Pakistan, Part Deux

Pakistan, Part Deux

Last week I ended with a remark from a former Pakistani

President, Ayub Khan, that “it was dangerous to be a friend of the

U.S.” Last week, Prime Minister Sharif learned this lesson when

he was toppled by his former army chief of staff, General

Musharraf.

Last summer, after more than 2 months of clashes between Indian

and Pakistani forces, Sharif bowed to U.S. pressure during a visit

to Washington. One official said later that the prime minister

“had brought disgrace to the Pakistani army by bowing down

before the U.S. administration for an abrupt pullout.” The army

was in a state of turmoil afterwards. The government had

betrayed them.

Of course it was Musharraf who first authorized the incursion

into the disputed region of Kashmir. Musharraf was humiliated.

And later, when India shot down a Pakistani navy training flight,

killing 16, Sharif had rejected Musharraf”s demand for a tit-for-tat

response against India.

On top of the dissension that was developing, Pakistan”s military

leadership didn”t want the country to sign the Comprehensive

Test Ban Treaty until India agreed to sign it. Sharif, under

pressure from Washington, wanted to sign.

[Those who blasted the Republicans for voting down the treaty

last week should know that there is little chance India and

Pakistan will sign, regardless of whether or not the U.S. does].

Was Prime Minister Sharif a good man? No. He was a corrupt,

ugly figure, rivaling the worst in Pakistan”s history. And once

under house arrest, no one took up Sharif”s cause which speaks

volumes in itself. So now the question becomes what kind of man

is Musharraf?

Musharraf, 56, has a brother who is a resident of the U.S., as

well as a son living in Cambridge, MA. He speaks fluent English.

He is known to be a courageous military man yet not very bright.

And, most importantly as it concerns world peace, he is a hawk

on India.

Back in the 1980s, half of the Pakistani generals had been through

U.S. training schools. Now the figure is 10% or less. We have

lost touch with our ally”s military leadership and that isn”t a good

thing.

Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, herself a totally corrupt

figure who ruled from 1988 to 1990 and 1993 to 1996, had the

following to say when asked by a Newsweek reporter to

comment on the awful situation in her country. “Many Pakistanis

have been talking about this – that we need to wake up and save

our own nation because the rest of the world can”t save us.”

But Pakistan has been a basket case since it was granted

independence in 1947. The military has ruled 25 of those 52

years. The question remains, “If Pakistanis are not competent to

govern themselves, why would Pakistanis wearing uniforms be

any different?” Let”s explore this in more detail.

Pakistan is one of those places I just don”t need to visit anytime

soon. When the Indian empire was split in 1947, it was split

between Hindus and Muslims. Hindus in India, Muslims in

Pakistan (though there is a large Muslim population in India as

well). A.M. Rosenthal has written that “Both India and Pakistan

have a powerful sliver of their population who are plain villains –

politicians who deliberately splinter their society instead of

knitting it, men of immense wealth who zealously evade taxes and

the public good, (and) religious bottom-feeders who spread

violence between Hindu and Muslim in India and Muslim and

Muslim in Pakistan.”

Robert Kaplan, author of the book “Balkan Ghosts” that I have

often referred to in the past, writes of the high population growth

in Pakistan, as well as other countries in similar situations like

India, Indonesia, and China. “Pakistan is just one of many

countries in which high population growth has fueled

urbanization, unemployment and depletion of resources, which

have made the state increasingly hard to govern except through

tyrannical means.”

Take the city of Karachi, for example. Teeming with 10 million

people (the total population in Pakistan is around 140 million),

and growing by 500,000 each year, many of the inhabitants live in

abject poverty. Huge numbers of young people reach working

age without any education or prospects of employment. It is a

breeding ground for extremist religious movements which are

often the product of urbanization because family links weaken in

impersonal cities and religion replaces the social cohesion of

village life. Karachi has witnessed an urban civil war among

Sunnis, Shiites and other groups.

Over time, the people have no other choice, it seems, but to turn

to the military for solutions. Steven Weisman writes, “The

original building blocks of Pakistani society – the clergy, military

and the wealthy feudal lords who owned most of the land – have

fractured. Today the military is split into secular and Islamic

camps. The landlord”s power has flowed to a newly wealthy

business class represented by former prime minister Sharif. The

clergy is split into factions, some of which are allied with Saudi

Arabia, Iran, the terrorist Osama bin Laden, the Taliban in

Afghanistan and others.” Weisman adds:

“The Pakistani army generals are trying to convince themselves

that defeat in Kashmir was snathched from the jaws of victory by

Sharif and his stupid diplomats. This theory recurs in Pakistani

history, and it is very dangerous.”

Pakistan spends about 30% of its government budget on its army

of 500,000 soldiers. By contrast, India spends 15% on the

military, a force which now numbers some 1.1 million. Pakistan

and India have fought countless wars and Pakistan has been

defeated each time. So to make up for its deficiencies, Pakistan

has felt it necessary to proceed with a nuclear missile program.

Of course, the fact that India is also proceeding with its own, only

compounds matters.

And who controls the nukes? Benazir Bhutto says that while she

was prime minister she had no control of the program. It was all

handled by the military. And when you look at the situation

today, with a new military dictatorship in the offing (don”t believe

all of these peace overtures Musharraf seems to be making), and a

leadership which has links to the Taliban of Afghanistan as well as

other Islamic terrorists, it”s easy to be worried.

As for the U.S. and their influence, it is virtually nonexistent. We

hitched our wagon during the Cold War to Pakistan over India.

That may have been a big mistake. And, after years of sanctions

levied on Pakistan to protest their nuclear program, we are now

at the mercy of a total stranger in Musharraf.

Pakistan has been a nation in desperate search for its identity. The

military seems to be defining Pakistan”s purpose as an endless

jihad against India. And as the country implodes, those nuclear

weapons that they possess, primitive as they may be, pose a real

threat to the world. A conflict here can escalate quickly.

Brian Trumbore

[You don”t expect me to write anything positive, do you?]