This was an interesting read:
Taliban, Pakistan and the occupiers
Quantum note
Friday, May 08, 2009
Dr Muzaffar Iqbal
**The Taliban have the Pakistani secularists scream so loud that in a comic reversal of roles, the western media has picked up their phobia: major media networks in Canada and the United States have been reporting that the Taliban are about to descend on Islamabad. This bizarre reversal of roles must have given some relief to those who have raised a storm in a teacup and painted this nonsensical scenario of bearded men descending down from the Margalla hills and taking over Islamabad. :hehe: **In any case, it did loosen a few knots on the money belt held tight by those who want to buy their stay into the land of the Afghans by throwing a few million dollars into the bottomless coffers of a state that never does enough for the buck it receives, or at least that is the perception of those who are always thinking of more strings to be attached to their dollars. Whatever the short-term gains of this screaming may have been, the axiom of a Taliban commander remains true; the occupiers may have the watches, but we have time on our side.
The Taliban in Afghanistan are here to stay, no matter how many more soldiers and how many more dollars are brought into that unconquerable land. Americans are not able to comprehend this, as each successive regime works on a four-year timeframe, and thinks in presidential terms, rather than the grand historic time which is second nature to the Afghans. All surveys of the western agencies confirm that the general populace in Afghanistan has turned against the occupiers and since the Taliban are the only organized group fighting against the occupation, the tide has turned in their favour.
It is true that the Taliban are excessively harsh in their ways. It is also true that their understanding of Sharia is flawed. It is also true that their attitudes toward women are more tribal than Islamic, and it is also true that their way of enforcing Sharia is counterproductive, but with all of this against them, they have the distinction of being the only organized resistance against an alien force that has occupied their land. And this tilts the balance in their favour.
Caught in between the occupying forces and the Taliban, the government of Pakistan was left with no choice but either to side with one or the other party and it chose to be on the side of the occupiers. That it did this under a military dictator, and without the consent of its people is a historic fact. That military dictator is no more, but the government of Pakistan is unable or unwilling to re-examine its position on the Afghan occupation. That is the root of its dilemma and the cause of all its troubles now descending down on its major cities. This, in a nutshell, is the root of Pakistan’s self-imposed “existential” threat.
There is really no logical necessity for the state of Pakistan to side with the occupation forces in Afghanistan now, when there is a so-called elected government, which can easily re-examine its role by taking the case to parliament and do what Turkey did in a similar situation: have the elected representatives say “no” in a loud and clear voice and then forcefully appeal to the world to listen to its voice.
This option is available, however, only if the government of Pakistan is willing or able to stand on its own feet, on the strength of its own people. But that is where the whole dilemma lies: the government is beholden to the foreign masters for its existence, more or less the same way as the military dictator was, even though it should not be, since it has come into existence through an election. Understanding and utilizing this fundamental distinction between the illegitimate rule of a military dictator and the legitimate rule of an elected government is the key to a new possibility that can open up for Pakistan, if the government of Pakistan wants, but the government is obviously not interested in this possibility.
As it is, the equation remains more or less than same as it has been since the invasion of Afghanistan by the Bush administration. Since time is on the side of the Taliban, the loser in this increasingly tragic situation is obvious and those who have chosen to side with the losers will obviously lose as well. The newly launched effort by the Obama administration has to run its course and hence, it will not be until the fourth year of Obama’s term that one would hear phrases such as the “exit strategy” and the “failed war” coming out of Washington DC and New York. And when those words and phrases, reminiscent of the Vietnam and Iraq wars, emerge, it will be too late for Pakistan, for by then, its rulers would have brought upon themselves and their state untold calamities, death and destruction.
Today, the Taliban have the secularists scream, tomorrow, no screams will matter, only the writ of a fait accompli, the sad and tragic repetition of history.
Taliban, Pakistan and the occupiers