US journalist and commentator Peter Chamberlin [Therearenosunglasses's Weblog] makes some insightful comments on my report below. He has written with insight on Pakistani affairs. He believes Pakistani military cooperation with US plans for our region is an important part of the problem and that Pakistani patriots are giving the Pakistani military a pass on its role. Like the Pakistani society, opinions and analysis vary within the Pakistani military on US strategic role in our region. Mr. Chamberlin's comments here should help the debate. Read his comments in red below.
By PETER CHAMBERLIN
Tuesday, 10 November 2009.
WWW.AHMEDQURAISHI.COM
Ahmed,
I felt like commenting on your fine report, when I posted on my website. I posted it as a comment on the article, but I thought you might like to see it as it was written. Keep hammering, maybe reason might persuade your leaders to oppose mine.
Peter
Peter
American Psyops Destroying Pakistani Morale
[Ahmed is a great patriotic defender of Pakistan and he always calls the political leaders out when they sell-out. Like most Pakistani patriots though, he is hesitant to criticize the Army for the trouble that is boiling over there, even though Army cooperation with the United States is perhaps the biggest problem of all. Like I have been trying to point out for a couple of years, if the Army continues to cooperate with US planners and behind the scenes maneuvers, then Pakistan will not likely survive much longer. The Army must convince Obama that it works for the Pakistani people and not for him. It does this by resisting American calls for civil war and restoring all the displaced Pashtuns back to their homes and filling them with the will to resist.]
Nuclear Doubts: Pakistani Weakness Is Eroding Internal Morale, Fast
By AHMED QURAISHI
Tuesday, 10 November 2009.
[Strange as it seems, that is the way that the CIA undermines nations--it purposely complicates situations it wants to change, so that it can knock them down later. It is of strategic value to keep the nuclear issue in conflict. It is not really looking for cooperation on the nuclear issue, rather it is looking for complete capitulation to American Zionist demands.]
In May, when Boston Globe published a similar story quoting unnamed and unverifiable sources revealing that Pakistani officials have accepted a proposal to ship some highly enriched uranium to the United States for disposal, there was no reference whatsoever to Pakistani military. The Globe depicted the talks as a government-to-government exercise.
For all intents, the latest story seeks to embarrass the Pakistani military. This probably explains the immediate reaction of the US Ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Patterson. Not that she actually denied the alleged talks. Her written statement was carefully worded to deny her government's "intention to seize Pakistani nuclear weapons or material."
[Patterson was probably telling a diplomat's version of the "truth," they don't intend to "seize" Pakistan's nukes, they expect the Army to simply hand them over.]
The element of embarrassment also explains the statement of Pakistan’s Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Tariq Majid, who made it a point to respond to the question, 'How much does US really know about Pakistan's nuclear program?' In a sharp public retort uncommon to Pakistan's top military brass, Gen. Majeed answered, ‘Only that much as they can guess and nothing more’.
Important parts of Mr. Seymour Hersh's investigative story remain unaddressed. No government or military official has confirmed or denied the revelation in the New Yorker that former President Pervez Musharraf shared with US officials information about the number of warheads, their locations and their security plan. Considering the embarrassing concessions that he gave the Americans (he allowed US diplomats, officials and military personnel unprecedented privileges at Pakistani airports at a time when Pakistani officials were humiliated on entry to US. Pakistan has withdrawn those concessions.)
[There should be no doubt in Pakistan, even within the Army, that Musharraf handed the country to Bush and waged war against the people afterwords, to please him. Why wouldn't the keys already be in US hands?]
(It is also important to question some of Mr. Hersh's findings, which border on the ridiculous. The last time Mr. Hersh visited Pakistan was five years ago by his own statement. Yet he concluded that since the few politicians, journalists and retired generals he met this time did not offer him Johnny Walker Black this must be a sign of growing religious extremism in Pakistan and in the ranks of Pakistan military. At other places, he has exaggerated the impact of two retired army officers that he interviewed on soldiers and middle rank officers. Mr. Hersh appeared to have made little effort to use his visit to the country to try to understand the real Pakistan. Instead, he felt comfortable regurgitating media stereotypes. Which is fine since his report fits in with the overall US political and military policy thrust with regards to Pakistan.)
