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Again and Again and Again
By lindamuralidharan on 2011-06-02 21:48:14
For many years I have agonized over the US relatons with Pakistan. Despite good aspirations among many people in
Pakistan, the people who ended up in positions of power almost always worked for the interests of their own class (rampant
upper level corruption), infighting and killing to retain power, and foolish and recalicitrant stands against India and against
establishing civilian control over its military.
Even though I married into an Indian family, those of us who identify to one degree or another with Indian culture feel a
kinship with Pakistanis because it is the same culture and same history until artificial political boundaries were drawn at the
time of independence. Both sides have done their share of mischief with regard to Kashmir (as have some of the Kashmiri
political leaders themselves).
India has no designs on Pakistan itself although it may continue to stand firm against any forced changes in Kashmir (and
nobody yet has come up with a peaceful compromise or solution that all parties will agree to), so it is only Pakistan that
thinks India is its enemy. Perhaps there is paranoia. More likely it is the leaders who like to have an external bogeyman to
justify their restrictions on domestic freedoms and expenditure of funds on the military at the expense of dire civilian needs
(schools, housing, santitation, etc.).
There are regional cultural traditions that do differ somewhat from one region of India to the other, from one region of the
subcontinent to the other. Once Pakistan got a theocracy (not the intention of the original founder but it all got out of hand
over time), the more militant, arrogant, and autocratic tendencies of some in the ethnic region that was West Pakistan
continued to work against the best interests of the people. Finally East Pakistan...a group with somewhat more easy going
traditions and a stronger tradition of education and literacy...could no longer take domination and exploitation from West
Pakistan and they separted by civil war into Bangladesh. During the armed conflict, India made no effort to take advantage
and grab territory and even accepted large numbers of refugees escaping the war .... quite a drain for poverty stricken India
at the time.
So India continued (despite remaining internal injustices and a lot of poverty as we all know) to make gains in education,
industry, commerce, and health care. This was in the context of an imperfect but thriving democracy. It has an
authoriatarian streak also, but until very recently with the corporations offering a lot to politicians in exchange for land grabs
and other privileges, civil liberties have been an ideal met well to a large extent.
Through all this the US has always been biased and lent more aid and support to Pakistan. First it was because the US did
not like India's neutral stance in the cold war. India preferred to pull itself up by the bootstraps rather than take US aid with
so many strings attached. As time went on, short sighted policies that were supposed to advantage the US in the Cold War
became short sighted policies which are supposed to advantage the US in the "fight against terrorism."
Each time the US sides with the Pakistani leaders against their own people, against India, and against the interests of the
American people, I feel the agony over and over again. Again and again and again.
India has probably suffered the least although it is absurd to have it labeled an enemy when it is not, and it is absurd to have
the periodic road blocks put up that made it hard for Indians who have relatives in Pakistan to visit them freely.
Americans have suffered by having their tax dollars wasted in rewarding a brutal regime that does what it wants most of the
time regardless of what it promises the US in public. Take the case of Ayub Khan. He had a brilliant secret network
through which he acquired the materials and the plans to build a Pakistani nuclear bomb. Many elements of the Pakistani
elite thought that was a good thing. After some time the US intelligence became aware of this. At that time and for years
afterward there was a law that said aid had to cease if Pakistan tried to build nuclear weapons.
More than one administration, beginning with Reagan did not tell the American people what they knew and did not cut off
aid. They violated US law on the one hand and rewarded bad behavior on the other...much as we do today when Pakistan
continues its clandestine support for Afghan extremists and Pakistani extremists. (Violent, generally fundamentalist Islamist
extremists of one type or another...whether they want to rule Afghanistan or Kashmir or have an Islamic caliphate.)
Remember this is all while the average Pakistani has less in the way of clean water, civil liberties, education, flood control,
sanitation and other civil needs than they would if their government were oriented more toward a secular, relatively honest,
functioning democracy.
Now [ read in the news this week that innocent villagers are being harassed and taken into custody because they live in
Kotkai, the ancestral Pakistani home village of the two couriers of bin Laden who were killed in the Abbottabad raid. They
claim to being intimidated by the intelligence personnel and told not to speak to the media.
According to the reports I have read, the father of these two left the ancestral Pakistani village decades ago and emigrated to
Kuwait where the two courier brothers were born and eventually radicalized by jihadist extremists.
Other than the fact that he was an imam, there is little indiction that the father shared the extremist views...especially since
he has not been implicated in violent acts or preaching of the same. One brother later returned and settled in the ancestral
village, but again there is no evidence he has associated with terrorists. There is no evidence the extended family in the
village has engaged in support for terrorists. There is no evidence the two courier brothers ever returned to the ancestral
village or communicated with people there. It is not clear whether or not they maintained "family" contacts with the one
brother living in the village.
Again I agonize for the people of Afghanistan. Rival groups of religious/political organizations engage in violence at times
in some areas, particularly Karachi. Some jihadi groups attack fellow Pakistanis. The government directs funds away from
the needs of the people. A journalist was recently killed after writing an article questioning the possible connection of naval
personnel to an Al Qaeda attack inside Pakistan. And again, and again, we accept Pakistani lies and half-hearted
cooperation without stopping the flow of millions of dollars we give to them. I hope it is obvious to all that we gain little
from this money. Some Pakistani elements are always going to try to undermine our efforts in Afghanistan (which I
consider to be misguided at the moment but the administration thinks they are important) and unless serious international
pressure is brought with the US in the lead, Pakistan is going to continue to stir up volatile situations with its nearest fellow
nuclear power, India. The current administration there is more or less an American puppet, and neither they nor any other
politician allowed to live or avoid arrest is likely to improve the stability of the country itself.
I can't help also thinking of the other blog thread on this site regarding the Patriot Act and it's tolerance of civil liberty
violations as I read about the villagers in Pakistan. You have to wonder how much we learn from them vs. how much they
learn from us. Either way it isn't good. The US may not be quite so much "against" India as it used to be, but it still enables
the dysfunctional society and government of Pakistan, a nation of talented and charming people, taken as a whole.
