Ramzy Baroud's Blog

By Ramzy Baroud

 

The 42-day drama in Pakistan is far from over; the declaration of emergency and the lifting of emergency are part of a charade, behind which lidx a complex power play between Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, various camps within the military elite, and the US government. The Pakistani people are the least relevant to these calculations, although every player never fails to justify unwarranted actions in their name.

 

General Musharraf’s motives for declaring emergency on November 3 are far from enigmatic. To guarantee his political future, Musharraf acted in the decisive, uncompromising fashion of a military man: first he brought the country to a state of suspended animation, then he restructured the government, judiciary, parliament and constitution to align them with his interests. Once these changes were enacted, he revoked the 42-day state of emergency, and even further promised ‘absolutely’ free and transparent legislative elections on January 8, 2008.  

 

The Bush administration’s placatory response to Musharraf’s actions (not going further than carefully-worded, benign condemnations) is not the only thing that makes it hard to substantiate the claim that Musharraf acted independently of the US or at the behest of some elements in the Pakistani military alone. Following September 11, 2001, and the invasion of Afghanistan soon after, Musharraf has become one of America’s most faithful allies in the region. US aid to Pakistan multiplied and spent with little accountability. According to Jeffrey D. Sachs, a Professor of Economics at Columbia University, “75% of the $10 billion in US aid has gone to the Pakistani military, ostensibly to reimburse Pakistan for its contribution to the ‘war on terror,’ and to help it buy F-16s and other weapons systems. Another 16% went straight to the Pakistani budget, no questions asked. That left less than 10% for development and humanitarian assistance.”

 

The Pakistani president is Machiavellian part and parcel. Contrary to appearances, he knows his limits and plays by the unwritten rules of power. When he declared emergency, he cited two objectives with underlying messages.

 

The first was aimed at his detractors who he claimed had mounted a ‘conspiracy’ to destabilize the country and his rule; as this conspiracy allegedly involved the judiciary, it justified his purge campaign.

 

The second message cleverly transcended all of that to reel in the US and its ‘war on terror’. Indeed, according to this logic, Musharraf needed a state of emergency to combat a Taliban-inspired insurgency stemming from the tribal areas in the North West Frontier Province. With the US and NATO fighting their own Taliban and Taliban-inspired insurgency in Afghanistan, Musharraf’s actions in Islamabad were meant to supplement the incessant efforts at curbing the terrorist resurgence in the entire region.

 

It is hardly news that countries which to utilize ‘war on terror’ reasoning to justify violating human rights and democracy in their own countries are often -  if not always - American allies or clients.

 

Musharraf must have understood that his failure to cooperate with US military plans would invite US wrath and hasten his exit (violent or otherwise). While his ‘cooperation’ was hardly optional, it also had its rewards. One of these was a free hand to alter internal political structures, so long as they didn’t in any way interfere with US interests. Musharraf tested this unspoken understanding, and the Bush administration kept true to its word - until the US Congress decided to interfere.

 

At the same time that Musharraf began decrying the Taliban-inspired insurgency in the tribal areas, US officials began highlighting - if not manipulating - intelligence that exaggerated the same threat.

 

For example, US Defence Secretary Robert M. Gates said in a media briefing on December 21 that Al Qaeda insurgents are shifting focus to Pakistan, threatening the country and its ‘people’. Gates dismissed the Taliban’s violent return to Afghanistan, even mocking the over-publicized spring offensive. “The spring offensive we expected from the Taliban became NATO's spring offensive," he told journalists in Washington. Why this sudden change of priorities, and why did they coincide so well with Musharraf’s own changes?

 

The shift - which has made Pakistan the primary battleground, as opposed to its previous position as a less important frontier than Afghanistan- could mean a major strategic change in US military policy toward Pakistan in the future. It also emphasises the importance of the role played by Musharraf and his regime.

 

Musharraf’s validation is urgently needed by the Bush administration now that Congress has passed the spending bill, putting limits on $300 million of US military aid to Pakistan. $250 million is be used strictly for counter-terrorism operation, and the delivery of the rest hinges on Pakistan’s success - or failure - in living up to the Congress’ strict conditions. This deviation, if not contained quickly, might cause a rift and future difficulties for the US in Pakistan, especially among disgruntled military figures competing for power, privilege and contracts. For now, the White House has gone on crisis management mode, touting the January 8 elections and paying lip service to democracy, free media access and so forth.

