The currency of violence

For quite a few days, I have maintained both in my columns and analyses on talk shows that Pakistan will now have to face American aggression head on. A few days ago, I also pointed out the incidents that are now materialising on the Af-Pak border. Up till now, Kabul was complaining that terrorists were entering Afghanistan from Pakistan. But since some days, the Afghan Taliban have been crossing Pakistan’s territory line to attack our barracks and checkposts and they have been taking the lives of our jawans and then successfully absconding on a regular basis. The biggest attack took place in Dir where hundreds of the Afghan Taliban entered, took over a significant tract of territory and engaged in hostilities for many days.

Moreover, just two days ago, an attack took place on Bajaur agency where Afghan infiltrators attacked and targeted our security forces. These infiltrators engaged in intense combat but left after completing their mission. And just yesterday, an FC vehicle was attacked by terrorists and 5 jawans were martyred. Now, we shouldn’t take long in facing up to the fact that skirmishes have begun to take place along the Af-Pak border. This is, in fact, the beginning of an extended war. And we, ourselves, started this war. It would be categorically incorrect to say that America pushed us into the Soviet war and squarely put the blame on it.

In 1979, when Afghan nationalists instigated a revolution under the leadership of Nur Muhammad Taraki, there were neither Soviet forces in Afghanistan nor any war. Pakistan was under General Zia’s reign. He was facing intense resistance internally and the US was also not ready to support him; and we all know that Pakistan governments survive on either public support or American patronage. Because military dictators do not have the former, they are always seeking the latter.

Zia thought that the Afghan nationalist revolution presented an opportune moment. He initiated terrorist activities against the Taraki government and started lamenting that the Soviet Union was making inroads into Afghanistan. The Carter government didn’t pay much heed to Zia’s farce but he continued with his drum beating about the impending Soviet danger and kept directly imploring the US for help which led to President Carter announcing some aid. Zia-ul-Haq deemed the amount “peanuts” and expressed his sore disappointment.

Meanwhile, the American administration and its think tanks kept analysing the changing situation in Afghanistan and the CIA – through its make and break tactics – kept trying to drag the Soviets into the melee. Finally, the point came where American machinations succeeded and they were to lodge their agent, Hafizullah Amin, in office. After the Second World War, every successive Afghan government had enjoyed friendly relations with the Soviets. As per the détente, both superpowers had agreed not to involve Afghanistan in the Cold War. But America, in flagrant violation of these terms, installed its stooge in Kabul and prepared to form a pro-US government there. Obviously, this could not have been acceptable to the USSR. Therefore, it upended the Amin throne by one of their own supporters, Babrak Karmal.

Subsequently, the US started working with Zia to destabilise the Karmal government through a covert war. This war was labelled ‘jihad’. The US provided dollars and arms for this ‘jihad’. When the Karmal government couldn’t withstand the combined intrusion of Pakistan and America and began to weaken, the Soviets came to its help. But as soon the Soviet military entered Afghanistan, the Western propaganda machinery started clamouring that the Soviet were doing this to gain access to warm waters and that they wouldn’t contain this ‘expansionism’ to merely Afghanistan.

This theory was appropriated by Zia who fed it to the Pakistani army and the Pakistani public and successfully used it to extend his tenure. The price of Zia’s trade-off turned out to be Pakistan. We are still suffering the consequences to this date. The Soviet army left but the war started in the name of jihad didn’t end. The people engaged in the narcotics and arms trade that had entrenched itself during the war – and a trade that had enriched many actors in the US, Afghanistan and Pakistan to the tune of billions of dollars – were in support of letting the civil war and hostilities in Afghanistan continue.

And that’s exactly what they did. They propped up the Taliban and imposed them on Afghanistan. But the Taliban weren’t pliant and docile customers. Soon, they were up against their patrons and were running the show according to their own will. They cracked down hard on the narcotics trade and their American patrons turned their back on them and they were now Pakistan’s burden to bear. We all know of OBL and his history, and that is what became the American excuse for occupying Afghanistan.

The US was successful in occupying Afghanistan within a few days but Musharraf didn’t want the US to leave that easily. He provided arms and sanctuaries to the fleeing Taliban and Al-Qaeda members and used them to attack the US forces. That has been going on since 2004. We are taking money from the US under the CSF and concurrently helping the elements attacking the US army. The logic behind this duplicity was that as long as the US is embroiled in combat with the Taliban, we could milk it for arms and money.

The US was fully aware of this con but instead of displaying outright anger, it used diplomatic means to convey to Pakistan to cease its double-gaming. The US assessed that these terrorist were nobody’s friends and history has proved this assertion right. The terrorist that Indira Gandhi sheltered were the ones that resulted in her death. The Viet Congs that China supported were the ones it had to fight a war with once they came into power. Similarly, the so-called mujahideen that we supported are the ones that have attacked Pakistan for years. If we had listened to the US, we could have overpowered these terrorist with combined effort.

But we wanted to milk the US and we kept on with this policy of supporting groups of terrorists. Thus, the US too had to extend its support to certain terrorist groups to teach us a lesson. We can call these groups the Taliban and the next war will be between the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban. After the discovery of OBL in Pakistan, the US has finally taken the decision that it has been putting off for years: the decision to pay Pakistan in the currency that it has employed against the US, the currency of violence. The terrorism that we imported to Afghanistan in 1979, that very terrorism and violence is now being imported back to us. When we were the ones importing terrorism, our backer was the US. Now that the importer is Afghanistan, its backer, too, is the US. Now what remains to be seen is how long this war will last? In my opinion, unless certain key fundamental decisions are taken, there is very little probability of this war ending.

The writer is one of Pakistan’s most widely read columnists.