AF-PAK – Time to Wind Down

The news today is of another horrendous attack — this time in Khyber Bazar, a congested market, small shops cheek by jowl lining both sides of a narrow pedestrian walk.  The toll so far stands at over a hundred dead and hundreds wounded.

In 2004, there were no attacks and no Taleban groups in Pakistan.  Then the pressure from Washington began:  the Pakistanis were not doing their part in fighting the Taleban; they must clean out the border areas of safe havens, etc.  Given the aid involved and the corruption that accompanies it, the government obliged albeit not very successfully.  Now there are more than thirty Taleban groups and ordinary Pakistanis both in the tribal areas and the rest of the country are paying the price.

At our insistence, the Pakistan army attacked Swat, creating three and a half million refugees.  With crops, farm animals and homes destroyed, they have nothing to return to but infrequent government handouts, creating further stress in a distressed economy.  The latest army attack is in Waziristan, on Taleban "strongholds"  — now there is another interesting word for what we see are mud-hut villages bombed and shelled, dazed villagers, a bombed-out school with a picture of Pakistan’s national poet, Iqbal, askew on a wall, a reminder lest we forget that these are Pakistanis being shelled by the Pakistan army at our behest.  The army’s venture has violated a long established treaty with the tribes and now even the non-tribal Pashtuns are exhibiting sympathy for the insurgents.  Pakistan, because of us, is in a quasi civil war.

Our modus operandi is to demonize the enemy, as in, ‘the Taleban are brutal, repressive extremists’.  Possibly.  But how is it that almost all Pashtuns are flocking to their banner in Afghanistan and the border areas.  The fact is, the extremists are surely a part of the insurgency, but so are many ordinary Pashtuns, sick of the occupation, sick of a corrupt government dominated by minority Tajiks, and venal, profiteering warlords.  The lesson for us is clear:  propaganda may be fine in times of war, but when we believe it ourselves and it obscures our own reality, we are in trouble.

There is much talk these days of a three-legged stool strategy comprising security, good governance and sustainable development.  We seem to have forgotten three-legged stools are inherently unstable.  The fourth leg, the hearts and minds of the people was cut off a long time ago when we first bombed villages.  As for governance, we have the election farce being repeated again.  Security is non-existent — even Kabul is bombed and attacked on a regular basis, the latest, reported today, being the killing of UN civilians and the destruction of their compound.  And, development is a casualty of security.

Into this quagmire we are planning to send more troops.  If the news leaks are correct, we are changing strategy to focus on protecting the populations of ten major towns plus the roads serving them to extend the reach of the central government, while it builds a military and security capability.  Looks good on paper but Afghanistan, eons behind Iraq, has never had a strong central government or a democracy, and the military is minority Tajik dominated.  The majority Pashtuns feel excluded.  If we look at the continuing chaos in Iraq, it’s a tall order.  Instead of fueling the violence with more troops and putting Pakistan at risk, we should be winding it down and negotiating with the insurgent groups.  As in Iraq, there is never going to be a lasting peace as long as any significant ethnic group is excluded.

 

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