 

One of those involved in defending Musharraf’s record is US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher, who, on December 20, said that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice should be able to report that Pakistan is on its way toward full restoration of democracy. "We're trying to keep moving toward elections that are as fair and as free as possible. We do think there are (additional) steps that can be taken and will be taken," Boucher said.

 

The US administration and Congress are likely to clash over the best ways to control Pakistan, or - to put it mildly - to ensure Pakistan’s continuous cooperation in the US ‘war on terror’. However the clash manifests, the resulting US foreign policy posture is likely to affect changes – substantial or otherwise – in US policy toward Pakistan, resulting in further interference in the country’s internal affairs, deepening the discord and fuelling more violence. Indeed, it may endanger the future of genuine democracy in Pakistan for years to come.

 

-Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers and journals worldwide. His latest book is The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle (Pluto Press, London).

What does Israel hope to achieve by the latest violent escalation in Gaza, which killed 10 Islamic Jihad members? Of course, the media has created a menacing image for the group that there is no way on earth anyone will dare explain the group’s action as a legitimate resistance, thus it is okay if they and anyone else who happened to be in the same street, are murdered with impunity.

Of course, Abbas and his Palestinian Authority Inc. could care less about the fate of anyone who is not a shareholder in their expanding Palestine business venture; the $7.4 billion that he was promised in Paris recently is enough to keep him mum forever; Abbas’ statement that the raid on Gaza was unhelpful is nonsense; the fact is the fate of Gaza is a shared responsibility of Abbas and Israel. 

So now what?

The Islamic Jihad will retaliate; a few Israeli citizens will die; the media will talk about Israel’s existentialist threat; Abbas, to ensure that the first donors’ payment made it to his PA bank account safe and sound will go out of his way shutting more Islamic charities and arresting activists. Israeli will carry on killing, and destroying the terror 'infrastructure' in Gaza. Infrastructure? Give me a break; those who visited Gaza would laugh at the notion; 1.5 million people piled up in a 365 square kilometre, starved and deprived of every basic right under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights living a life hardly fit for animals and they call that infrastructure.

Seriously, how shoud any one behave in response to living in a concentration camp,unable to move more than one or two kilometre in any given direction; cannot even fish in their own sea; watching their kids go on an involuntary diet, malnourished, dispossessed and waiting to die in their ever expanding graveyards?

Their only outlets are their pathetic rockets fired randomly at Israel; they killed around 10 Israelis in the last 6 years; within he same period, Israel has killed and wounded thousands; but this is not only about numbers, it’s also about the fact that it is Israel that has stole the land, pushed people into refugee camps, locked them in tiny spaces and continues to brutalize them in the name of security.

It’s bewildering how all of this is so easily forgotten when Palestinians retaliate; the most important context, becomes so irrelevant to our media apologists who could never appreciate the humanity of Palestinians. So get ready CNN, Fox News, CNBC and all the rest: time to resume your dehumanizing war against the Palestinians, for failing to respond to Israel's murders in kind; bring in your Zionist and Christian Zionists 'experts' to educate us all on why Palestinians should be taught a lesson, beaten hard and at every turn; after all many Palestinians subscribe to the same religion as Bin Laden and Zwahri ..

Also, get ready Palestinian and Arab apologists who are expected to exhibit a more ‘civilized’ image of Palestinians; it’s time to start condemning your people’s violence, for Israel’s security is also a top priority for well-fed Palestinian bankers, contractors and NGOs and their secular priesthood (thank you Chomsky for the latter term).

No, Israel hasn’t attacked Gaza to put an obstacle before the peace process; there is and was no peace process to be stopped; only rhetoric and people dying in the name of Israel’s security.

I cannot imagine how it must feel being a dad or a mom in Gaza trying to shelter my children from falling missiles in a large prison, where all I can do is run in circles.

But Abbas could care little about this; his Ramallah villa is secured and his bank account must be in a good shape. Long live the 5 star hotel revolution, Mr. President.

Ramzy Baroud, London

By Ramzy Baroud

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s speech on December 6th - in which he tried to ‘explain’ his Mormon faith - was met with a mostly sympathetic reception at George Bush Library in Texas.

The speech has been long anticipated, not so much for its relevance to the pressing debate on the defining role of religion in American politics, and how this undermines the very meaning of secular democracy. It was awaited simply because Romney belongs to the wrong faith. Recent polls indicate that one out of every three Republicans will not vote for Romney because he is a Mormon.

