On Monday, we discussed some of the recent negotiations happening in Afghanistan between President Karzai and representatives of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hizb-i-Islami militia. But these aren't the only negotiations on the AfPak war taking place this week. In Washington, Pakistan and the US are meeting for a strategic dialogue. NPR reports:
Senior U.S. and Pakistani officials meet Thursday in Washington for the second round of a so-called strategic dialogue aimed at a better long-term relationship.Few people expected any big breakthroughs in the first round of talks between the two sides Wednesday. The nations' complicated relationship has been marked by a deep sense of mutual distrust for many years. Still, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is hosting the two-day event, said some headway was made -- especially on security.
Pakistan's foreign minister heads his country's delegation to Washington this week for high-level talks, but there was no mistaking who was the star at a reception at the Pakistani Embassy on Tuesday night: Army General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.Guests crowded around Kayani at the annual Pakistani National Day party at the embassy, posing for photos and jostling for the military leader's ear. Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, also drew those eager for photographic souvenirs of the occasion, but not such a feeding frenzy as that around Kayani.
U.S. senators and Obama administration officials lined up to speak to the slim and dapper general, who Pakistani media say rules the roost back home but is also central to U.S. relations with Islamabad.
As it turns out, they got to stay home and read the transcripts. UPI reports:
Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said in Islamabad Thursday that he was confident about the outcome of strategic talks with U.S. officials in Washington.He said he would address the nation to highlight the developments after the end of the dialogue, Pakistan's Dawn newspaper reports.
Pakistan wants $400 million for Munda Dam, it wants $40 million for Gomal Zam Dam, it wants $70 million for the Natural Gas Production & Efficiency Project, it wants $10 million for Satpara Dam, it wants $27 million for the Wind Energy Project in Sindh, it wants $65 million to rehabilitate Mangla Dam, and it wants $35 million to upgrade Warsak Dam. Total cost of this dam wish-list? $647 million.
At roughly $40 million a pop, the still-pending delivery of 18 F-16 aircraft (from 2006) is a deal worth about $720 million. Instead of actually delivering these aircraft in June this year, as it plans to, the US government could tell the Pakistani government that it can choose. Either it can have a bunch of dams that will resolve the energy crisis, and save many hundreds, maybe thousands of lives in hospitals and clinics around the country. Or it can have a bunch of airplanes that are designed to kill people rather indiscriminately (meaning that not all of the victims of Pakistan's F-16s will be terrorists that have been tried and convicted in a court of law).As a Pakistani, my vote is for the dams. I suspect I wouldn't be alone. But of course, the people of Pakistan don't have very much say in the direction that Pakistan's strategic dialogue takes in Washington DC.
See, General Kayani has a bit of a problem with militarism. Even when the Pakistani people overwhelmingly support representatives like Zardari and Gillani who seek peace, Kayani can't stop thinking about war, war, war. Praveen Swami writes:
"India," Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari famously said in an October 2008 interview, "has never been a threat to Pakistan." In his first major interview, given just a month after taking office, he described jihadists in Jammu and Kashmir as "terrorists." He imagined "Pakistani cement factories being constructed to provide for India's huge infrastructure needs, Pakistani textile mills meeting Indian demand for blue jeans, Pakistani ports being used to relieve the congestion at Indian ones."Early last month, Pakistan's army chief, General Pervez Ashfaq Kayani, outlined a rather different vision. In a presentation to the media, he asserted that the Pakistan army was an "India-centric institution," adding this "reality will not change in any significant way until the Kashmir issue and water disputes are resolved." His words were not dissimilar in substance from the language used by jihadists such as Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed in recent speeches.
While it is, therefore, tempting to treat LeT as the cause of the current crisis in Indo-Pakistani relations--particularly in the aftermath of the Bombay attacks--it should instead be understood as a manifestation. The real cause of the problems in Indo-Pakistani relations remains those political forces within Pakistan that profit from continued hostility with India, namely the Pakistani Army, ...the ISI, and their narrow bases of support among the general population. The civilian government in Pakistan... has a very different view of the bilateral relationship... Cognizant of the fact that Pakistan will never be able to favorably resolve its disputes with India through force, Zardari has sought a non-confrontational affiliation with New Delhi that would set aside existing disputes, if not resolve them, while increasing economic opportunities...Unfortunately... Zardari and his civilian cohort do not make national security policy in Islamabad. All such matters... remain very much the provenance of the Pakistani Army... [T]he necessity of sapping India's strength through multiple kinds of warfare--economic closure, terrorist attacks, and nuclear competition--remains deeply entrenched in the Pakistani military psyche.
