An American defending Pakistan?

One was surprised to read an American scholar’s article in a leading English daily. For a while I asked myself, is he an American? An American today is synonym with an enemy, thanks to their being the superpower, all in all, the merchants of death, the contractors of destruction, the harbingers of trouble everywhere. I had the impression that all Americans are out against Pakistan, thanks to their media that is purposefully playing the role of instigator.

Brian Cloughley, the American scholar and South Asian expert, wrote a column “Blaming Pakistan” some weeks back, saying: “Let’s get this straight, once and for all: if the United States of America had not invaded Afghanistan 10 years ago, Pakistan would not have been subjected to the appalling violence that has plagued the country ever since.

It seems to have been forgotten that the invasion drove hundreds of vicious barbarians across the border into Pakistan where they motivated like-minded fanatics to help wreck the country. Their aim is to establish a regional regime of fundamentalist bigotry, supposedly in the name of religion.”

He said: “The crassness of Washington in blaming Pakistan for having suffered 38,000 of its own citizens killed in terrorist attacks is mind-boggling. There is frenzied expostulation about militants entering Afghanistan from Pakistan and creating havoc – which they undoubtedly do – but rarely a word about what happens in reverse.” Kudos for Mr Brian Cloughley for objective evaluation of ground realities, by calling a spade a spade and giving credit where it was due. There are like Brian, many others in the USA who raised and keep raising voices against the intransigence meted out to the people of Pakistan.

For example, HDS Greenway in his Boston Globe article said, “One can only watch in horror as relations between the US and Pakistan continue to deteriorate, for there will be no chaos-free exit from Afghanistan without Pakistan. Is the military-intelligence complex striving to keep the US involved in Afghanistan longer than it might otherwise be, and getting into heedless and unnecessary confrontations with Pakistan?”

Gareth Porter, another American, commented that the Nato attack was a big loss for the US war policy. “The cross-border attack on Pakistan border posts has had exactly the opposite effect.

It has united Pakistanis, both military and civilian, behind a much more nationalistic policy towards the US military role in both Afghanistan and in Pakistan. It has provoked Pakistan government to threaten to stop Nato supplies from crossing into Afghanistan permanently, order the US to vacate its drone base at Shamsi within 15 days, and boycott the international Bonn conference on Afghanistan in protest.”

But the question is: does the American administration lend an ear to them? It is unfortunate that Obama has not heeded to the candid advice of his old colleague of Harvard days and a seasoned political analyst Prof William who tried to approach Obama through his open letter to him last year. All the same for historical record, all such sane voices, do have a role to play.

Mr Cloughley’s warning, he gave in his another write-up for the Counterpunch, to Washington makes sense when he says that “at the moment Islamabad is desperate to find some means of registering the country’s contempt and loathing for the United States, and there are very few options available to it. But it could reflect on what Washington’s retaliation would have been if a Pakistani aircraft had gone on a yippee shoot and killed 24 American soldiers inside Afghanistan.”

F Z KHAN

Islamabad