperialist army. I can see why some of you are so desperate for the US to stay on, where is the alternative you ask, its because YOU have stopped beleiving that as a society we can have alternatives. It is because you have lost faith and interest in YOUR backyard and started depending on Western Incursions/Invasions/Jobs/Asylums, that we find ourselves in this quagmire. I beleive that the iraqi invasion will bore two things, a bloody nose of America and a bloodier escape strategy then Vietnam. And the birth of a Revolutionary Iraq. Not the type of Revolution planned and carried out in washington and enforced by the Western Proxy named Saddam. But a true Leadership which will surface and make itself felt very soon.

BAATHISTS - TERRORISTS - FOREIGN ELEMENTS - AL-QAEDA are all a figment of your imagination.

FREEDOM FIGHTERS are those who you see and hear every day. Fanon gave an excellent insight into the mind of those who fight and die for Freedom.

``Europe has laid her hands on our continents, and we must slash at her fingers till she lets go. It`s a good moment; nothing can happen at Bizerta, at Elizabethville or in the Algerian bled that the whole world does not hear about. The rival blocks take opposite sides, and hold each other in check; let us take advantage of this paralysis, let us burst into history, forcing it by our invasion into universality for the first time. Let us start fighting; and if we`ve no other arms, the waiting knife`s enough.``

Dost-mitter # 57

``joint defense against whom?``.

Defence against religious extremism/terrorism

(The hypothsis may seem too far-fetched right now but if Pakistan gets on to an arms race, continues with its political instability, Army continues to take the major national decisions - the scenerio painted could materialize in 20-30 years. Afghanistan already talks about the Durand line. The tribals are restive. It brings all the missing pieces of jig-saw puzzle togather; give or take unforseen factors/changes - the only wild cards are succesful elimination of the Talibans by US/coalition or an unfettered democracy in Pakistan)

Dost mitter

As far as I can remember Taliban did agree to send him to Holland (a press conference by Mullah zaeef shown on BBC from Afghan embassy in Islamabad a few days before the war) or to one more European country which I can`t remember. But it is true that initially they insisted on handing him over to a country where he could be tried according to Islamic Law - Saudi Arabia in that case was anybody`s guess since OBL was a Saudi citizen also. In Saudi Arabia if it were any other than OBL, he would have been beheaded within a month of hand over. But for the Saudi regime beheading or even incarceration of OBL would have caused an uncontrollable fall out.

Please keep in mind that Saudi Arabia along with Pak and Qatar were the only countries who recognized taliban regime; OBL was a wanted man in SA and he was forced to exile when Saudi regime tried to murder him by poinsoning him and yet Afghanistan which was harboring their wanted man and that of their Western pattrons was the greatest recipient of Saudi aid every year. That boggles one`s mind doesn`t it? The simple answer to this dilemma is that US was providing a safe haven for all the political dissident aka terrorists throughout the Arab world to gather at one place so that they could n`t become a headache in their respective countries were despotic regimes are pattroned by US. That was clever idea, which worked througout slick willie`s regime until unfortunate capitalists in america got their idiot in chief.

romair, tahmed:
With respect to Afghanistan`s offer to hand over OBL to a third country, the situation was somewhat trickier than you seem to suggest. First, there was no country - even Pakistan, the only country with which Afghanistan had diplomatic relations - willing to accept OBL and incur the wrath of America in the post 9/11 atmosphere. Secondly, while the Taliban did make an offer, it was an offer the US couldn`t accept. They offered to send him to a third country where he could be tried under islamic law.

Romair:
It is interesting you mention Arar`s case. I have just sent to chowk an article on that story entitled ``Outsourcing Torture``. Let us see if they publish it.

nhk:
[correction]
``If lessons from history are to be learnt, India & Pakistan should sign a peace treaty & fight against this common ideological threat from the West - it will be good for the domestics of both countries as well.``
Lesson from history! Back in 1960 Ayub Khan wanted to sign a joint defencse pact with India. Nehru dismissed it with the contemptuous remark,``joint defense against whom?``. Two years later, China attacked India and Nehru got his answer. Today, if you make this proposal to Musharraf, he is likely to give the same answer, ``joint defense against whom?``.

nhk:
``If lessons from history are to be learnt, India & Pakistan should sign a peace treaty & fight against this common ideological threat from the West - it will be good for the domestics of both countries as well.``
Lesson from history! Back in 1960 Ayub Khan wanted to sign a joint defencse pact with India. Nehru dismissed it with the contemptuous remark,``joint defense against whom?``. Today, if you make this proposal to Musharraf, he is likely to give the same answer, ``joint defense against whom?``.