America Should Offer Unconditional Apology For Killing Pakistani Soldiers

[Riaz Haq]

The recent killings of 24 Pakistani soldiers by US forces have confirmed yet again that the US military tactics continue to undermine the overall strategy that leaders of both countries share. Professor Vali Nasr, former advisor to US State Dept, put it best when he told the New York Times, “It’s a case of the tail wagging the dog. U.S. commanders on the ground are deciding U.S.-Pakistan policy.”

The public reaction in Pakistan has been predictably swift and strong, forcing the nation's pro-American leadership to close critical land supply routes through Pakistan to 150,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan. The next step will likely be a cut-off of the air-link over Pakistan airspace to US forces. On the diplomatic front, there could be tremendous damage to US efforts if the Pakistani government follows through on its threat to boycott the December 5 international conference on Afghanistan, at which 1,000 delegates from fifty countries are scheduled to convene in Germany to discuss plans to wind down the war.

In spite of the critical importance of relations with Pakistan, President Obama has been conspicuously silent, and the US politicians, including Senators John Kyl and Dick Durbin who spoke today, continue to treat this relationship carelessly by demanding "get tough" approach in the wake of the latest tragedy.

The US-Pakistan relations have been in a downward spiral since the passing of Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, a seasoned diplomat who helped build and implement a unified policy among various US departments and agencies dealing with Pakistan. His replacement Mark Grossman lacks Holbrooke's heft and behaves more as a subservient bureaucrat than a powerful diplomat. Grossman has been totally ineffective. President Obama's lack of interest combined with Grossman's lack of initiative are jeopardizing the entire US agenda in the region.

This is not the time to talk about "getting tough" with Pakistan. It's time for US to show contrition and apologize to the Pakistanis to assuage their anger. Once the anger has subsided, it'll be necessary for US to re-assess and re-engage with Pakistan with a more effective common and clear policy to wind down the war in Afghanistan.

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[Riaz Haq]

Here's a Indian Business Standard's report on US leaving some hardware for Pakistan after withdrawal from Afghanistan:

Along with the Taliban, Pakistan will be a massive gainer from America's troop drawdown from Afghanistan by end-2014. A top-level US official, speaking off-the-record, has told Business Standard that Pakistan will get first call on all the American military equipment that costs too much to be transported back to the US.

Washington believes it is obligated to Islamabad for bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table at Qatar, for discussions aimed at reducing violence in Afghanistan, which would smoothen the American troop drawdown this year and the next. Furthermore, Washington relies on Pakistan for overland transit from Afghanistan to Karachi, where heavy equipment is loaded onto cargo vessels bound for the US.

Uzbekistan, which also provides transit routes to the US, had earlier sought to buy the surplus US equipment in Afghanistan. But routing through Uzbekistan, and then over a road and rail network in Central Asia and Russia called the Northern Distribution Network, is four to five times more expensive and time consuming than transiting through Pakistan. Washington has now decided conclusively in favour of Pakistan.

An earlier report in The Washington Post had estimated that the US military would leave behind some $7 billion worth of defence equipment, one-fifth of what is deployed in Afghanistan. US military officials tell Business Standard that aircraft, heavy weapons, vehicles and equipment are likely to be repatriated to the US. Much of what Pakistan will benefit from will be ammunition, vehicles, construction material, air-conditioners, etc.

Much more could be left behind if the situation deteriorates; Taliban resistance would determine what could feasibly be transported. Sceptics in New Delhi point out that Pakistan controls the spigot of violence.

It has not been revealed how much Pakistan would pay for the equipment left behind, but US officials say it would be a fraction of the real value. Given that the US is paying billions of dollars each year to build up the Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP), it remains unclear why Washington has not given Kabul the first call on the surplus equipment being left behind.

The cost of repatriation, says Bloomberg News, could be about $7 billion. Danish container giant, Moeller-Maersk A/S, Singapore-based Neptune Orient Lines, and German company, Hapag-Lloyd AG will ship out some 22,000 container-loads of equipment, says US Assistant Secretary of Defence for Logistics, Alan Estevez.

http://www.business-standard.com/article/international/pakistan-to-...

[Riaz Haq]

Here's an excerpt of a review of Daniel Markey's "No Exit from Pakistan" by Shamila Chaudhry:

..Markey also rightly focuses on new political trends and ideas in Pakistani popular culture that have been largely ignored in other accounts of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship, as well as in the course of much of the policymaking in both countries. For example, when discussing Pakistani notions of abandonment and national honor, Markey highlights the nationalist anti-American sentiment that grew from nuclear sanctions both among the government and the Pakistani public. As a sign of progress, he notes the success of Pakistani pop band Beygairat Brigade, who released a video on YouTube in 2011 "with thinly veiled references to a wide cast of Pakistani xenophobes, religious extremists, and conspiracy theorists" with lyrics that "lampoon many of the notions associated with defending Pakistan's national pride."

Herein lies the strength of Markey's analysis - his acknowledgment of the grassroots efforts currently afoot that are trying to transform Pakistani politics. He identifies four complex and often contradictory identities of Pakistan: "the elite-dominated basket case," the "garrison state," a "terrorist incubator," and a "youthful idealist, teeming with energy and reform-minded ambition." Without this information, the casual observer of Pakistani politics can easily conclude that the government and its people are merely confused, duplicitous, careless - or all three.

It is hard to argue with the claim that knowing Pakistan is critical to understanding the U.S.-Pakistan relationship. But what of the Pakistanis - do they not need to understand why the United States behaves the way it does? Markey's approach puts the entire onus on the Americans to understand how complex Pakistan can be.

