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Pakistan's Importance To North Atlantic Alliance

By Gulam Mitha

27 July, 2010
Countercurrents.org

Ever wonder what’s so important about Pakistan besides it being the front line country fighting terrorism on behalf of the US and NATO?

Richard Holbrooke has visited Pakistan so many times I can definitely vouch he himself, President Zardari, PM Gilani, FM Qureshi, General Kayani and the bureaucrats have lost count. His last visit was on 17 July, just one day after Pakistan’s FM met India’s. This uneventful dialogue resulted in one up for India. On 18 July, the US Secretary of State was in Islamabad. Holbrooke and Clinton met with Zardari, Gilani, Qureshi and Kayani followed by the so called strategic meeting on 19 July. Another top dignitary, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen flew into Islamabad on 21 July for talks on defence co-operation and security . Admiral Mike Mullen visited Islamabad on 24 July following his 2 day visit to India, spitting out harsh words.

No one, including Pakistanis, will unfortunately ever know the details behind these high level visits and meetings. They’ll just, as usual, scratch their heads, cook up theories and go about their business. Pakistanis have become used to these secretive meetings which are always about the war on terror, defence cooperation, security and peace talks of some kind or the other. The war on terror is akin to the cold war against the Soviets, defence cooperation is about more drone attacks against civilians, security is about providing security for US and the Afghanistan government and peace talks is about how further to create the illusion of one. Barring conspiracy theories, what’s in it for the people of Pakistan? The answer is the following:

a) More aid is on the way b) inflation spiralling upwards c) shortage of basic food items d) Increasing suicide attacks by terrorists e) Increasing instability f) a sinking economy, g) Power and fuel shortages and h) more pretext killings of innocent civilians by drones.

A small clarification to the above list. The aid is not for Pakistan but for the army and the feudal landlords that eventually get funnelled into the bank accounts of the feudal elitists. The army brass may not benefit the way civilian government does but the aid keeps the guns firing on the “terrorists” whose numbers are, interestingly, not diminishing but surprisingly increasing within the nation. Aid has become an addiction for Pakistan’s “feudal democracy” meaning democracy for the elite only.

As part of the strategic meeting, Pakistanis were told that their government has signed a very important deal allowing trade access from Afghanistan to India at the Wagah border crossing in Pakistan. What they were not told is that this deal was signed under duress during Clinton’s visit.

Not for nothing is the circus in Pakistan, a country governed by feudal and tribal landlords and Pirs (spiritual leaders). The Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Gilani and Qureshi, respectively, go by the titles of Makhdooms who too are religious tribal leaders besides being feudalists who’ve absolutely no understanding of politics. Gilani’s son is married to the grand-daughter of a very powerful, rich, feudal landlord known as Pir Pagara. The ulterior motives of these feudalists and powerful Pirs are accumulation of wealth, large landholdings and maintain a high level of poverty and ignorance among the masses. These people are synonymous to Rasputin (also a Pir ) who had control over the Czar family and thus the Russians. He was both revered and feared because of his supernatural powers. Similarly these Pirs and feudalists are also revered and feared by the peasants and illiterates who make up 75% of Pakistan’s population.

The line-up of dignitaries from US and NATO visiting Islamabad is certainly not for photo-ops, getting blessings from the Pirs, redressing Pakistan’s problems or improving the internal security situation which has been getting from bad to worse.

Pakistan has been playing with Constitutions since 1962 and the one Constitution that was adopted in 1973 has become a source of disputes among various political parties. The army too has twisted the Constitution since 1977 to justify their control so it’s really been a tug- of- war between the army and feudalists with the Judiciary joining in the charade since 2008. Nothing can be more fun for the US-NATO alliance than to watch this charade. It is ironical that the army and the feudalists are being dangled on thin strings by a western alliance that started the war on terror that has now been pushed from Afghanistan into Pakistan. The baton of the war on terror has passed from the western alliance into the hands of Pakistan’s army and the feudalists who are now terrorizing the citizens of Pakistan thus successfully implementing a part of the US-NATO plan.

If I was to take a guess about the intentions of the circus, it’d probably be that the US-NATO dignitaries keep coming and going out of Pakistan to ensure that the army and feudalists are doing their job according to the script and aid being provided and that the war on terror is going as planned. Never do dogs bite the hands that feed them. And then the dog is his master’s best friend. And of course the US-NATO has always been the Pakistan army and feudalists’ best friends though not Pakistan’s. Several of their families live in the US, Dubai and UK. The army and the feudalists can ill afford to bite the hands that feed them.

Finally a question to end this article. What then, after all, is US-NATO grand plan for Pakistan? I can provide a long list of conspiracies that float around but from my understanding of a report by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in August 2008 issued after the ouster of Musharraf (who, out of fear, now lives in Dubai), the man who got Pakistan into trouble in the first place and who best understands the game, it is denuclearization of Pakistan and I doubt that that would be a surprise to anyone including Pakistan’s army but as goes the saying in Latin “alia iacta est” (the die is cast). I’m not privy to the intricacies of the plan. This resides with a very small group of planners that maybe does not even include President Obama who along with Zardari, Gilani, Qureshi, Kayani are marionettes about whom Oscar Wilde correctly wrote ``there are many advantages to puppets. They never argue. They’ve no private lives”. After all, they’re simply objects who are packed up when the show has ended.