No sympathy for a rogue state
Pakistan had it coming, for not behaving like a dutiful client state
by SHASTRI RAMACHANDARAN
NATIONS, like individuals, have multiple identities and may be seen in ways that are not flattering to their self-image. In the wake of the US transgressing Pakistani sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity to kill Osama bin Laden, there’s little sympathy for India’s western neighbour as a victim. The general view is that Pakistan not only had it coming, but was asking for it.
Because it is a US client state. Pakistan may be America’s favourite in the Muslim world and in South Asia, but it is also America’s favourite whipping boy. It keeps feeding goodies – over $20 billion in the past 10 years – to this baddie in the hope that it will aid the US in its fight against terrorism. Far from doing that, Pakistan failed to deliver as a dutiful client state. Instead of aiding the US fight against terror, Pakistan’s “deep state” – an euphemism for the military and its intelligence wing, the Inter-Services Intelligence – was hand-in-glove with select terrorist groups, perhaps spawned by it.
Whenever the nexus between state agencies, like the Army, and terrorists was exposed, the government scoffed at these reports. These links were dismissed as rogue elements in the ISI and Army. Less than 10 days before bin Laden was killed, Maj-Gen Athar Abbas, Director-General of Inter-Services’ Public Relations, told visiting Indian journalists in Rawalpindi that there was not the least truth in reports linking the ISI to terrorists.
“We have suffered huge casualties, an average of 10 every day in 2009, and ISI offices have been targets of terrorist attacks. We won’t harm our own (men and cause),” said Maj-Gen Abbas. Around the same time, the Army chief, Gen Ashfaq Kayani, speaking at a military academy in the vicinity of bin Laden’s hideout, claimed to have “broken the back of terrorism” in Pakistan. And, all along, it was supporting and harbouring terrorists of diverse shades such as the Al-Qaeda factions, the Afghan Taliban, the Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Jaish-e-Muhammad. The Army went after the Pakistan Taliban alone, because it was a threat to Pakistan.
The US, like India, knows this. The US drone attacks were aimed at wiping out factions other than LeT and JeM in Pakistan’s Northwest and on the Afghanistan border. But the drones were killing more civilians than terrorists, provoking outrage and protests.
As a client state, Pakistan could do little about it. A client state is a country that is economically, politically, or militarily dependent on another country – like Pakistan on the US. So, though the drone attacks were condemned by all sections, including Parliament, the government, political parties and the armed forces, the US did not relent.
For all its protests, Washington is only too aware of Pakistan’s impotence in standing up to the US. Thus, we have the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Admiral Mike Mullen, landing in Islamabad on April 20, on what is now known was a recce for taking out bin Laden. Whoever he wanted to meet, from the President down, had to be available.
Never mind the drone strikes, even after the loud protests over the intrusion to kill bin Laden, Pakistan’s political and military bosses are on bended knees when it comes to the US. In any other country, the Americans would have kept away, fearing public anger. Not in a client state, even if it is a rogue client state.
They troop in and out of Pakistan at their whim. The high-profile Senator John Kerry, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, visited Islamabad in mid-May and called on the generals in Rawalpindi before talks with the President and Prime Minister. In a client state, force is what matters to an imperious power.
For all its noises about democracy and the need for civilian government to prevail over the armed forces, when it comes to business, America’s elected elite prefer the military bosses in Rawalpindi. Pakistan is a high-value and difficult client state, but its Army and Washington know that together they can stifle the people’s democratic aspirations.
The writer, who recently travelled to Pakistan, is a former Editor of Sunday Mail and was with China Daily and Global Times in Beijing.
Pakistan had it coming, for not behaving like a dutiful client state
by SHASTRI RAMACHANDARAN
NATIONS, like individuals, have multiple identities and may be seen in ways that are not flattering to their self-image. In the wake of the US transgressing Pakistani sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity to kill Osama bin Laden, there’s little sympathy for India’s western neighbour as a victim. The general view is that Pakistan not only had it coming, but was asking for it.Because it is a US client state. Pakistan may be America’s favourite in the Muslim world and in South Asia, but it is also America’s favourite whipping boy. It keeps feeding goodies – over $20 billion in the past 10 years – to this baddie in the hope that it will aid the US in its fight against terrorism. Far from doing that, Pakistan failed to deliver as a dutiful client state. Instead of aiding the US fight against terror, Pakistan’s “deep state” – an euphemism for the military and its intelligence wing, the Inter-Services Intelligence – was hand-in-glove with select terrorist groups, perhaps spawned by it.
Whenever the nexus between state agencies, like the Army, and terrorists was exposed, the government scoffed at these reports. These links were dismissed as rogue elements in the ISI and Army. Less than 10 days before bin Laden was killed, Maj-Gen Athar Abbas, Director-General of Inter-Services’ Public Relations, told visiting Indian journalists in Rawalpindi that there was not the least truth in reports linking the ISI to terrorists.
Instead of aiding the fight against terror, Pakistan’s ‘deep state’ was hand-inglove with terrorist groups.
“We have suffered huge casualties, an average of 10 every day in 2009, and ISI offices have been targets of terrorist attacks. We won’t harm our own (men and cause),” said Maj-Gen Abbas. Around the same time, the Army chief, Gen Ashfaq Kayani, speaking at a military academy in the vicinity of bin Laden’s hideout, claimed to have “broken the back of terrorism” in Pakistan. And, all along, it was supporting and harbouring terrorists of diverse shades such as the Al-Qaeda factions, the Afghan Taliban, the Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Jaish-e-Muhammad. The Army went after the Pakistan Taliban alone, because it was a threat to Pakistan.
The US, like India, knows this. The US drone attacks were aimed at wiping out factions other than LeT and JeM in Pakistan’s Northwest and on the Afghanistan border. But the drones were killing more civilians than terrorists, provoking outrage and protests.
As a client state, Pakistan could do little about it. A client state is a country that is economically, politically, or militarily dependent on another country – like Pakistan on the US. So, though the drone attacks were condemned by all sections, including Parliament, the government, political parties and the armed forces, the US did not relent.
For all its protests, Washington is only too aware of Pakistan’s impotence in standing up to the US. Thus, we have the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Admiral Mike Mullen, landing in Islamabad on April 20, on what is now known was a recce for taking out bin Laden. Whoever he wanted to meet, from the President down, had to be available.
Never mind the drone strikes, even after the loud protests over the intrusion to kill bin Laden, Pakistan’s political and military bosses are on bended knees when it comes to the US. In any other country, the Americans would have kept away, fearing public anger. Not in a client state, even if it is a rogue client state.
They troop in and out of Pakistan at their whim. The high-profile Senator John Kerry, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, visited Islamabad in mid-May and called on the generals in Rawalpindi before talks with the President and Prime Minister. In a client state, force is what matters to an imperious power.
For all its noises about democracy and the need for civilian government to prevail over the armed forces, when it comes to business, America’s elected elite prefer the military bosses in Rawalpindi. Pakistan is a high-value and difficult client state, but its Army and Washington know that together they can stifle the people’s democratic aspirations.
The writer, who recently travelled to Pakistan, is a former Editor of Sunday Mail and was with China Daily and Global Times in Beijing.
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