The whole affair has done much to reveal the hypocrisy of institutional democracy in the United States. While every presidential candidate, Republican or Democrat, has unreservedly uttered lip service to democratic ideals, very few have dared push the boundaries by actually explaining their personal views on what separation of church and state means.

Given the Republicans’ reservations on Romney and the fact that the religious vote has long been shown to be a formidable factor in determining who claims the throne of the Oval Office, one can easily deduce that religion is hardly a personal matter in the American political milieu. Imagine, for instance, the sort of chances a presidential candidate would have as a dedicated atheist, or worse, as a devout Muslim.

It might be a long time - if ever - before the possibility of a Muslim candidate representing a major party is put to the test. But one need not wait that long to appreciate the narrow-mindedness of the media and politicians, and how this influences public opinion.

While the urgency of ‘responding’ to Islamic fundamentalism has been consistently highlighted in the ongoing presidential campaign, very little has been said about Christian, Jewish or other religious fundamentalisms. Rarely has a candidate – with the exception of Democrat Dennis Kucinich – dared to examine the relationship between Christian fundamentalism and the Iraq war, or Jewish fundamentalism and the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Religious fanaticism and fundamentalism are rarely discussed as perilous phenomena in their own right; if it’s not ‘Islamic’ it simply doesn’t count.

Such short-sightedness has wide-ranging and deeply harmful implications. All that a volunteer for Senator Hilary Clinton’s presidential campaign needed to do to temporarily disrupt the recent gains of Barack Obama’s campaign was to distribute an email suggesting that Obama was a Muslim intent on ‘destroying’ the United Sates. As laughable as this may sound, one cannot underestimate the impact that such rumours have on voters filled with fear and disdain for everything Muslim. Of course, Christian fundamentalist President George W. Bush’s wholesale destruction of a Muslim country, Iraq, is not a mere rumour. That this is not considered noteworthy is most telling. Chances are Obama will do his utmost to distance himself from the rumour – as he has done in the past - which could reinvigorate the old accusation that he spent time studying at a Muslim school. Obama previously responded by vowing to respond severely to Muslim terrorism, going so far as to say he would bomb Pakistan if necessary. Whether he will upgrade further his hostile language to show his worthiness to lead America is yet to be seen.

Although Islam and Muslims were hardly relevant to Romney’s speech, Naomi Schaefer Riley of the conservative Wall Street Journal couldn’t prevent herself from shoving Islam into the picture, predictably in an unfavorable light. In her article, ‘What Iowans Should Know About Mormons’ (December 7), Riley cites a recent Pew poll which shows that “only 53% of Americans have a favourable opinion of Mormons.” She then observes: “That's roughly the same percentage who feel that way toward Muslims. By contrast, more than three-quarters of Americans have a favorable opinion of Jews and Catholics.”

Riley then gets to her main and vindictive point: “Whatever the validity of such judgments, one has to wonder: Why does a faith professed by the 9/11 hijackers rank alongside that of a peaceful, productive, highly educated religious group founded within our own borders?”

Not only did Riley isolate 9/11 from the pre and post 9/11 contexts (again conveniently neglecting the fact that nearly a million Iraqis were killed by those who mostly profess the Christian faith), she also implicitly indicated that Mormonism is everything that Islam is not. The latter religion is thus hostile, unproductive, backward and alien.

Riley was hardly satisfied with selectively linking a religion professed by over a billion people of all colors and ethnicities worldwide - including millions of Americans - to a few hijackers. She used the rest of her inadequate ‘analysis’ to inappropriately bring Islam to a discussion from which it should have been entirely spared.

One can understand the urge of the faithful of any religion to make preferences for presidential candidates on the basis of their faith. One can thus also understand why politicians cater to the religious sensibilities of their constituents, even if this means resorting to untruths. But one cannot in any way sympathize with the mainstream media – perceived largely as ‘liberal’ – for failing to realign the debate by bringing it back to its proper boundaries: that of equitable democracy vs religious prejudices, looking at Romney as a man who can do good, or bad for America rather than a man who professes a ‘wacky’ or ‘cult-like’ faith.

It’s odd that in the first decade of the 21st century, the media still validates the same religious thoughtlessness that had prevailed in America when Catholic John F. Kennedy made his famous statement in 1960 asserting that the Pope would not sway his presidency. Indeed, the media should have chastised the entire debate which ranks potential presidents based on whose God is best, or whether comparative religion should be discussed at all. Needless to say mediocre journalism like that of Riley should have never made it to print in the first place.

-Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers and journals worldwide. His latest book is The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle (Pluto Press, London).