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U.S. Bombs Pakistan: The soul of a nation is
fatally wounded
Long Live Pakistan under the US Bombing Raids
By Abid Ullah Jan
01/13/06 "ICH" -- -- Aircraft from Afghanistan have once more
attacked Pakistan killing 18 Pakistanis in remote villages. Even
non-US sources, such as Al-Jazeera has adopted the tone of
embedded journalists, telling the world that the US attack on
Pakistan killed 18 people in “a village stronghold of
pro-Taliban Islamists.”
The incident in Bajaur tribal region on December 13 came days
after Pakistan lodged a useless protest with US-led forces in
Afghanistan, saying cross-border firing in the nearby Waziristan
area last weekend killed eight people.
A Pakistani intelligence official said two aircraft had come in
from Afghanistan and fired two or three missiles. Where is the
US military spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Jerry O'Hara, followed
the foot-steps of his liar commander-in-chief and said there
were no reports of US forces operating in the Damadola area.
This incident is yet another evidence that Musharraf has made
Pakistan a big loser after September 11 with the misconception
that it had no option except bending backwards to the US
demands. His mantra: Pakistan had no option. It either had to
join the US aggression or invite Bush’s wrath. Had Musharraf
hesitated, the Americans would have clobbered Pakistan’s
military and ‘strategic’ assets and allowed India to attack. By
siding with Bush, Pakistan has been saved from American anger
and its own “extremists.” It has also been able to break out of
its isolation and rejoin the international mainstream.
However, do we see any signs of such successes? Did the United
States spare Pakistan? Are not our troops and people dying? The
“president house” might be safe, but are the rest of homes in
Pakistan safe from the American aggression? No one cares to
answer a simple question. What would Pakistan have lost if it
had chosen to negotiate the fine print of our cooperation with
the US? Even America’s European allies—with the exception, of
course, of Britain—took some time to make up their minds before
rushing in with offers of help.
Would Pakistan have been declared international terrorists if
the spineless Musharraf had negotiated with some toughness
instead of being dazzled by the sudden attention he started
getting? Now that the euphoria has gone, what do Musharraf and
his minions have to show for his caving in? Musharraf got his
exclusive dinners with Bush and Blair and accolades from Zionist
groups and Islamophobes. Beyond that, what did he get? The
nation is facing what he wanted to avoid: aggression of the
United States of American.
Pakistan didn’t face such bloody air strikes even when it based
and trained anti-Soviet occupation forces in Pakistan and used
Pakistan as a launching pad for what was pure terrorism to the
Soviet supported government in Afghanistan.
From a systemic perspective, 9/11 helped Washington establish
its military presence in Pakistan and also re-establish the “red
lines” that had disappeared after the collapse of the Soviet
superpower, impelling Washington to restrain its Pakistani
client state. The key factor in all these developments is
Musharraf. The situation could be totally different under a
civilian government or a General who was not keen in
self-promotion at the cost of the survival of Pakistan.
Pakistani nation is now facing double wrath: the wrath of its
own armed forces and the wrath of the US aggression. The nation
might have faced at least the aggression from outside, had
Musharraf decided not to join the United States in its war of
aggression on Afghanistan. Now it has to reel under the
occupation of its own armed forces as well as withstand the
worst of the US onslaught.
The line between independence and occupation of Pakistan by its
own armed forces is getting finer with each passing day. The
cost of weakness on the part of the military leadership is now
confirmed as an occupation without a military conquest. Pakistan
has, unfortunately, become the first victim of this new kind of
occupation—a model of a “failed state” perfectly controlled from
outside with curtailed sovereignty and limited freedoms. Do we
see any difference between the Kazai and Musharraf regime? In
the Afghanistan, the US forces go out and bomb Afghanis to death
as and when they like. The same are they doing in Pakistan.
The only difference between the US occupation of Iraq, for
instance, and Pakistan is that the collaborating military in
Iraq is under training. In Pakistan, the US has found a
well-trained and well-established army to serve its objectives
for free. However, even this is not the end of the story. The
general has to surrender more because despite his regime’s
wholehearted sacrifice of all the principles of justice and the
norms of independent states, American analysts, such as Leon T.
Hadar of the Cato Institute, consider Pakistan “with its
dictatorship and failed economy” a “reluctant partner” and a
“potential long term adversary.”
Therefore, instead of friendship or partnership on the pattern
of India-US relations, occupation is a must and here the
Pakistani nation is: fully occupied. Like any other occupied
territory, dictatorship is in full swing in Pakistan. Besides
being bombed by the US, now on regular basis, hundreds of
people, pointed out by the intelligence of occupation forces,
are routinely rounded up in order to placate Washington.
Pakistan’s occupation by its own military will continue in one
form or another until it breathes its last, for the simple
reason that the nation itself is half-dead. A substantial part
of a nation dies the day its people start dying for others
against their will. The soul of a nation is fatally wounded the
day its armed forces start leading it in a battle against its
raison d’être. Eliminate a nation’s purpose, and you extinguish
its spark of life. The country that acquiesces in evil can
hardly hope to enjoy the benefits of goodness. No one draws
freedom or life from a land of oppression and death.
The author’s latest book:
“The Musharraf Factor: Leading Pakistan
to Inevitable Demise,”
thoroughly analyzes the issue of Pakistan’s occupation by its own
armed forces and the United States.
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