5
Minutes Over Islamabad
By A.H Amin
26 September, 2007
Countercurrents.org
There
appears to be a strong evolving consensus in the USA as well as its
NATO allies that Pakistan is the centre of gravity of the Islamists
in the ongoing so called war on terror.This idea gained currency in
various high US policy making circles as well as think tanks around
1987-89 and then assumed a solid shape in the decade 1990-2000.After
2001 it was adopted as a policy and concrete albeit top secret planning
was started to deal with Pakistan which at the ulterior level was seen
as part of the problem rather than a solution.
When the Spaniards landed
in Mexico their main collaborators were indigenous Mexicans themselves
! In Pakistan thus the USA made use of indigenous collaborators ! Generals
whose sons had a US passport ! Bankers who were US nationals but also
dual Pakistani citizens ! Thus these leaders justified collaboration
with the USA after 9/11 on the grounds that what they did was the only
guarantee for the survival of Pakistan !
The Pakistani military junta
in 2001 was isolated internationally so it was very easy for the USA
to overawe it with one telephone call ! The typical career army officers
life consists of aiming to get a good annual report from his boss !
Pakistan's military leadership grasped this opportunity to get a good
pat from their geopolitical strategic boss the US president and with
open hands provided airbases and all logistic support to the USA ! This
was a short term measure so that Pakistani military junta's survival
in power was ensured ! It had no connection with survival of Pakistan
as a state ! Compare how Iran is surviving as a state despite defying
the USA since 1979 ! Later on a fiction that USA threatened Pakistan
with bombing it to the stone age was invented ! Thus irresolution was
rationalized as supreme strategic brilliance ! Ironically some so called
media men who are also running private businesses were in the forefront
in praising this strategic timidity as strategic brilliance !
What happened in " Real
Strategic Terms" was that with Pakistani military junta's active
collaboration i.e logistic support and air bases the USA was able to
occupy Afghanistan very cheaply and with minimum casualties ! This was
no mean strategic achievement as it placed the USA right below the soft
underbelly of China as well as Russia ! More significantly it reduced
the flying as well as striking time to the Pakistani nuclear as well
as missile installation.Close proximity to Pakistan also enabled the
USA to conduct intelligence operations inside Pakistan in a far more
optimum manner than ever before.
It was theorized in secret
sessions of the highest level US decision making circles that although
the Islamists fighting the USA had no fixed centre of gravity which
could be attacked and eliminated, Pakistan with its sympathetic pro
Islamist populace and nuclear and missile assets was at least a provisional
centre of gravity of the Islamists.Note that US feared , not the ISI
, not the tinpot Pakistani military junta , but the sentiments of the
vast bulk of the Pakistani populace and its arsenal of nuclear warheads
and missiles !
Thus Afghanistan was seen
as a potential US base to carry out a 5 minutes over Islamabad or Kahuta
just like the Israelis with US cooperation destroyed Iraq's nuclear
reactor in 5 minutes over Baghdad in 1981.
In 1945 the USA had bombed
Hiroshima and Nagasaki not for any direct military purpose but to overawe
the USSR that no one could match US military might.The USSR had faced
the challenge and developed a fine nuclear arsenal to counter US aspirations
to control the world.Later China also emerged as another challenger
of USA ! Thanks to USSR help many South Asian countries as well as African
countries fought and won wars of liberation ! The Arabs were able to
confront Israel only because of Soviet aid till the collaborator Sadaat
sold his soul to the USA and Israel !
The USA was all set to reduce
Pakistan to size in 1977 when it financed the anti Bhutto agitation
in 1977 ! This plan was delayed because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
from 1979 till 1989 when the USA had but no option other than using
Pakistan as a base for assisting the anti Soviet War in Afghanistan.
Change of posture came very
quickly when after 1990 the USA started talking that Pakistan is a terrorist
state or was on the brink of being a terrorist state.This was basically
a war of nerves the decisive point of which was one telephone call which
made Pakistan's tinpot military junta take the so called " brilliant
strategic decision" of collaborating with the USA !
After the disintegration
of the USSR , strategically speaking the US military targets were the
littoral states of the Indian Ocean .Thus the Iraq War of 1990 , the
Invasion and capture of Iraq of 2003 and the invasion of capture of
Afghanistan in 2001.
Interestingly Iraq and Afghanistan
were not ultimate objectives of US onslaught but merely initial bridgeheads.This
was only Phase One ! Phase Two may include Pakistan and Phase Three
may include Iran ! Phase Four being Chinese Singkiang and/or Central
Asian Republics ! Somewhere the Americans call it Orange Revolution
whose first good example was the anti Bhutto agitation that they financed
in 1977 in Pakistan ! Sometimes they call it a war on terror or war
against weapons of mass destruction !
History has proved that generals
fail as statesmen ! In 1936 all of Hitlers generals opposed his decision
to march into Rhineland ! This is so because generals think only in
tangible terms ! They do not appreciate the value of intangible factors
like resolution etc ! Thus after 9/11 when Pakistan's tinpot junta wargamed
being invaded by USA it only thought in military terms ! It failed to
appreciate that the USA was humbled in Vietnam and in Iran in 1979 !
