Will Pakistan be Fragmented?


Written by Latheef Farook • Special Features • December 2009

Will Pakistan, the only Muslim nuclear country, be fragmented as it was done in Iraq? This is the common fear among Pakistanis in view of the forces - United States, Europe and Israel - that turned Iraq and Afghanistan into slaughterhouses, appear to be responsible for the deepening quagmire unfolding in Pakistan.

Pakistanis fear that the US-led war on Islam and Muslims, under the guise of fighting a war on terrorism, Al Qaeda and Taliban, has now been extended to Pakistan. They believe their government is one of quislings and its actions are threatening the very survival of the country. What is more worrisome is that India remains an active partner in this US-led conspiracy to destabilise yet another Muslim country.

President Barack Obama signed the 7.5 billion dollar aid package in mid October 2009. Pakistanis consider the numerous conditions linked to the aid package as an insult to their country and many describe the package as a Big Bribe that will go into the usual pockets.

President Asif Zardari has obediently unleashed a ferocious ground and air attack in South Waziristan, using F-16s and helicopter gunships, indiscriminately killing innocent civilians and destroying their shelters. This has resulted in a public outrage accusing the government of betraying Pakistan's national interests at home, in Afghanistan and in Kashmir.

Hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, children and the aged have been made refugees overnight with no food, water or other essentials, the same it happened in Malakand and the Swat Valley in April this year.

Under this mercenary military offensive on Washington's orders, the Pakistani government also permitted US to secretly create a mercenary army inside Pakistan pushing the military to the point of revolt.

It appears that the American strategy in Pakistan is to pit the Pakistani government against the people, provoke a civil war and plunge the country into chaos to neutralise its nuclear arsenal that has been US neoconservatives' urgent priority. The Americans are not interested in Pakistan or its people. They only want collaborators and quislings and they have found a willing partner in the Asif Zardari government.

Some accuse the US of playing a double game by financing the Taliban and demanding the government to fight the Taleban. Justifying this fear, Pakistani daily The News reported that the US-led NATO forces vacated more than half a dozen security checkposts, together with some posts close to North Waziristan, on the Afghan side of the border, just five days before the Pakistani military offensive began.

This facilitated Afghan Taliban to cross over into Pakistan and support fighters in striking back at the Pakistani security forces in the troubled tribal area, raising many eyebrows in the government and military circles. Shocked and intrigued by its timing, the NWFP government and civilian and military officials alerted Islamabad.

Here is what Christine Fair of RAND Corporation had to say about what the Indian consulates are up to in Afghanistan and Iran:

"I think it would be a mistake to completely disregard Pakistan's regional perceptions due to doubts about Indian competence in executing covert operations. That misses the point entirely. In addition, I think it is unfair to dismiss the notion that Pakistan's apprehensions about Afghanistan stem in part from its security competition with India. Having visited the Indian mission in Zahedan, Iran, I can assure you they are not issuing visas as the main activity! Moreover, India has run operations from its mission in Mazar (through which it supported the Northern Alliance) and is likely doing so from the other consulates it has reopened in Jalalabad and Qandahar along the border. Indian officials have told me privately that they are pumping money into Balochistan."

However, Pakistanis consider America to be the greatest threat, worse than arch rival India, to their sovereignty and independence. They are aware that already a map showing a truncated Pakistan has been in circulation and there is ever-growing collaboration between India, Afghanistan US, Europe and Israel.

Aggravating this fear, the US plans to build the second largest embassy in the world in Islamabad, after its embassy in Baghdad, and is reportedly demanding indirect veto power over promotions in Pakistan's armed forces and the ISI. This crude attempt to exert more US influence over Pakistan's 617,000-man military has enraged the armed forces and set off alarm bells.

It is common knowledge that India wanted to destabilise and partition Pakistan from the day it came into being in 1947. India played a crucial role in breaking up Pakistan and creating Bangladesh in its eastern wing.

India, hand in glove with America installed Hamid Karzai's puppet regime. India now has 14 consulates in Afghanistan from which RAW operates and the US has turned a blind eye to this fact. Pakistan has stockpiles of evidence against Indian consulates in Afghanistan that are used to fund terrorism in Pakistan through Baitullah Mehsud's TTP as well as Brahamdagh Bugti and his Baluch Liberation Army-BLA.

A dossier containing proof of India's involvement in "subversive activities" in Pakistan was handed over by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during their meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh in July 2009. The dossier, broadly covering the Indian connection in terror financing in Pakistan, is also said to have listed the safe houses being run by RAW in Afghanistan where terrorists are trained and launched for missions in Pakistan.

Afghan officials have also confirmed that India is using Afghan-istan to stir trouble in Pakistan. "India is using Afghan soil to destabilise Pakistan and Afghan security agencies are unable to stop Indian intervention due to absence of centralized government mechanism", said Afghan Government's Advisor, Ehsanullah Aryanzai on sidelines of Pak-Afgan Parliamentary Jirga at a local hotel on April 2, 2009.

Meanwhile after Pakistan launched its military strike there were several deadly bomb explosions including the one on the International Islamic University in Islamabad and the marketplace in Peshawar.

Taleban denied responsibility. However, analysts were quick to accuse the notorious US security firm Blackwater, known for its heinous crimes - rape, torture and bombings - in Iraq and Afghanistan, perhaps aimed at putting the government and the so-called Taleban against each other.

Erik Prince, the founder and the boss of Blackwater, the world's most powerful mercenary army, accused in court papers of seeking to wipe out Muslims, views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the planet, according to a former employee. These Blackwater mercenaries are in Pakistan and the question is why did the Pakistani government allow them into the country?

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Pakistan on a stormy three day visit on 28 October to convey the Obama administration's support, praise the Pakistani government for its military offensive, and tackle rising anti-US feelings among the Pakistani people.

She was greeted with a sophisticated bomb explosion in the busy Meena Bazar market in Peshawar, killing more than 112 people - most of them innocent women and children. Taleban denied it so the question is who planted such a sophisticated bomb?

Hillary faced sharp rebukes from Pakistani citizens, students and journalists. She warned:"After South Waziristan, the Pakistanis will have to go on to root out other terrorist groups". She never spoke a word about the devastating impact on the entire civilian population in South Waziristan that has been forced to flee for their lives as villages and towns are being bombed into rubble.

The question is what next? Will Pakistan be the next Iraq? How far will the Pakistani government could go in killing its own people to please the US?

It appears a poem by Khalil Gibran written in 1934, and now in circulation in e-mails, suits Pakistan's current dilemma:

Pity the nation that raises not

its voice save when it walks in a

funeral, boasts not except among its

ruins, and will rebel not save when

its neck is laid between the sword

and the block.

Pity the nation whose statesman

is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler,

and whose art is the art of patching

and mimicking.