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Judicial activism was born of the refusal by General Pervez Musharraf to dump his uniform if he wants to retain the highest civilian office. As for jihadism, it has been on the rise ever since Pakistan and the United States collaborated in the 1980s to eject the Soviets from Afghanistan.
In the past six months, the troubles in jihadi land are self-inflicted wounds. It was the Pakistani army that invited the jihadis to set up shop in Pakistan. They were considered useful to make trouble for India in Kashmir. After 15 years of freewheeling terror in India, the jihadis fell out with Pakistani strong man Musharraf.
The United States has been front and center in this falling out. Washington wanted Musharraf to evict the jihadis after 9/11; he and his army half- heartedly complied. But both the Taliban and al-Qaida had already established firm roots in the area and were not about to simply go away. They sought refuge in mosques and began their campaign of terror.
Since this eviction drive began, the Pakistani army has been thoroughly humbled. U.S.-supplied firepower in Pakistani hands has proved useless. Suicide bombing is the key weapon of choice for the jihadis. As a matter of fact, it was Pakistanis who introduced this weapon to them. Now the jihadis have employed it against their Pakistani masters with great success. Today there are more deaths in Pakistan due to jihadi actions than any time in the last 50 years. It is a pity that the host has become the victim.
If the Pakistani army is regretting this today it needs to ask itself a question. In the 1980s the army became a pawn in U.S. designs in Afghanistan. The United States was glad that the battleground was 10,000 miles away. The same guns and know-how which the United States had supplied to the Afghan rag tag Mujahadins, via Pakistan, were now being employed to oust the Pakistani army and U.S. troops from the region.
Osama Bin Laden learned everything he knows about war from the Americans and Pakistanis. He has used this knowledge with great success.
Osama and the Taliban have become folk heroes in Pakistan. Tribal people unaffected by all the monies which Pakistan gobbled up from the United States in the 1980s, and since 9/11, invited both Osama and the Taliban to set up shop among them. They promised to protect them. Initially the Pakistani army denied their presence in the borderlands and then at U.S. behest, went to chase them out. The chase grew deadly as the jihadis used their famous suicide-bombing tactic. In the process the Pakistani army lost a lot of its prestige and has affected its morale.
Emboldened, jihadis even attacked Benazir Bhutto's homecoming convoy with deadly results on Oct. 18.
The Pakistani army itself is fed on Allah's command to fight the infidel -- between the lines, read India. Soldiers are routinely fed on propaganda of invincibility and the warrior spirit of the Pakistani soldier. Today's rallying cry is that one Pakistani soldier is equal to thirty Indians. The humiliating surrender in Dhaka in1971 and defeat in Kargil heights in 1999 are never mentioned.
General Zia Ul Haq, who led the country in the 1980s, is blamed for converting a highly professional army into Allah's soldiers. He alone wished the Pakistani army to serve God and nobody else.
Once Allah became the chief patron of the Pakistani army, the army slowly drifted toward jihadism. Jihad-minded officers were promoted to higher ranks. A new intelligence service established in the 1980s was given the task of keeping the army religious-minded. This they did by recruiting madrassa graduates who had already been indoctrinated in the word of Allah. They became the backbone of the army's professionalism and jihad.
Some signs of this fanaticism were visible during Pakistan's conflict with India in 1999 in the Kargil battlefield. Pakistani soldiers routinely assembled for prayers even when the Indian attack was imminent. Soldiers about to die routinely dumped their guns to say their last prayers. Courage and determination took a back seat.
U.S. power over Pakistani politics is great. It is born out of US$2 billion a year in aid, which the U.S. provides. If you wonder why the United States is a suspect in every Pakistani move then consider this: U.S. Central Command Chief, Admiral William Fallon, whose remit includes Pakistan, was in Islamabad one day before Musharraf took his extreme step. He probably was there to make a last ditch effort to persuade Musharraf to change his mind. Also, Benazir Bhutto had to be taken into confidence before this undemocratic step. The United States was there to ensure Bhutto's safety and mute her reaction. In addition, the United States may persuade Musharraf to appoint Benazir Bhutto as caretaker prime minister.
Now it would appear that U.S. policy in Pakistan has hit a snag. On one hand the United States is preaching at General Musharraf to make good on his promise to dump his uniform and hold free and fair elections. On the other hand the United States is muting its own reaction to the re-imposition of martial law.
The War on Terror is being given as the official reason for the muted U.S. reaction. U.S. foreign policy is at its worst when it comes up with reasons like that. The War on Terror in Afghanistan has already hit the low point.
The situation in Afghanistan is a repeat of the last year of the Vietnam War. Allied and U.S. soldiers rarely venture out to confront the Taliban in their home bases. Rather they are waiting for them to come to them, but the Taliban never obliges. Instead, it sends suicide bombers to scare the allied soldiers. The casualty-minded West reacts to every death in the battlefield in the strangest possible way. The causality count is what caused the United States to lose all wars in the East, including the Vietnam War, the Korean War, and now Afghanistan and Iraq. They are afraid of taking causalities and still much more afraid of inflicting them. The United States suffered tremendous losses on 9/11. It has every right to inflict losses on the enemy. Was not that the reason for nuking Japan in 1945? Then why is the United States so much afraid to fight the enemy, head on, causalities aside?
Will this War on Terror, fought via Pakistan, ever succeed?
It is unlikely, especially if rogue elements of the Pakistani army are hand-in-glove with the enemy. The United States will never find Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban leaders with Pakistani help. The modus operandi of flying armed drones from Pakistan over the hilly terrain of the Pakistan-Afghan border regions is unlikely to yield results. Boots on the ground will do the job. Hence, the United States can wind up its bases in Pakistan and instead increase the troop strength in Afghanistan to chase the elusive enemy. This may include crossing over into Pakistani territory.
As long as there are no changes in the U.S. attitude, the War on Terror will not be won. Pakistan will have to be eliminated from the equation.
In summary, the United States cannot keep on arming Pakistan, hoping that somehow it will play a role in capturing the 9/11 culprits. The right thing to do is to change the U.S. policy of using Pakistan as a forward base for its War on Terror. Causalities given and taken are to be considered as part of the war. It is ugly but it is the price of war.
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(Hari Sud is a retired vice president of C-I-L Inc., a former investment strategies analyst and international relations manager. A graduate of Punjab University and the University of Missouri, he has lived in Canada for the past 34 years. ©Copyright Hari Sud.)