In the process they allowed and facilitated the USA to occupy Afghanistan
in very cheap military terms ! Pakistan shall pay a heavy price for
this ! Whether Armitage said it or not , the USA will bomb some parts
of Pakistan to the stone age in order to denuclearize Pakistan.
Pakistan is in a strange
strategic situation ! It is led by a military dictator whose sole aim
is to stay in power ! Its number two the so called prime minister is
a US citizen and in case he dies naturally or unnaturally his successor
i.e the Chairman Senate is also a US citizen ! So politically the USA
is dominant in Pakistan ! But this does not make the Americans happy
! Their aim is denuclearization and complete submission of Pakistan
!
Imagine the following scenario
! Pakistan's military dictator is killed in a mysterious air crash or
assassinated by a common soldier on duty like Indita Gandhi ! The USA
immediately issues an ultimatum that it fears that Pakistan's nuclear
arsenal may fall in the hands of extremists ! A surgical nuclear strike
is launched on Kahuta and Islamabad !Another general takes over power
in Pakistan and capitulates to all US demands dismantling the Pakistani
nuclear arsenal and its missiles ! Rationalising this on the ground
that if he did not do so the USA would bomb Pakistan to stone age !
In next ten years Pakistan is Balkanised with an independent US supported
Baluchistan and an independent puppet Pashtun state in NWFP and Northern
Pashtun majority districts of Baluchistan ! An independent Sindh in
the South , an independent Kashmir and Northern Areas with US bases
for future operations against Singkiang on the Deosai Plateau and only
Punjab left as Pakistan ! No nukes , no missiles , no resolve ! Just
like the Christians reduced the Muslims to Granada in Spain and finally
eliminated even Granada in 1492.
This is not a pessimistic
view of things but a hard strategic reality ! The writing is clear on
the wall ! The war which USA is fighting is not against the Pashtun
tribes of Waziristan but against all Muslims ! Bagram , Khost,Jalalabad
and Kandahar airfields are being developed not against the Taliban or
against the Al Qaeda but for 5 minutes over Islamabad !
In strategy everything moves
very slowly and it is the greatness of a statesman and military commander
to assess what will happen in next 5 or ten years ! Here in Pakistan
we have a situation where our military leaders are overawed by just
one phone call ! From leaders of such a caliber little resolution or
strategic insight can be expected !
From 1979 to 1988 Pakistan's
military junta after seizing power through the backdoor , provided the
USA with an active base to destabilize and destroy Afghanistan's defacto
government . All infrastructure of Afghanistan was destroyed as well
as all its institutions between 1979 and 1992 .Now if the Afghan state
allows the USA to do so it should not be a surprise ! And why did Pakistan's
military junta of 1977-88 support the so called Afghan Jihad ! So that
General Zia stays in power ! The characters were different in 1979 and
2001 , but the motivation was the same !
Someone may skeptically view
the above presented scenario ! The following arguments support the presented
scenario ! If Saddam was destroyed on the mere suspicion that Iraq possessed
Weapons of Mass Destruction why is Pakistan not a perfectly legitimate
target for USA , because it is a Muslim country and posseses WMD without
any doubt ! Saddam was more secular than any Muslim leader in modern
history yet his country and he himself were targeted and destroyed !
What is the aim of this so called enlightened Islam espoused by Musharraf
! To act as anesthesia for USA and destroy all resistance power of the
Pakistani nation ! If not strategic brilliance at least we have good
anesthetists at the top ! In war surprise is the key so the USA will
not politely announce its intentions before it reduces Pakistan to size
! Musharraf , Benazir and any other general that may emerge are merely
pawns in the game which can be removed by air crashes or assassinations
! Waziristan , Al Qaeda and terrorism are merely hollow slogans ! The
Pakistan Army is being forced into Waziristan by the USA not to attack
the Al Qaeda but to create an internal divide in Pakistan ! There have
been many cases of desertion of soldiers in units in Waziristan as well
as cases of refusal of officers for carrying out duties seen as against
their conscience ! What kind of liberalism does Musharraf want us to
practice when the enemy is at the gates and even inside the Pakistani
citadel of power ! What can be expected from leaders whose sons are
US citizens or who consider USA safer for their families to live than
Pakistan ! What can be expected from US citizens now enjoying high political
office in Pakistan after having a good time in Bank of America or CITI
Bank ! What respect will the army jawans have for leaders more distinguished
for deciding not to fight a battle after one telephone call or more
interested in privatizing the PSO , PTCL or the Steel Mill !
5 Minutes over Islamabad
is a distinct possibility ! This is the irony of a nation who supplied
many pilots who were blood brothers of Syrian,Iraqis and Jordanians
in downing many Israeli aircrafts over Golan , Amman and Iraq ! Today
the Pakistani leaders are practicing sycophancy with Israel to gain
a good pat from USA !
The conclusion is that Pakistan
is led by collaborators who will go to any extent to survive while its
nuclear and military assets would be destroyed with partial or active
cooperation of its own leaders ! Fear made men believe in the worst
but here in Pakistan we have a scenario in which Pakistan's leaders
are trying to sell the idea that timid strategic collaboration is strategic
brilliance ! A secret clause of Vision 2030 propaganda of Pakistani
sitting leadership is that by 2030 Pakistan would be a Balkanised state
with no nuclear and missile assets and kicked by all its neighbours
! Good luck to vision 2030 !
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