No Reason for
Pakistan's 'Bigwigs' to Go 'Gung-Ho'
"Americans,
without remorse, have no inhibitions about ditching Pakistan the instant
they've finished with it, even after exuberantly extolling it as their 'most
cherished ally in Asia.'"
Pakistan Prime Minister Gilani believes there has been a 'major paradigm shift' in Pakistan-U.S. relations. But it would appear that the 'Pakistan street' has yet to be convinced.
Official America and official
Pakistan may have their own manifold reasons to be euphoric and whip up a noisy
hype about their conclave in Washington, but this country’s elite have nothing
to go gung-ho over.
America's current prattle about
a new chapter, a new start, a strategic dialogue or strategic partnership is nothing
new. This is an all-too-familiar idiom for them. Pakistanis have heard it many
times before. And we haven't forgotten how horrendously things turned out every
time before. Americans, without remorse, have no inhibitions about ditching
Pakistan the instant they've finished with it, even after exuberantly extolling
it as their “most cherished ally in Asia.” So it was when the Cold War was at
its peak in the 1960s and they stood in need of Pakistan; and again in the
1980s when they badly needed it to fight their proxy war against the Soviet
invaders of Afghanistan - and they eulogized Pakistan as a frontline state.
So bitter is our experience
of persistent American betrayal, that it's difficult to assuage us with the lilting
sweet talk coming out of Washington. One wouldn’t want to recall that doleful
past here, or it could leave a bad taste in the mouths of people like Foreign
Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who came out crowing about what a satisfied man
he was after the first round of the much-touted strategic dialogue. Qureshi may
be satisfied, but Pakistan’s people certainly are not. American officialdom may
have held this show of dialogue with much fanfare; they may have seated
American and Pakistani delegates side by side; but such ostentation could
hardly impress Pakistan's hard-bitten people.
After all, wasn’t the dictator
Pervez Musharraf a frequent houseguest at the Texas ranch of President George
Bush? What came of it? The CIA colluded with India’s RAW [Research and
Analysis Wing] and Afghanistan’s NDS [National
Directorate of Security] and played a double game against Pakistan, cloning
monstrosities like Nek
Muhammad Wazir, Baitullah
Mehsud and Maulana
Fazlullah for the U.S. military to fight with. And yet, instead of
confessing to these sins, even the people in the Obama Administration parade the
bunk that a turnaround has taken place in the ISI [Inter-Services
Intelligence] and the Pakistan military, whereas that is a shoe which fits squarely America's foot.
If there has been a
turnaround at all, it's been on the American side and more specifically the CIA
and its dirty shenanigans in Pakistan. In any case, what really matters to the
people of Pakistan is substance - not symbolism. And in this regard, there is precious little
about this dialogue to sing and dance over. American pledges are almost all in
the future tense - without benefit of concrete plans or actions.
Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US
If the fate of the plan to
establish reconstruction opportunity zones in our tribal areas announced by
Bush in 2005 is any indicator, that future may take ages to become real. Five
years later, the plan still gathers dust in some official Washington corridor, lacking
even the required Congressional approval. Neither can anything definitive be
said as to when the much-hyped U.S. aid under the Kerry-Lugar
law will begin to flow to Pakistan. The $125 million that the Obama Administration
has agreed to shell out for Pakistani energy development doesn’t even account
for a fraction of the $39 billion in losses that Pakistan has suffered due to
America's spurious war on terror. That is to say nothing of the reimbursement
of some $2 billion that Pakistan has spent from its own treasury to fight this
war that remains unpaid, which is said to be stuck in the contrivance of U.S.
"clearance."
On another level, the Obama Administration
has also demonstrated that it's not forthcoming on a nuclear deal for Pakistan similar
to India's, or of playing a critical role in resolving core issues between
India and Pakistan, such as Kashmir. Even on the vital issue of water, the U.S.
is unlikely to persuade India not to steal or cheat Pakistan out of its requisite
river water. Indeed, the Obama Administration has yet to deliver anything that
would justify such squawking by Islamabad’s bigwigs.
Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US
The charm offensive that Washington's
current crowd has unleashed against Islamabad is arguably motivated to enlist Pakistan’s
full and unstinted military cooperation so that the U.S. and its NATO allies can
quickly pull out of Afghanistan and declare victory. If common sense is any
guide, only after America’s November mid-term elections will it be known with
certainty whether the Obama Administration really stands for a long-term
strategic partnership - and means what it says about helping Pakistan with
nation building and economic rejuvenation.