Mr. Hersh's report comes six months after the Boston Globe story that broke the news on behind-the-scenes talks between Islamabad and Washington on US proposals to secure Pakistan's nuclear weapons, including a US suggestion to ship out Pakistani uranium. No one in Islamabad denied the story at the time. The fixed Pakistani response to such stories has not changed much in recent years: that Pakistan has an excellent command and control regime and that Pakistan does not need outside help to secure its arsenal.
So, is the Pakistani government or military really talking secretly with the Americans on how to secure Pakistani nukes?
One explanation that retired military officers are giving is that Pakistani officers may be talking nukes to the Americans but not giving them the right information. If true, this policy line seeks to keep the Americans engaged with Pakistan without allowing Washington any real access.
This is not farfetched. Pakistani civilian and military governments have perfected a uniquely Pakistani version of the American idiom, 'to roll with the punches and survive to fight another day.' Only that Pakistan never really fights even for what is its legitimate right. Under this policy, Islamabad has accepted on several occasions to play along, live with the accusations and insinuations about its nuclear program, and hope to stall, engage, and win over the antagonistic elements of the Washington establishment, both political and military.
But the latest report takes the debate to a new level. Pakistani officials grappling with the PR aspect of this story need to consider the following:
1. The latest report is particularly demoralizing for ordinary Pakistanis, in the backdrop of an overall deteriorating strategic environment for Pakistani interests, internal and external. Pakistan's national security managers, civilian and military, need to pay attention to the hypothetical threshold of national morale. Dangerously low levels of national morale could prove fatal in case of war with India or a US-led military invasion of Pakistani territory from Afghanistan.
[Wearing-out an opponent, without having to actually fight, is the purpose of CIA and military psyops. When, and if, Pakistani morale sinks so low that agency planners expect complete capitulation with the next shock, then the final shock will soon come, psychological assault will intensify. It is the "shock doctrine" and the theory of "learned helplessness" rolled into one. The close cooperation between American and Pakistani military leaders makes it highly unlikely that Kayani and the generals don't understand what is happening. By looking the other way so often, whenever US operatives are taking actions that are harmful to Pakistan, the Army shares in the guilt for what is being done. This is the deadly problem that will finish Pakistan off, if left as is.]
2. Is there someone in Washington, within its political, military and intelligence communities that might have an interest in embarrassing Pakistani officials who are allegedly engaged in secret nuclear talks with Washington? Is someone trying to sabotage policy initiatives of the Obama administration? In such a case, Pakistani officials – especially in the Pakistani intelligence community – need to give more weight to reports that anti-Pakistan activities orchestrated on Afghan soil cannot happen without some level of American involvement.
[Ahmed is being too generous concerning American intentions, but he is dead-on about US and NATO forces being complicit in any Indian action against Pakistan from Afghani soil. Launching attacks against Pakistan from US-controlled territory would require US consent, just like in the case of Israel attacking Iran through US-controlled airspace, it can't be done without American permission.]
3. That the US media continues to cause tremendous damage to Pakistan's reputation and standing in the international community. Pakistan is receiving enemy treatment from the US media. Pakistani officials must understand that US media cannot mount similar attacks on other countries such as Turkey and Egypt because leaderships in those countries generally keep US officials on a leash and leverage Washington's strategic needs to their favor. In Pakistan, we have a ruling elite that is micromanaged from Washington, thanks to a deal that former President Musharraf signed with Washington and London.
[Pakistan will continue to be a pariah nation because of the armies of Islamists that it has trained for the CIA. Until Kayani and the generals stop covering-up what amounts to a shared criminal enterprise run for the CIA, Pakistan will take the fall for the entire operation, by itself, America is off the hook. The world is slowly coming to realize what was done in FATA and NWFP, because the graduates of the militant academies which were established there have been plying the trade they learned there all over the world. The world is holding Pakistan accountable for the terrorism these militants are commiting, no matter what. Pakistan will go down alone, unless the generals prove to the world that this has been an American enterprise all along, which they merely been managing and operated under a deadly contract that began in 1979.]
