| ||||||||||||||
COMMENTARY:With Friends Like These
It seems that Pakistan's Musharraf is being rewarded for his help with the leak of nuclear secrets by top scientist, A. Q. Khan, to Libya, Iran, and North Korea, despite a good chance that Musharraf knew, turned a blind eye, and has since pardoned Khan. MNNA status brings a few plums with it --Pakistan gets to store US-owned military stockpiles outside US bases, gets easier terms and priority on defense purchases, and becomes eligible to buy depleted uranium ammunition. A rather tidy deal for a country which since its creation in 1947 has been front and center in the lurid annals of terrorism. In a 1998 interview, National Security Advisor Brzezinski admitted that the C.I.A., using Saudi money and working through Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), destabilized the pro-Soviet Afghan government deliberately in order to provoke an invasion that would lead to a Soviet Vietnam. Saudi Arabia and the US sent up to 40 billion dollars through the ISI to mujahedeen fighters from all over the world who, unaware of this, believed they were fighting a jihad against godless communism. Osama Bin Laden, with his Saudi royal ties, exactly fit the ISI bill for a Saudi connection that would ensure royal money flowing in. Meanwhile the rebels’ drug trafficking was tacitly sanctioned, the funds going to sponsor madrassas (schools of religious indoctrination) and military training. Former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto herself warned that, in funding Islamic freedom fighters, the US was creating a Frankenstein monster.
But the ISI's terrorist ties are even more blatant: Pakistan's Bank of Credit and Commerce International money (BCCI) did dirty work for practically every major terrorist network in the world; Saeed Sheikh, a central figure in the financing of 9/11, was earlier defended and trained by the ISI; the Taliban itself was midwifed by the ISI and therefore indirectly the CIA; ISI's head, Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Ahmed, was linked to the wiring of $100,000 to Mohammed Atta, one of the WTC bombers prior to 9/11 and met top US government officials both before and after the attack. All this is a matter of public record. So a theocratic military government which even the US government admits sponsors terrorism is now an ally and the press has nothing to say about it. Afghanistan is only the best known of Pakistan's terrorist credentials. Pakistan has had its hand in terrorism well before that, beginning with the bankrolling of insurgency in Kashmir soon after its ruler acceded to India. After pro-India Bangladesh leader Mujibur Rehman died, Bangladeshi intelligence started receiving ISI help to foment trouble on the eastern border of India. In the 1980's, the ISI was involved in funding Sikh fundamentalists fighting to dismember the western border. In this brazen politics, religious fundamentalists, Sikh or Muslim, are simply cannon fodder on the road to military objectives. What are we missing here? Could it be that the Bush government is not as interested in pursuing the terrorist threat as it is in covering up its own complicity with the ISI in creating the threat in the first place? Or is this all part of the 'great game" being played by the US and the UK for control of oil- and gas-rich Central Asia, from where fuel can be readily piped to the great Asian market? A game in which the control of Afghanistan, through which the most handy pipe line runs, is paramount. Otherwise, what are we to make of a government that courts Pakistan but ignores India, a country which has been democratic and secular since its start and has been actively fighting terrorism for much longer than the US? If we are judged by the company we keep, it may be high time for America to go out and make new friends. Leela Walter, a Baltimorean, did graduate work in International Relations at the School for Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University. She holds a master's degree from Hopkins and teaches part-time at universities in the Baltimore-DC area while working as a foreign policy analyst, free-lance writer, and peace activist. Copyright © 2004 The Baltimore Chronicle.
