The New Nation - Internet Edition

Ahmed Quraishi

(From previous issue)

The book was launched in Pakistan in early 2007 by Oxford Press. And, contrary to most reports, it is openly available in Islamabad's biggest bookshops. The book portrays the Pakistani military as an institution that is eating up whatever little resources Pakistan has.

The Pakistani military's successful financial management, creating alternate financial sources to spend on a vast military machine and build a conventional and nuclear near-match with a neighboring adversary five times larger - an impressive record for any nation by any standard - was distorted in the book and reduced to a mere attempt by the military to control the nation's economy in the same way it was controlling its politics.

The timing was interesting. After all, it was hard to defend a military in the eyes of its own proud people when the chief of the military is ruling the country, the army is fighting insurgents and extremists who claim to be defending Islam, grumpy politicians are out of business, and the military's side businesses, meant to feed the nation's military machine, are doing well compared to the shabby state of the nation's civilian departments. A closer look at Siddiqa, the author, revealed disturbing information to Pakistani officials. In the months before launching her book, she was a frequent visitor to India where, as a defense expert, she cultivated important contacts. On her return, she developed friendship with an female Indian diplomat posted in Islamabad. Both of these activities - travel to India and ties to Indian diplomats - are not a crime in Pakistan and don't raise interest anymore. Pakistanis are hospitable and friendly people and these qualities have been amply displayed to the Indians during the four-year-old peace process.

What is interesting is that Siddiqa left her car in the house of the said Indian diplomat during one of her recent trips to London. And, according to a report, she stayed in London at a place owned by an individual linked to the Indian diplomat in Islamabad.

The point is this: Who assigned her to investigate the Pakistani Armed Forces and present a distorted image of a proud and efficient Pakistani institution?

>From 1988 to 2001, Siddiqa worked in the Pakistan civil service and the Pakistani civil bureaucracy. Her responsibilities included dealing with Military Accounts, which come under the Pakistan Ministry of Defense. She had 13 years of experience in dealing with the budgetary matters of the Pakistani military and people working in this area.

Siddiqa received a year-long fellowship to research and write a book in the US. There are strong indications that some of her Indian contacts played a role in arranging financing for her book project through a paid fellowship. The final manuscript of her book was vetted at a publishing office in New Delhi.

All of these details are insignificant if detached from the real issue at hand. And the issue is the demonization of the Pakistani military as an integral part of the media siege around Pakistan, with the US media leading the way in this campaign.

Some of the juicy details of this campaign include:

. The attempt by Siddiqa to pit junior officers against senior officers in Pakistan Armed Forces by alleging discrimination in the distribution of benefits. Apart from being malicious and unfounded, her argument was carefully designed to generate frustration and demoralize Pakistani soldiers.

. The US media insisting on handing over Khan to the US so that a final conviction against the Pakistani military can be secured. . Benazir Bhutto demanding after returning to Pakistan that the ISI be restructured; and in a press conference during her house arrest in Lahore in November she went as far as asking Pakistan army officers to revolt against the army chief, a damning attempt at destroying a professional army from within.

Some of this appears to be eerily similar to the campaign waged against the Pakistani military in 1999, when, in July that year, an unsigned full-page advertisement appeared in major American newspapers with the following headline: "A Modern Rogue Army With Its Finger On The Nuclear Button."

Until this day, it is not clear who exactly paid for such an expensive advertisement. But one thing is clear: the agenda behind that advertisement is back in action.

Strangely, just a few days before Bhutto's statements about restructuring the ISI and her open call to army officers to stage a mutiny against their leadership, the conservative US magazine The Weekly Standard interviewed an American security expert who offered similar ideas:

"A large number of ISI agents who are responsible for helping the Taliban and al-Qaeda should be thrown in jail or killed. What I think we should do in Pakistan is a parallel version of what Iran has run against us in Iraq: giving money [and] empowering actors. Some of this will involve working with some shady characters, but the alternative - sending US forces into Pakistan for a sustained bombing campaign - is worse," Steve Schippert was quoted as saying a November 2007 issue of Weekly Standard.

In addition to these media attacks, which security experts call "psychological operations", the US media and politicians have intensified over the past year their campaign to prepare the international public opinion to accept a western intervention in Pakistan along the lines of Iraq and Afghanistan:

. Newsweek came up with an entire cover story with a single storyline:

Pakistan is a more dangerous place than Iraq.

. Senior American politicians, Republican and Democrat, have argued that Pakistan is more dangerous than Iran and merits similar treatment. On October 20 , Senator Joe Biden told ABC News that Washington needs to put soldiers on the ground in Pakistan and invite the international community to join in. "We should be in there," he said. "We should be supplying tens of millions of dollars to build new schools to compete with the madrassas. We should be in there building democratic institutions. We should be in there, and get the rest of the world in there, giving some structure to the emergence of, hopefully, the reemergence of a democratic process." . The International Crisis Group (ICG) has recommended gradual sanctions on Pakistan similar to those imposed on Iran, e.g. slapping travel bans on Pakistani military officers and seizing Pakistani military assets abroad.

The process of painting Pakistan's nuclear assets as pure evil lying around waiting for some do-gooder to come in and "secure" has reached unprecedented levels, with the US media again depicting Pakistan as a nation incapable of protecting its nuclear installations. On October 22, Jane Harman from the US House Intelligence Panel gave the following statement: "I think the US would be wise - and I trust we are doing this - to have contingency plans [to seize Pakistan's nuclear assets], especially because should [Musharraf] fall, there are nuclear weapons there."

