The Pakistani Spectator

On February 27, 2008, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Bob Schieffer, anchor of CBS News’ “Face the Nation” moderated a seminar titled, The Status of U.S. Efforts in Afghanistan. Nicholas Burns, then Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, Colonel David W. Lamm, U.S. Army (Ret.) and former Chief of Staff, Combined Forces in Afghanistan, Steve Coll, the President of New America Foundation (NAF) and Rick Barton, director, CSIS Post-Conflict Reconstruction were the other experts who spoke.

In the opening statement Secretary Burns said “for NATO, it may be an existential crisis, meaning that if NATO cannot succeed in Afghanistan, it may have a very negative impact on the ability of the alliance to move forward.”

I was curious about Secretary Burns’ challenges to NATO’s Europeans allies and its 70,000 soldiers fighting a few thousand gang of Taliban-led insurgency.  The challenge seems to perpetuate some Muslims’ paranoia that, as is the case in North Korea and Germany, America wants to keeps its armed presence in Afghanistan with no or minimum American causalities because of the Central Asian oil and to keep a close eye on Russia.

While thinking about some of the Muslims confusion, I got little surprised, when the Secretary said that Pakistan is “playing a major role NEGATIVELY and positively in the outcome in Afghanistan”

Though I have visited Pakistan only twice since I left it in 1985, I have learned that it’s a drastically different country. USSR’s occupation of Afghanistan caused Pakistan and U.S. to resist, which resulted in the transformation of Pakistan from a relatively secular country to a very violent Muslim state, unfortunately.  The country got radicalized with Islamists during two general regimes. First, General Zia-Ul-Haq armed the Islamists against the Russians and then General Musharraf gave them legal cover by designing elections that favors the Islamic fundamentalists.

It is well known in South Asia that the Pushtoon people (the Taliban belonging to this tribe or nation) are very courageous, emotional, traditional and relatively more conservative and religious than an average Pakistani.  These gun-loving Pushtoon could be the best and most committed members of American National Rifle Association (NRA), if they were living in the States.  A good gun is a second religion to a Pushtoon man.

Last year in June, having known that I would come across as a Taliban sympathizer, I made this passionate point to Afghan Ambassador Said Tayeb Jawad who gave a presentation on ‘New Approach in Afghanistan Fighting Terrorism as a Phenomenon and Terrorists as Individuals’ at New America Foundation, a think tank located walking distance from the White House. I told Ambassador Jawad that being a Punjabi myself I am aware of the great tradition of hospitality of Pushtoon people.  Then I asked that why can’t his government in Kabul make peace with Taliban by invoking these idiots’ good cultural characteristics.

At CSIS when Secretary Burns mentioned Pakistan’s negative role in Afghanistan, I become kind of an emotional Pashtoon.  I waited patiently for the speakers to finish their speeches.

About the Pakistani role for America, I remember few years ago confronting a Pakistani federal minister names Sh. Rashid alias Sheeda Tali at the Sangum restaurant in Arlington, VA during a dinner with some Pakistani journalists.

I stated to him that India was totally capable of occupying West Pakistan after it took over the East Pakistan (currently called Bangladesh) a few decades ago.  I contended that India stopped taking over West Pakistan only after President Nixon warned very sternly to the Indians to stop their march toward the rest of Pakistan. India stopped.

I asserted to minister Rashid that the adventures of the Pakistani army was childish and irresponsible and that it was America’s favor that helped save the rest of Pakistan from the competent and proud Indian Generals.  Then I asked him — just for the sake of argument – for the reason of unthankful behavior of Pakistan toward America.

“We are not unthankful, we are actually at our ninety angle position while we are serving Uncle Sam,” Minister Rashid blurted out looking straight into my eyes.

Imagining minister Rashid’s delicate position, I could hardly wait for Anchor Schieffer to invite the audience for questions.

Once he asked people for questions, I was the first one to challenge Secretary Burns.

I felt difficult choosing the right words to use, but somehow I managed to speak broken English which I cut/paste here with a minor editing:

“Yes, my name is Kami Butt and I am from Pakistan. My question is actually to understand what is the negative role that Pakistan is playing, and what, for example, I heard that we are paying Pakistan only, like, $700 per soldier per month.  Whereas, for the same services we are spending like minimum $60,000 per soldier per month in Iraq, and I don’t think that this amount is a lot in Afghanistan. Pakistan has lost more soldiers than NATO has lost in Afghanistan. Pakistan is kind of on fire because of some of our other [unwise] policies; and we are destroying their country physically because of [our support of] this dictator [Musharraf] in power.”

“And what about our [American] support of corrupt Pakistani leadership?” I asked in another question.
Having realized I wanted to ask some more questions, Anchor Schieffer cut me off.

But I kept talking anyway: “It’s very easy to blame poor Pakistan, you know. [But] we are the ones who support those corrupt politicians [there], and let me give you an example,” I said.

“Well, we got your point.” Anchor Schieffer interrupted me again.

But I had not made my point, yet.  And now Col. Lamm got into the crossfire by saying,
“We got it.”

Eventually, I stopped after Anchor Schieffer repeated his statement by saying: “I think we got it.”