All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent. This story was published on March 29, 2004. |
Local News & Opinion
Travel
Books, Arts & Education
Letters
Ref. : Letters to the editor Open Letters: 08.16 Out Damn Blot: A Letter to Colin Powell Health & Environment
08.14 The End of Cheap Oil: The Future is Now Media Watching
09.06 McCain-Palin: 'Phonies Squared' 08.31 Lady and the Gramp: The Sinister Diversion of the Palin Selection 08.28 Media Cheer Biden Choice 08.27 War With Russia Is On The Agenda 08.26 Appalling "New Look" for The Sun Signals Abdication of Journalistic Standards 08.21 Mixed Truth of the Russia-Georgia War 08.16 John McCain's Party of Hate 08.15 Corporate Media Bashes New Chavez Enabling Law Decrees 08.15 Georgia/Russia Conflict Forced Into Cold War Frame 08.13 WPost and the Great Disconnect 08.12 WPost Admits Bungling Obama Quote US Politics, Policy & Culture
09.06 Palin's 'Trooper-gate' Cover-up 09.06 Surge Protectors: Obama Embraces Bush-McCain Spin on Iraq 09.05 The Things They Left Behind (or Didn’t Remind You About) 09.05 Going on an Imperial Bender 09.05 Meet the Truth-Challenged GOP Vice Presidential Candidate: Sure A. Pallin' 09.04 The Anti-Obama Hate-Fest 09.04 Palin's 'Reformer' Myth 09.03 Did Palin Family Feud Affect Troopers? 09.02 Palin's Trouble with the Police 09.01 Minnesota Monster Mash: Police-State Zombies in a Dead Republic 08.31 Of All the Reasons McCain’s Palin Pick is Awful, Evidence of Her Abuse of Power is the Worst 08.30 McCain VP Pick Has History of Clashes 08.29 Great Speech, Big Questions, and a Curve Ball from McCain 08.28 Tongue of Flame: A Speech Presaging Endless War 08.28 Biden, Obama and The Blood-Dimmed Tide 08.28 Foreign Policy and National Security Are Not the Same Thing 08.27 Judge Rebuffs White House Immunity 08.27 What a McCain Victory Would Mean 08.22 Maybe We Should Just Hope the Republicans Win This Thing... 08.22 Loserville - Obama moves right 08.21 McCain's Ties to Neocon Hard Lines 08.21 Peace Mom v. Guardian of Power 08.20 Are You Ready For Nuclear War? 08.19 A Book Written to Defeat Obama 08.19 McCain's 'Cone of Silence' Caper 08.14 Is Perpetual War Our Future? 08.12 5 Years After Blackout, Power Grid Still in 'Dire Straits' 08.12 Olympic Shame 08.12 Thinking About Intermissions 08.11 ‘Medaling’ With Free Speech at the Olympics 08.11 Targeting Immigrants - The Largest Ever US ICE Raid US High Crimes & Misdemeanors
09.05 The real ‘Wrecking Crew’ -- not “conservatives,” but neoconservatives 09.05 Work of Evil: Beyond the Worst-Case Scenario in Somalia 09.04 Rebel Yell: Resistance and Renaissance in the Age of Terror 09.04 Katrina Redux 08.25 The Smash of Civilizations 08.22 Priming the Pump With Missile Defense: Empty Gestures Full of Blood 08.20 Musharraf, Not Bush, Follows Nixon 08.18 Fear, Procurement, Profit: Permanent War and the American Way 08.17 This Time, the World Is Not Buying It 08.15 'Imminent' Threats Should Be a Belli Laugh Economics & Business
International
09.03 Putin's Ruthless Gambit 09.01 Stoking Tensions, Risking Confrontation: A High Stakes US Gamble with Russia 08.28 Bush Escalates Tensions with Russia 08.28 Torture As Official Israeli Policy 08.25 Thinking About Cement 08.25 Reinventing the Evil Empire 08.18 Blockades: Acts of War 08.17 Rice’s Recipe for Duck Soup 08.14 The Lawless Roads: Bluster in Georgia, Rank Tyranny at Home 08.14 Marching Through Georgia V: U.S. Forces Moving Into Putin's Powderkeg 08.14 Marching Through Georgia IV: The Butt Thumper and the Bear 08.13 Using Georgia to Target Russia 08.12 From Stupid to Moronic to Evil 08.11 Marching Through Georgia III: Reality's Rout and Cheney's Viagra 08.11 Marching Through Georgia II: The Kremlin Surge We are a non-profit Internet-only newspaper publication founded in 1973. Your donation is essential to our survival.
|
| ||||||||||||