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Vertaal:
              De Oorlog van Bush verwijdt gevaarlijk
Donderdag, 18 September, 2008 Door Tariq Ali | Het besluit openbaar te maken een presidentiële orde van laatste Juli dat Amerikaan machtigt stakingen binnen Pakistan zonder de naar goedkeuring van de Pakistaanse overheidseinden een lang debat binnen, en op de periferie van te streven, het beleid van Bush. Senator Barack Obama, bewust van dit aan de gang zijnde debat tijdens zijn eigen lange slag met Hillary Clinton, die haar te overvleugelen door een beleid van de V.S. wordt geprobeerd te steunen. stakingen in Pakistan. Senator John McCain en de Presidentiële kandidaat Sarah Palin hebben van de Ondeugd nu deze mening weergalmd en zodat is het, door consensus, de officiële V.S. geworden. beleid. Zijn gevolgen voor Pakistan zouden catastrofaal kunnen zijn, creërend een strenge crisis binnen het leger en in het land bij groot. De overweldigende meerderheid van Pakistani is tegengesteld aan de V.S. aanwezigheid in het gebied, dat het bekijkt als ernstigste bedreiging voor vrede. Waarom, toen, de V.S. heeft. beslist een essentiële bondgenoot destabiliseren? Binnen Pakistan, debatteren sommige analisten dat dit een zorgvuldig gecoördineerde beweging is om de Pakistaanse staat nog verder te verzwakken door een crisis te creëren die manier voorbij badlands op de grens met Afghanistan uitbreidt. Zijn uiteindelijk doel, eisen zij, zou de extractie van de kernhoektanden van de Pakistaanse militairen zijn. Als dit het geval was, zou het impliceren dat Washington inderdaad werd bepaald om de Pakistaanse staat te verdelen, aangezien het land zeer eenvoudig geen ramp op die schaal zou overleven. Naar mijn mening, echter, brengt de uitbreiding van de oorlog veel meer met het rampzalige beroep van het beleid van Bush in Afghanistan met elkaar in verband. Het is nauwelijks een geheim dat het regime van President Hamid Karzai meer geïsoleerde met elke voorbijgaande dag wordt, zoals Taliban guerilla's beweging steeds dichter aan Kaboel. Wanneer in twijfel, stijg is de oorlog oude keizermotto. De stakingen tegen Pakistan vertegenwoordigen - als de besluiten van President Richard Nixon en zijn Nationale Veiligheid valt de Adviseur Henry Kissinger aan bom en dan Kambodja (handelingen dat, uiteindelijk, de Pot van Pol. en zijn monsters) binnen machtigde - een wanhopig bod om een oorlog te bergen die nooit goed was, maar slecht nu verkeerd gegaan. Het is waar dat die die tegen het beroep van de NAVO verzetten zich de Pakistan-Afghaanse grens met gemak overschrijden. Nochtans, de V.S. vaak in stille onderhandelingen met hen in dienst genomen. Verscheidene voelers zijn voorgelegd uit aan Taliban in Pakistan, terwijl de V.S. intelligence experts regularly check into the Serena Hotel in Swat to discuss possibilities with Mullah Fazlullah, a local pro-Taliban leader. The same is true inside Afghanistan. After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, a whole layer of the Taliban’s middle-level leadership crossed the border into Pakistan to regroup and plan for what lay ahead. By 2003, their guerrilla factions were starting to harass the occupying forces in Afghanistan and, during 2004, they began to be joined by a new generation of local recruits, by no means all jihadists, who were being radicalized by the occupation itself. Though, in the world of the Western media, the Taliban has been entirely conflated with al-Qaeda, most of their supporters are, in fact, driven by quite local concerns. If NATO and the U.S. were to leave Afghanistan, their political evolution would most likely parallel that of Pakistan’s domesticated Islamists. The neo-Taliban now control at least twenty Afghan districts in Kandahar, Helmand, and Uruzgan provinces. It is hardly a secret that many officials in these zones are closet supporters of the guerrilla fighters. Though often characterized as a rural jacquerie they have won significant support in southern towns and they even led a Tet-style offensive in Kandahar in 2006. Elsewhere, mullahs who had initially supported President Karzai’s allies are now railing against the foreigners and the government in Kabul. For the first time, calls for jihad against the occupation are even being heard in the non-Pashtun northeast border provinces of Takhar and Badakhshan. The neo-Taliban have said that they will not join any government until “the foreigners” have left their country, which raises the question of the strategic aims of the United States. Is it the case, as NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer suggested to an audience at the Brookings Institution earlier this year, that the war in Afghanistan has little to do with spreading good governance in Afghanistan or even destroying the remnants of al-Qaeda? Is it part of a master plan, as outlined by a strategist in NATO Review in the Winter of 2005, to expand the focus of NATO from the Euro-Atlantic zone, because “in the 21st century NATO must become an alliance… designed to project systemic stability beyond its borders”? As that strategist went on to write:
Such a strategy implies a permanent military presence on the borders of both China and Iran. Given that this is unacceptable to most Pakistanis and Afghans, it will only create a state of permanent mayhem in the region, resulting in ever more violence and terror, as well as heightened support for jihadi extremism, which, in turn, will but further stretch an already over-extended empire. Globalizers often speak as though U.S. hegemony and the spread of capitalism were the same thing. This was certainly the case during the Cold War, but the twin aims of yesteryear now stand in something closer to an inverse relationship. For, in certain ways, it is the very spread of capitalism that is gradually eroding U.S. hegemony in the world. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s triumph in Georgia was a dramatic signal of this fact. The American push into the Greater Middle East in recent years, designed to demonstrate Washington’s primacy over the Eurasian powers, has descended into remarkable chaos, necessitating support from the very powers it was meant to put on notice. Pakistan’s new, indirectly elected President, Asif Zardari, the husband of the assassinated Benazir Bhutto and a Pakistani “godfather” of the first order, indicated his support for U.S. strategy by inviting Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai to attend his inauguration, the only foreign leader to do so. Twinning himself with a discredited satrap in Kabul may have impressed some in Washington, but it only further decreased support for the widower Bhutto in his own country. The key in Pakistan, as always, is the army. If the already heightened U.S. raids inside the country continue to escalate, the much-vaunted unity of the military High Command might come under real strain. At a meeting of corps commanders in Rawalpindi on September 12th, Pakistani Chief of Staff General Ashfaq Kayani received unanimous support for his relatively mild public denunciation of the recent U.S. strikes inside Pakistan in which he said the country’s borders and sovereignty would be defended “at all cost.” Saying, however, that the Army will safeguard the country’s sovereignty is different from doing so in practice. This is the heart of the contradiction. Perhaps the attacks will cease on November 4th. Perhaps pigs (with or without lipstick) will fly. What is really required in the region is an American/NATO exit strategy from Afghanistan, which should entail a regional solution involving Pakistan, Iran, India, and Russia. These four states could guarantee a national government and massive social reconstruction in that country. No matter what, NATO and the Americans have failed abysmally. Tariq Ali, writer, journalist, filmmaker, contributes regularly to a range of publications including the Guardian, the Nation, and the London Review of Books. His most recent book, just published, is The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power (Scribner, 2008). In a two-part video, released by TomDispatch.com, he offers critical commentary on Barack Obama’s plans for Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as on the tangled U.S.-Pakistani relationship. Copyright 2008 Tariq Ali Have Your Say: Bush’s War Widens Dangerously Please read our posting guidelines before posting. Alternatively you can discuss this report here. Related News
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