OP/ED Wednesday, September 26, 2001- The Michigan Daily - 5 V UNDER THE FLAK PART II: U.S. FOREIGN POLICY IN PAKISTrAN BY WAJ SYED The Second Coming What's the role of academia during times of war? 'Death threat' calls on 'U' to silence student opposition, will non-mainstream 9/11 analysis survive in higher education? MICHAEL GRASS Ar MIL. EN RoAD Feb. 15, 1989 - A day uncelebrated by most, marked the departure of the last of the 115,000 Soviet soldiers from Afghanistan after ten years of mil- itary engagement. Many in the secretive government inner-circles of Washington, Riyadh and Islamabad did not mind the general lack of festivity that Wednesday morning. For them, the last battle of the Cold War had just been called over, and they had won. The defeat of the Red Army by such hands, though they had never officially fought, was probably enough to commemorate anyway. The U.S-Saudi-Pak troika had dug the grave of the Soviet Union in the mountains of Afghanistan, even though the USSR had not officially expired. But all the credit for the ouster of the Soviets cannot go to a bunch of hushed- up spy types. The USSR's grave had been dug by undertakers, the mighty Mujahideen, who Reagan would laud as 'freedom fighters' in his State of the Union addresses. Armed, financed and trained by the U.S. inspired troika, these rag-tag heroes would eventually sprout a group whose name sounds so familiar these days: the Taliban. THE BACK BURNER MONSTER The Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan - probably the ultimate goal of the U.S. strategy there - and a laid-back Gorbachev in the Kremlin lead to Afghanistan being left out of the U.S. 'national inter- est' paradigm. For the lethally armed and battle- hardened Mujahideen, the ten-year long military, intelligence and finance based relationship with America now seemed like a one night stand, with the U.S. walking away almost as soon as its goals in the region were satisfied. The political vacuum in the country was imminent, and so it came. The fall of the USSR in late 1991 gave another impetus to this group, who were now trying to come to terms with power-sharing; basically fighting for the crumbs over the table the Russians had left. Inevitably, violence ensued. Battle lines were drawn between groups, mostly split along religious lines. All armed up with no one to fight but them- selves, the former Mujahideen found Afghanistan in a civil war, drought, a refugee exodus, and the over- throw of the quasi-government which was a de-facto successor after the Soviets followed. By 1996, the Taliban, student-warriors from seminaries in Pak- istan, the same seminaries which had been the hot- bed for recruiting the Mujahideen for the anti-Soviet Jihad in the '80s, were ruling over the capital, Kabul. C'est la vie. THE SPILL-OVER EFFECT The story of the Soviet invasion - the U.S. involvement, the Saudi and Pakistani connection, the political and military vacuum after the Soviet with- drawal - is not just about Afghanistan. The whole escapade has caused a spill-over effect which not only affected New Yorkers and Pentagon officials on September 11th, but which has also steered the Cen- tral Asian and South Asian region into bitter conflict and instability. The Daily met with Javed Nazir, a journalism fel- low at the University and an outspoken journalist from Pakistan. Nazir's personal life seems inter- twined with the volatile events of the region. As founder and editor of the Frontier Post, a lib- eral Pakistani daily, ; Nazir found himself out of a job last year when 4 his newspaper was x burnt down for publish- J ing a controversial let- ter. Radicalized Islamist elements f k opposed to a liberal ,<< {f press were believed f responsible for the 3 £ attack. Currently work- ing on a book about the N minorities in Pakistan, Nazir s insight has t;_:_ much to offer Ameri- /./ can readers about the precariousness in the "' perspective, their most lasting legacy was the milita- rization of a country already teetering on ethnic strife. In Pakistan today, the military is akin to god. The intelligence wing of the army, the Inter Services Intelligence directorate, or'ISI, defines the role of the ultimate praetorian agency. It is also answerable to no one. Unlike the CIA, there are no Congressional appointments. Dark figures rule that turf. "The ISI has devised and implemented its own political agenda," Nazir said. "With the CIA, it was in charge of training the Mujahideen. But after that, the ISI has interrupted the democratic process time and again in Pakistan." The anti-communist purpose had been lost after the achievement of objectives. The military became a self-indulgent animal and turned towards its own country. In 1988, Haq and his military cronies were blown up in a mysterious plane explosion, along with the American ambassador, but the damage had been done. A precedent for the military had been set: The armed forces' interests came first - everything else was second. So, in a country where there already were twice as many soldiers than teachers, where a hundred million did not have access to even clean drinking water, the acquisition of M-1 tanks and F- 16s got more precedence than the humanitarian breakdown. The U.S. supplied these and more at throw-away prices - a small cost to the Reaganites, who were smelling communist blood in the Afghan mountains. Meanwhile, Pakistanis suffered. The drug trade from the so-called Golden Crescent which runs between the Pak-Afghan border pumped millions of dollars of black money and white narcotics into the country. The arms trade, caused by the surplus of weapons brought with 'Reagan bucks,' was utilized by local militias and ethnic factions to terrorize cities. Karachi, Pakistan's largest city of 14 million, was especially engulfed in the 'Kalashinkov Cul- ture,' the name dedicated to the popularity of the AK-47 assault rifle and its use by sectarian elements. More people died in that city alone than did in both Intifada 1 and 2. Out in the frontier facing A Taliban patrol in Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan. Student-warriors by description, they emerged from the ranks of the U.S.-backed Mujahideen. sion, there were several nationalist and/or secular Afghan factions who were anti-Soviet. The US did have the choice of courting these more moderate ele- ments, yet Washington chose the most fundamental- ist organizations in this network, probably under the belief that rabid religious hard-liners make the best commie-killers. Add a little bit of Soviet-atheism to the equation, and you would have the staunchest ally. We all know how that turned out. But what choices does the U.S. geo-strategists have now? THE SECOND COMING "This is a case of deja vu," Nazir said. "This time, there is another dictator in charge. Once again, the U.S. is willing to finance and buy and Pakistan's support." Engaging the Taliban, capturing Osama bin Laden and trying him in Manhattan's 3rd District Court is obviously not the solution, as clich6d as that sounds. But where does the long term solution lie? "Not in carpet-bombing Kabul," Nazir said. "Nor in calling this a crusade or a war." Nazir is correct. Jingoism doesn't deal with the many grey-areas in the equation. There is always the neighbor-issue. Russia, China and Iran might love to see the Taliban go, considering that they have had to militarily engage with Taliban-backed insurgencies in their regions (or directly with the Taliban, as is Iran's case). But would they tolerate a long-term U.S. mili- tary presence in the region? Furthermore, as Nazir points out, would the Pakistanis tolerate such a pres- ence? The U.S. engagement in Pakistan and Afghanistan should not forget to add what was left out of the recipe in the '80s. "The intelligentsia in Pakistan needs to be taken into confidence," Nazir said. "Democratization needs to be encouraged, along with planning the reconstruction of Afghanistan." Consistency, which has been lacking practically and morally in the U.S. foreign policy, needs to be instilled. "The U.S. needs to reappraise its foreign policy. It should indicate in a very strong way to the Muslims across the world that it is now seeking different objectives. That means gradual withdrawal of support to the retrogressive govern- ments like Saudi Ara- bia and Kuwait. That means avoiding radi- calizing local people in countries like Pak- istan where the U.S. is going (to engage). And that means rethinking its support to Israel, which is connected to all of this." Nazir is correct. If support for foreign retrogression for U.S. 'national interest' and the 'selective morali- ty' element in foreign policy continues, then we can all get ready for long-term engage- AP PHOTO ment instead of long- overnment has pledged to term peace. Period. mestic backlash. Two weeks from Sept. 11 might be as good a time as any to reflect on such notes. Back in 1999, Dilip Hiro, in writing an article for The Nation, quoted Richard Murphy, the assistant secretary of state for the Near East and South Asia during the two Reagan administrations as saying that "we did spawn a monster in Afghanistan." He went on to mention that this "monster" of violent Islamic fundamentalism had now grown tentacles that extended from western China to Algeria to the east coast of America, and that its reach was not likely to diminish without a great deal of the United States' money, time and patience, along with the full cooperation of foreign governments. I hate adding the loss of life on his list of requirements, as much as I abhor the acts which propelled me to write this. Still, the second coming can be employed properly to keep that list short. WafSved can be reached via e-mail at wajsyed@umich. edu. U.-PAK FORElGN. POLICY TIMELINE U 197 } Zia ulHq succedssily leads coupaintst histti< U dri&Sharia Law ilty - t putLClare gees to xie eup menratyndf w oJlr tdh k.c j