The grand design

A.B. Shahid
25-10-07

We believe that there are only seven great wonders. We are dead wrong; many more keep surfacing each day. For instance, within three days of what the Newsweek rightly calls "the deadliest terrorist bombing in Pakistan's history", it published an elaborate study in its October 29 issue (October 22 edition) wherein it concluded, that "the most dangerous nation in the world isn't Iraq. It's Pakistan." The miraculous reaction speed of the magazine is indeed amazing.
Aside from the grammatical confusion this slogan contains, the important part is that the magazine chose to paste it in bold letters on its cover page over a background photograph of visibly disgusted Pakistanis that the magazine would like the world to visualize as dangerous, although, after calling Pakistanis the most dangerous nation in the world, towards the end of the long article, its authors (including a Pakistani) admit that "few Pakistanis have any desire to live under the militants' rule". What an ending for an article that brands the whole nation as dangerous!
Equally important is the timing of the magazine's disclosure of its shocking but obviously considered opinion of the Pakistani nation. It virtually accompanied Ms. Benazir on her return to Pakistan on the wings of US and British support bringing to an end her eight-year long self-imposed exile, and her commitment (obviously to these backers) to expose Dr. Qadeer Khan, Pakistan's tainted nuclear wizard, to questioning by the IAEA.
It marks the beginning of a campaign to discredit Pakistan's nuclear capability and, thereafter, repeat the exercise that foreshadowed the second invasion of Iraq. Not surprisingly, therefore, the extended article comprehensively tries to establish three things: unhindered countrywide reach of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, their visible penetration of the country's intelligence agencies, and the regime's desire to preserve them as "strategic weapons against India".
In the context of the extremists' reach the article says, "Today, no other country on earth is arguably more dangerous than Pakistan. It has everything Osama bin Laden could ask for: political instability, a trusted network of radical Islamists, an abundance of angry young anti-Western recruits, secluded training areas, access to state-of-the-art electronic technology, regular air service to the West and security services that don't always do what they're supposed to do" and "Taliban and Qaeda elements have now turned much of the country, including some cities, into a base that gives Jihadists more room to manoeuvre, both in Pakistan and beyond".
In the context of their penetration of intelligence agencies the article quotes an unnamed Western diplomat, who reportedly told the authors (a time-honoured device authors use to project their own point of view) that, "I'm sure there are intelligence officials, active and retired, who have dealt with the Taliban in the past and still support their cause. That's the power of personal relationships over time."
In the context of preserving these terrorists as a strategic weapon against India, no argument has been advanced. Nor does it suggest much about how terrorists will gain access to Pakistan's nuclear facilities except quoting Bruce Riedel, a former Director of US National Security Council who reportedly told the authors that "if you were to look around the world for where Al Qaeda is going to find its bomb, it's right in their backyard," and that "…radicals would not need to steal a whole bomb".
Although the article is designed to fuel a concerted campaign, it is based on a weak edifice. For instance, its strange finger pointing (using Pervez Hoodbhoy, of Quaid-i-Azam University) at Pakistan for not declaring "how much highly enriched uranium it has produced in the past and how much remains in existing stocks". One would be interested in knowing whether all nuclear powers release these figures, and has Pervez Hoodbhoy or Newsweek, ever published or even seen those figures.
He uses same argument to imply the likelihood of terrorists' access to nuclear material when he says, "No one has a real idea about that [production of enriched uranium]. That means that stuff could have gotten out. Little bits here or there." The basis for voicing this suspicion is press advertisements, reportedly published (and quickly discontinued) by Pakistan's Atomic Energy Agency, "instructing the public about how to recognize radioactive materials and their symbols". Most of us would find it hard to recall this event. Besides, could it also not be a possibility that this event was aimed at facilitating the doubts Pervez Hoodbhoy later expressed.
The article advances the theory that Pakistan has been a ticking time-bomb from its inception because it was founded by a "whisky-swilling" Mohammed Ali Jinnah who "used Islam (source of all militancy according to the Neocons) to forge a sense of national identity" and, later, "Gen. Zia ul-Haq turned Pakistan into a base for the Mujahidin waging war on the Soviets in Afghanistan-and won billions in American aid in the process".
Describing the illustrious Mr. Jinnah, as the articles' authors chose to do, shows the extent to which they fell in pursuit of their (or is it somebody else's?) agenda - prepare a case for invading Pakistan the way some of their comrades prepared the case for invading Iraq. That there is such a move is also proved by the recent outbursts of some of the Presidential candidates, one of them going as far as describing how, step by step, he will proceed to achieve this end.
The most shocking aberration is branding Pakistan as the originator of the insurgency in Afghanistan, which was wholly the handiwork of the US, right from 1978. The authors conveniently forget that when a bewildered President Lyndon Johnson called his erstwhile Secretary of State to find out the cause of the infighting in Afghanistan, the Secretary delightfully replied "Mr. President we are giving Soviet Union 'its' Viet Nam". Whether the Soviet Union got its Viet Nam or the US many more of its own since 9/11 is a matter of individual judgment.
It is saddening that most US politicians (and the authors of the article in question) make repeated shabby attempts at covering up the US role in the creation, at first of the Mujahedin, then the Al-Qaeda and then the Taliban - the curse that Pakistan was lumbered with by none other than the US. These outfits were supported by the US as long as it suited US interests, and then thrown off the table as dry crumbs. Whether these outfits are good or bad, they have a reason to hate the US (and Pakistan as its 'trusted' ally) although hate most certainly is the most horrible human instincts.
The article amazes its readers because its authors seem to know so many of the terrorists that both US and IASF want to hunt down, and the authors also seem to have bafflingly convenient access to them in Afghanistan as well as in Pakistan. Perhaps "that's the power of personal relationships over time. You don't cut those off abruptly", that the authors have alluded to "…[the Pakistani government's] guys in contact with the Talibs."
The apparent cordiality between American press reporters and terrorists boggles your mind because the other side of the coin shows these two groups waging a war at your expense. It is hard to decipher who is whose friend, and who is whose enemy. The tragic part is that Pakistanis have to pay the price for US sins and also be damned by misguided, self-righteous or simply "inspired" authors in the Western media.
They claim to know every truth and also exercise the divine authority to decide which is the most dangerous nation although history of the last two centuries clearly passes a judgment against their own nations. What makes the offence worse is that Pakistanis too aid and abet in this moral crime for. What little there is in it for the Pakistani contributors is not hard to imagine - some temporary personal gains. What a miserable price for inflicting a huge damage on themselves!