4. The New Yorker report harms the image of the Pakistani military leadership in the eyes of the soldiers and officers in middle and lower ranks. This is especially relevant to the debate raging in official US circles about a mutiny within the Pakistan army. Some American policymakers are deliberately using Afghanistan to push Pakistan to the wall in the hope that instability in Pakistan would reach a level where it could trigger a mutiny inside the Pakistani military against both the military leadership and the government. Anyone who knows Pakistan will instantly understand that this notion is exaggerated, but this US debate should tell Pakistan's military leadership and people something about the destructive line of policy thinking that Washington is pursuing in Pakistan's neighborhood.
[Some of the attacks, even some being committed on the Army, are being done by "former" military and ISI men, usually blamed on Taliban. Consider the officers involved in the attacks on Musharraf and the attack upon GHQ . There is secret cooperation between the CIA and some unnamed officers of the Army on some level that amounts to waging war against the locals.]
Common wisdom in both the Pakistani political elite and some parts of the military bureaucracy says that 'engaging' the Americans on the subject of the security of Pakistani nukes can be beneficial to Pakistan. It would keep Washington engaged. It would provide opportunities to milk the Americans of more aid money.
But no one in the policymaking circles is apparently weighing the downside: The 'engagement' is emboldening the Americans. The 'engagement' – or secret talks, call them whatever you want – are sending the wrong signals to ordinary Pakistanis at a time when more of our people are convinced that Pakistan's troubles stem from American failures in Afghanistan.
Pakistani schools and colleges are under attack when those in Iraq and Afghanistan are safe. This is happening because of American policy blunders and not just because of extremism inside Pakistan. Our problems are also the result of Islamabad refusing to submit completely to the US military strategy that wants to give India a larger role in Afghanistan. Pakistan, with a strong military and intelligence setup, is an obstacle in this strategy.
[That is precisely why American planners are working so hard to take Pakistan out of the way. If they succeed in destroying the morale of the brave people of Pakistan, then a whole new level of pain will sweep over the land, with the idea of washing Pakistan back upon Indian shores.]
Email from a reader, Mr. Zeeba Khan to PakNationalists:
I think the problem in this country is that there is a race going on between the civilian and the military leadership to excel in terms of loyalty to the Americans. The interests of 170 mn people of this country is of no consequesnce. The most important thing is to pursue US interests, so that personal gains can be reaped from the situation. The accusation by Seymour Hersch has been accepted by the top military brass by stating that they are engaging the Americans. Whether these engagements lead to pursuing Pakistan's interests or the personal interests of the 'engagers' remains to be seen. In the past personal interests have triumphed over national interests.
There is evidence to show that Pakistan army is totally committed to US interests. The military operations in Swat and Waziristan are proofs. Even when proofs of US involvement in Pakistan were found with the discovery of US arms from Swat (or Waziristan) ISPR spokesperson Gen Athar Abbas stated that these were stolen US arms. The army found the arms and ISPR spokesperson knew even before any investigation had been conducted that these were stolen arms. US interests are closer to his heart than Pakistan's.
This is my reply to a question emailed to me on Seymour Hersh's report of secret nuclear talks between US and the Pakistani military:
ReplyDeleteThe army is NOT sold out. Yes, there are people inside it who argue for close ties with America on strategic grounds, just as there are people who do so in the public domain in Pakistan. My effort is to show that the policy of looking the other way when the Americans are seriously damaging Pakistan's global standing is not a wise policy. Appeasement is damaging us and giving us little strategic benefit. The proponents of accepting this Pakistan-bashing by the Americans say this is necessary or else the US will go to India. But the US is already doing so. So what's the point of appeasement? And what is the point at which we will say enough is enough. Aside from this debate, let me just say that I strongly believe none of us should have any doubts that Pakistan's armed forces will never let the nation down and that our daughters and sons will protect the homeland from threats internal and external.