While he does outline a comprehensive set of options for managing the U.S.-Pakistan relationship - ranging from looking beyond Afghanistan, waiting until after 2014, "defensive isolation" which involves ending formal cooperation, to comprehensive cooperation - he fails to suggest which specific path the countries should take, or even how the United States and Pakistan might prioritize the management or mitigation of threats over time. Markey simply recommends that the solution for this troubled relationship is nothing other than "patient, sustained effort, not by way of quick fixes or neglect" and that "managing or mitigating threats over time is a more realistic expectation." But is he speaking for the United States, Pakistan, or both? It is not clear.
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(Salman)Rushdie writes:

Wherever I turn, there is something of which to be ashamed. But shame is like everything else; live with it for long enough and it becomes part of the furniture...you can find shame in every house, burning in an ashtray, hanging framed upon a wall, covering a bed. But nobody notices it any more. And everyone is civilized.

Rushdie's final reminder is simply: "Shame, dear reader, is not the exclusive property of the East."

While the anguish of Sartre's No Exit resonates strongly with the current psychology of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship, Rushdie's commentary on shame is a much stronger parallel. It too recognizes that both countries pursue their own interests even as they inflict harm upon themselves and each other. But it focuses on a much more embarrassing aspect of the mutual vulnerability: the fact that the harm, which has become so prevalent, is unacknowledged. Yet both move forward together because, as Markey says, "this is not a friendly game, but out of it both sides can still benefit," even though there is much to be ashamed about.

http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/11/06/no_exit_from_pakistan

[Riaz Haq]

Cornell West published a critical short essay in The Guardian on Sunday. In one passage, West characterizes Coates’ perspective as “narrow racial tribalism” and “myopic neoliberalism”.

West accuses Ta-Nehise Coates of “fetishizing” white supremacy and “profiteering” off of “fatalism about white supremacy.” Coates, West claims, is essentially writing moralizing-guilt-porn for white neoliberals “who have no intention of sharing power or giving up privilege.”

West also turns the screws on Coates’ hero-worship of former President Barack Obama. “Coates praises Obama as a ‘deeply moral human being’ while remaining silent on the 563 drone strikes, the assassination of US citizens with no trial, the 26,171 bombs dropped on five Muslim-majority countries in 2016 and the 550 Palestinian children killed with the US supported planes in 51 days etc.”

Ultimately, West accuses Coates of having a defunct understanding of black history. His evidence includes Coates’ comparison of Malcolm X and Barack Obama.

“This gross misunderstanding of who Malcolm X was – the greatest prophetic voice against the American Empire – and who Barack Obama is – the first black head of the American Empire – speaks volumes about Coates’ neoliberal view of the world.”

After this piece was published, Coates took to Twitter to defend himself against the criticisms of the sexagenarian. Ultimately he wrote “Peace y’all. I’m out. I didn’t get in it for this.”

West has published many books, recorded an album that featured Andre 3000, Prince, and members of the Wu-Tang Clan, and has taught at Harvard and Union Theological Seminary. Dr. West cites Coltrane and Checkov as the greatest artistic influences in his life.

https://nypost.com/2017/12/19/best-selling-author-deletes-twitter-a...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/17/ta-nehisi-coa...

[Riaz Haq]

Sour grapes India: Pakistan has clearly won in Afghanistan
September 21, 2021, 2:52 PM IST

By Sunil Sharan in Strategic Insights, India, World, TOI

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/strategic-insights/sour-g...

Much hand-wringing and hair-pulling is going on in India over Pakistan’s “1971” moment. Actually Pakistan has had two 1971 moments. Once when they ejected the Soviets from Afghanistan in 1989, and now.

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The fight then is clear. It is white Christian nations versus brown Muslim nations. The US has been involved in the following campaigns after 9/11: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen. All Muslim nations. It has met defeat in Afghanistan and Iraq, and been dealt a bruising blow in Libya, Syria and Yemen. Estimate of Muslim lives lost from war and displacement caused by war since 9/11 vary between five and ten million.

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Much is being made of Blinken’s statement that the US would like to see Pakistan evolve the way it, the US, wishes. This is just wishful thinking. When the Americans were all over Afghanistan (and Pakistan), they could not force the Pakistanis to do what they wanted to do. Now that they have hightailed out of Afghanistan, are we expected to believe that the US has more leverage over Pakistan now than before?

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Other than the US, the country that has clearly lost out in Afghanistan is India. For 20 years, India has poured over $3 billion in aid and reconstruction into Afghanistan, all of which, in a jiffy, has just landed in the hands of the Taliban. Pakistan has now become without doubt emboldened to launch a second jihad to liberate Kashmir from India. India cannot be naïve and altruistic anymore. It has to ramp up support for Pakistan’s Baloch rebels as well as instigate the Taliban in amalgamating Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province into Afghanistan, a long-cherished dream of its.


India just cannot afford to be a mute and idle spectator in the AfPak region. Its very survival is at risk. Pakistan has often accused India of fomenting terrorism in its own territory through the Pakistani Taliban. But think about this. The Pakistani Taliban wants to impose sharia in Pakistan, just as it’s been now imposed in Afghanistan.

But Pakistan’s Muslims are Hinduized. They don’t want sharia, just as India doesn’t want an enormous territory on its western flank under sharia. It is in India’s interest that Pakistan stays Hinduized. Why then would India support the Pakistani Taliban?