The following is the speaker’s responses (with minor editing) to my statement and question:

First, Anchor Schieffer asked Secretary Burns to comment on my question or statement.

“I’d be happy to,” the Secretary said. “Thank you very much for your questions and for your comments. I hope you didn’t misunderstand what I tried to say. Maybe I failed to say it clearly enough; let me try again. Pakistan, I believe, but more importantly our leadership believes, is probably the most important country to the United States in our worldwide struggle against al Qaeda. I think, as Steve said, that’s where al Qaeda is. Al Qaeda has a safe-haven inside of Pakistan itself. We are enormously grateful for the efforts made by the government and people.”

Before continuing with Secretary’s words, let’s talk a bit of Pakistani role in U.S. foreign policy. As I have stated in one of my previous articles the Pakistani significance in Washington is very much a function of its help in fighting the War on Terror.  Compared to Pakistan, India is perceived as a civilized state and its one of the sixth most favored country – compared to Pakistan which is one of the 10th most unpopular – among Americans.

It’s safe to assume that if India were a country of Muslim majority and not a country of Mohatama Ghandi, she too would be one of the 10th most unpopular.  We, Indian and Pakistanis, are basically the same people. If an Indian Punjabi, for example, does not tell me about his nationality, I would not know if he is an Indian or Pakistani.

Secretary Burns added, “We are very well aware that the Pakistani army has suffered a great number of losses of soldiers and wounded, dead and wounded, as the Pakistani military has tried to engage al Qaeda and the Taliban. So we’re grateful for what the Pakistani government has done, but there’s no question that when the political crisis really intensified in the summer and autumn of 2007 that the Pakistani government’s ability and inclination to go at those terrorist groups began to flag.”

Well, Secretary Burns probably meant to appreciate the loss of over thousand Pakistani soldiers, but someone might argue that considering India and Pakistan are very class conscience societies, a few Pakistani Generals might have meant to use Pakistani causalities as statistics for helping them to stay in power by manipulating a kind of very trusting and naïve American WASP leadership.

I must say, however, that the current Pakistani CoS General Kiani is radically different than president Musharraf. On Wednesday, May 07, former Assistant Secretary and the potential Secretary of State during next Democrat administration, Richard Holbrook, told his audiences at the CSIS in Washington that General Kiani refused to meet him and some American Senators in their recent Pakistani visits.

After September 11, when President Musharraf made a U-turn in the Pakistani foreign policy, partially because he wanted to come under the good grace of President Bush, I remember listening to an African-American Muslim man saying on WHUR — a progressive radio station in Howard University, an elite black University in Washington – that in General Musharraf, President Bush has found a whore on the block.

In response to my question, Secretary Burns continued about what he wanted from an Urdu speaking robot type Pakistani President Musharraf.

“And so we’d like to see, once the new government forms itself in Islamabad, and that’s a Pakistani issue, we’d like to see that new government turn again towards effective military operations and consistent pressure on the two groups inside your borders that are not only dangerous for your own society and government but also very dangerous for the Afghans and for our forces in Afghanistan, al Qaeda and the Taliban. That is in your self-interest; your government and I think many of even the opposition leaders have said this is a cancer eating away at Pakistan, so I think we have a combined interest there.”

While the Secretary kept articulating his position, I felt like stopping and asking if he meant National Awami Party (NAP) when he mentioned about Pakistani opposition leaders who, when in Washington, called Pakistani Taliban a cancer.  The Secretary should know that some of these opposition leaders, when they are in Pakistan, blame president Musharraf for not showing much respect for Pushtoons’ lives in NWFP and FATA.

In response to my question the Secretary Burns also raised some doubts about the effectiveness of Pak-Afghan cooperation by saying:

“I think there’s been a lot of interesting discussion here that this is in essence a two-front war, and it’s a Taliban uprising that’s taken place in two countries. So there has to be a more effective combined effort by Pakistan and Afghanistan and the international forces to confront that threat. We’ve not seen the degree of cohesion between those two governments, Pakistan and Afghanistan, or between the leaderships that we’d like to see in this kind of warfare.”

Looking at Secretary Burns’ detailed responses, it’s obvious that he was not offended by my candid questions and statements. And I have mentioned in one of my previous articles that it’s not necessarily a good idea for a country like Pakistan to send a too courteous  envoy to Washington.

It’s likely that some people could get a higher position in Islamabad after they serve the country in Washington too politely.

However, from my very straightforwardness with Secretary Burns, it’s obvious that Americans–generally being honest — put a very high value on people’s right of freedom of expression.  Consequently, the American diplomats generally speak the truth (except in Iraq being a relatively young country, the U.S. has lost thousands of proud Americans without occupying a single country) when they are confronted from ordinary citizens like me.

In the light of my interactions with Secretary Burns one could expect the current Pakistani Ambassador Hussein Haqqani to have more frank conversations with the U.S. administration. Though some observers describe Ambassador Hussein Haqqani as a sell out, his having spent many years in the States gives him better understanding of the American psyche.

It is not known, at least to me, why the former Pakistani Ambassador Durrani was too careful to do his job effectively in Washington.  However, in the case Ambassador Haqqani has a nation agenda rather than a personal, he could do a better job for his country than the one done by his predecessor Ambassador Durrani.