The US media has now begun discussing the possibility of Pakistan breaking up and the possibility of new states of "Balochistan" and "Pashtunistan" being carved out of it. Interestingly, one of the first acts of the shady Maulana of Swat, after capturing a few towns, was to take down the Pakistani flag from the top of state buildings and replace them with his own party flag.

The "chatter" about Musharraf's eminent fall has also increased dramatically in the mainly US media, which has been very generous in marketing theories about how Musharraf might "disappear" or be "removed" from the scene. According to some Pakistani analysts, this could be an attempt to prepare the public opinion for a possible assassination of the Pakistani president.

Another worrying thing is how US officials are publicly signaling to the Pakistanis that Bhutto has their backing as the next leader of the country. Such signals from Washington are not only a kiss of death for any public leader in Pakistan, but the Americans also know that their actions are inviting potential assassins to target Bhutto.

If she is killed in this way, there won't be enough time to find the real culprit, but what's certain is that unprecedented international pressure will be placed on Islamabad while everyone will use their local assets to create maximum internal chaos in the country. A dress rehearsal of this scenario has already taken place in October when no less than the UN Security Council itself intervened to ask the international community to "assist" in the investigations into the assassination attempt on Bhutto on October 18. This generous move was sponsored by the US and, interestingly, had no input from Pakistan which did not ask for help in investigations in the first place.

Some Pakistani security analysts privately say that US "chatter" about Musharraf or Bhutto getting killed is a serious matter that can't be easily dismissed. Getting Bhutto killed can generate the kind of pressure that could result in permanently putting the Pakistani military on a back foot, giving Washington enough room to push for installing a new pliant leadership in Islamabad.

Getting Musharraf killed isn't a bad option either. The unknown Islamists can always be blamed, the military will not be able to put another soldier at the top, and circumstances will be created to ensure that either Bhutto or someone like her is eased into power.

The US is very serious this time. They cannot let Pakistan get out of their hands. They were kicked out of Uzbekistan last year, where they were maintaining bases. They are in trouble in Afghanistan and Iraq. Iran continues to be a mess for them and Russia and China are not making it any easier. Pakistan must be "secured" at all costs.

(Ahmed Quraishi is an investigative reporter, currently hosting a weekly political talk show titled Worldview from Islamabad.)

This is why most Pakistanis have never seen US diplomats in Pakistan active like this before. And it's not just the current US ambassador, who has added one more address to her other most-frequently-visited address in Karachi, Bhutto's house. The new address is the office of GEO, one of two news channels shut down by Islamabad for not signing the mandatory code-of-conduct. Thirty-eight other channels are operating and no one has censored the newspapers. But never mind this. The Americans have developed a "thing" for GEO. No solace of course for ARY, the other banned channel.

There's also Bryan Hunt, the US consul-general in Lahore, who wears the national Pakistani dress, the long shirt and baggy trousers, and is moving around these days issuing tough warnings to the Pakistani government and Musharraf to end emergency rule, resign as army chief and give Bhutto access to power.

Pakistan's options

So what should Islamabad do in the face of such a structured campaign to bring Pakistan down to its knees and forcibly install a pro-Washington administration?

There is increasing talk in Islamabad these days about Pakistan's new tough stand in the face of this malicious campaign.

As a starter, Islamabad blew the wind out of the visit of US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte who came to Pakistan recently "to deliver a tough message" to the Pakistani president. Musharraf, to his credit, told him he won't end emergency rule until all objectives are achieved.

These objectives include:

. Cleaning up northern and western parts of the country of all foreign operatives and their domestic pawns.

. Ensuring that Washington's plan for regime-change doesn't succeed. . Purging the Pakistani media of all those elements that were willing or unwilling accomplices in the plan to destabilize the country.

Musharraf has also told Washington publicly that "Pakistan is more important than democracy or the constitution". This is a bold position. This kind of boldness would have served Musharraf better had it come a little earlier. But even now, his media management team is unable to make the most out of it.

Washington will not stand by watching as its plan for regime change in Islamabad goes down the drain. In case the US insists on interfering in Pakistani affairs, Islamabad, according to sources, is looking at some tough measures:

. Cutting off oil supplies to US military in Afghanistan. Pakistani officials are already enraged at how Afghanistan has turned into a staging ground for sabotage in Pakistan. If Islamabad continues to see Washington acting as a bully, Pakistani officials are seriously considering an announcement where Pakistan, for the first time since October 2001, will deny the US use of Pakistani soil and air space to transport fuel to Afghanistan.

. Reviewing Pakistan's role in the "war on terror". Islamabad needs to fight terrorists on its border with Afghanistan. But our methods need to be different to Washington's when it comes to our domestic extremists. This is where Islamabad parts ways with Washington. Pakistani officials are considering the option of withdrawing from the war on terror while maintaining Pakistan's own war against the terrorists along Afghanistan's border.

Talks with the Taliban. Pakistan has no quarrel with Afghanistan's Taliban. They are Kabul's internal problem. But if reaching out to Afghan Taliban's Mullah Omar can have a positive impact on rebellious Pakistani extremists, then this step should be taken. The South Koreans can talk to the Taliban. Karzai has also called for talks with them. It is time that Islamabad does the same.

The US has been telling everyone in the world that they have paid Pakistan $10 billion over the past five years. They might think this gives them the right to decide Pakistan's destiny. What they don't tell the world is how Pakistan's help secured for them their biggest footprint ever in energy-rich Central Asia.

If they forget, Islamabad can always remind them by giving them the same treatment that Uzbekistan did last year.

(Ahmed Quraishi is an investigative reporter, currently hosting a weekly political talk show titled Worldview from Islamabad.)

(Ahmed Quraishi is an investigative reporter, currently hosting a weekly political talk show titled Worldview from Islamabad.)