But now we're lost on some tangent about Lashkar-e-Taiba and F-16's. Let's not forget what this is all about: the US war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. ISAF and the Pakistani military are daily blasting away at Pashtun insurgents, Taliban elements in both Afghanistan and across the border in Pakistan, from the Northwest Frontier Province all the way down to Balochistan. This is the so-called "Pashtun belt." Surely any Strategic Dialogue on this conflict must include the Pashtun themselves. Nope. Shahid Ilyas writes:
Talking is not a bad thing, but when it is done without the participation of those who are the subject of such talks, it will most likely result in a disaster. The Pakhtun and the turmoil on their lands -- supposedly the theme of the dialogue -- are reportedly not being represented in the upcoming Pak-US strategic dialogue. The delegation heading for the US does not include either the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PKMAP) led by Mahmud Khan Achakzai or the Awami National Party (ANP) led by Asfandyar Wali. These are the mainstream political parties of Pakhtunkhwa having a deep bearing on the events of their ethnic constituency. These parties represent the most influential and educated class of Pakhtun society. What benefit can a dialogue bring without the participation of the Pakhtun leadership and intelligentsia?If indeed the purpose of the dialogue is the ongoing terrorism-related turmoil in Pakhtunkhwa, it can only be counterproductive without the participation of the Pakhtuns. Already, the prevailing thinking among them is that they are being ruled like a colony by the Punjab-dominated establishment in Rawalpindi-Islamabad. The Pakhtuns are increasingly complaining that the American opinion of them is formed by the establishment in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. They argue that under a well thought-out strategy, they are being presented to the world as terrorists through the media. The planned strategic dialogue without them will only reinforce their belief in their (perceived or real) exploitation by the bigger province. An added factor now will be that they will consider the US a co-culprit, responsible for their sufferings.
U.S. senators and Obama administration officials lined up to speak to the slim and dapper general, who Pakistani media say rules the roost back home but is also central to U.S. relations with Islamabad.
Tell them that celebrity they're snapping photos of with their cellphone is actually a terror-supporting thug, and they can read about it in their own congressional record. Tell them you want to talk to the actual leaders of the Pakistani people, the democratically elected government of Pakistan, as well as the Pashtun people. We can talk about water and energy projects, but not military weapons to be used against India and the Pakistanis themselves.
Don't forfeit your own opportunity to have a voice in this strategic dialogue. Congress, in particular has the power to stipulate how funds can be distributed in Pakistan, as we saw with the Kerry-Lugar bill last year. Contact your representatives, by e-mail, phone, Twitter, however you want. Show them that even if Pakistan is ruled by the military, democracy is alive and well in the US. Demand that the US engages in strategic dialogue with the peace makers and legitimate leaders in Pakistan. The current dialogue, as it stands, is totally unacceptable.
I am the Afghanistan Blogging Fellow for The Seminal and Brave New Foundation. You can read my work on The Seminal or at Rethink Afghanistan.
Follow Josh Mull on Twitter: www.twitter.com/joshmull
Journalists like you should try to unbiased and not serve narrow nationalist interests of India only or just writing to show that you are sincere to Pakistani people (by prying on narrow ethnic interests only) and as a consequence you are indirectly helping the terrorists that Pakistan Army is fighting.
The culture of mercenaries-for-hire to solve quagmires has been indoctrinated into the Pentagon machinary. Gates who is pushing this, pamper-general-Kayani-he-is-the-key-to-success in the administrations Af-Pak policy and the priciple driver of this policy ..... is hindered by the fact that this is the only game he know.
Gates was one of the architects of the horror of creating Taliban and and indirectly ... bin Laden with help of ISI then. Kayani, you will remember was chief of ISI! Gates does not know how else to play this game when asked by Obama to come out of the quagmire.
Pakistani Punjabi army's reason for existence is 'destruction of India'. They NEED to keep the 'anti-India hatred' alive, but this facade is secondary to the real motive: to make Billions of dollars as their personal income, directly to Swiss & Dubai accounts!
All of their extraordinary proliferation of fanatic Madarsa throughout Pakistan, creation & secret maintenance of various terrorist outfits.. from the Punjabi general's point of view, all of these are good, but they are secondary, they are just vehicles, instruments, something to squeeze the 'necks' of India, Afghanistan & now US & UK.
Even the latest and greatest US military gadgets undoubtedly go to China to be reverse engineered, with due M/Billions to the Punjabi Generals! This fantastic piracy-Pakistan-style is perhaps ten thousand times more profitable than all of the profits of NY/NJ mafia extortion & protection rackets.
A secondary, ego-booster motive stems from their delusion that the Pak-Punjabi are some kind of a a-la-Nazi, Super Martial Race, destined to rule the entire South Asia.
In the past they enslaved & exploited the Bangladesh, which has since escaped from Punjabi clutches. Today, the Punjabi Generals still have the Pashtun, Sindhi, Baluchi & Kashmiri to LORD over & to exploit. All the while, keeping their terrorist outfits aimed at India & Afghanistan, and now UK & US.
And our politicians & generals are competing with each other to sing praise songs for these Punjabi General thugs! What a sad spectacle!
Some facts for the readers:
1. Pakistan military has a sizable percentage of Pushtoons (we call ourselves Pukhtoons in Pakistan, btw) also, which has a major say in military decision making.
2. Of all the parties, Pukhtoon-khwa ANP of Asfandyar Wali Khan is most nationalist about Pukhtoon causes and stands solidly behind the military in taking on 'Pushtoon Talibans'. ANP can only survive if extremist religious Pukhtoons are wiped out from the 'Pushtoon belt'.
3. "Terrorism" as defined by Indians is an issue but is not a root cause of problem. The root cause is illegal Indian occupation of Kashmir.
"Illegal occupation of Kashmir" is just bullsh*t slogan to provoke the common people of Pakistan to feed anti India indoctrination..... of which you seem to be a perfect victim Mr. Saul ... or shall we call you Mr. Talut Khan