The Sale of Sovereignty
I
hate to say I told you so and wish I’d
been dead wrong. In “Going too
far” I had written that the sole
statement that the collectively impotent
Pakistan government will muster after
Pakistan’s sovereignty was violated
by American air strikes in Bajaur will
be, “This should not happen again”.
And that is truly all they said. Reminiscent
of the refrain in Julius Caesar: “and
Brutus is an honorable man” the
Pakistani version was “and this
should not happen again”.
As though the killing of innocent civilians
by a foreign power was not infuriating
enough; all supposedly responsible Pakistani
government officers displayed disarray.
Information Minister Sheikh Rashid responds
to each tragedy with a combination of
sarcastic humor and outright contempt,
and with all the tragedies that seem
to be targeting Pakistan all of a sudden,
it would behoove the government to give
him a makeover.
Musharraf immediately gave a Terrorism
101 to the tribal areas, urging them
to not shelter terrorists. No condolence,
no apology, no explanation. It would
behoove him to feel paternal empathy
with Muhammad Khan who lost all his
children in the attack. Musharraf does
have children, yes?
Pakistan has lodged a complaint about
the missile strike, but is not seeking
an apology, foreign office spokeswoman
Tasneem Aslam told a press briefing.
Very interesting! Innocent civilians
are killed in an air strike by a foreign
power on a supposed friendly sovereign
country, in violation of all international
laws, and the Pakistan government is
not even seeking a simple “sorry”?
It did not even call the US ambassador
to the foreign office to formally protest;
sending him packing to Washington is
stuff that dreams are made of. The dreams
of dumb idealists, not pragmatists that
Musharraf likes to cast himself as.
In contrast, the US ambassador to India
flexes imperial muscle, attempting intimidation
of India in regard to the Iran nuclear
issue, and pronto the summons comes
from the Indian foreign office demanding
retraction and good behavior in the
future. Meekly and apologetically the
American ambassador complies.
India knows the lesson Pakistan has
yet to learn: you must bully a bully
back. Or at least Pakistan ought to
remember and practice the well-known
aphorism that if you become a doormat
people walk all over you.
Tasneem Aslam continues, "We told
[the US] that security inside Pakistan
is an internal matter," she said.
"Taking action against terrorists
inside Pakistan is our responsibility
and we have been doing it." Translated
that means “please Uncle Sam,
let us play cops and robbers, please,
come see what we’ve been doing”
while Uncle Sam snoozes through the
entreaty. And when it awakens it never
cares to recall the many Al-Qaeda members
Pakistan has arrested and turned over.
The Americanized Prime Minister of Pakistan,
Shaukat Aziz, acknowledged that people
were angry about the air strike "but
then they also realize the US is a big
power and we need to work together to
build for peace and build for development."
Let me rephrase this for easier understanding.
“America should not have killed
the innocent villagers. But America
is the most powerful in the world, and
we can ignore the deaths of a few Pakistanis,
(what are a few villagers after all?)
because America is killing innocent
civilians to make peace and promote
Pakistan’s economic development.”
My sputtering precludes my ability to
make sense.
Opposition leaders at a joint press
conference condemned what they called
an act of "state terrorism,"
accusing Musharraf of failing to protect
Pakistan's sovereignty and acting as
a spokesman for the US administration.
They said Aziz should have canceled
his American trip, and that his failure
to do so showed the government's "subservience"
to the US.
Aziz responded to this litany with “the
air strikes are regrettable but Pakistan
needs investment”. Let me play
interpreter again: “America can
kill at will, as long as it spends money
in Pakistan”. Indeed, Musharraf
and Aziz are allowing America to spend
money and blood in Pakistan.
Principles, national sovereignty and
self-respect have been bartered for
petty personal gain. How could Shaukat
Aziz have stood disgusted, defiant and
unyielding to America, and cancelled
or at least postponed his American trip?
On a particular day, he was to be the
first Pakistani to ever open the New
York stock exchange with a shake of
that bell. In an amusing twist though,
he looked like the man with the reverse-Midas-touch,
for the stock market took a nose dive,
the worst one-day fall in years, hitting
only the headlines as it plummeted.
The Associated Press reported that Prime
Minister Shaukat Aziz condemned America’s
January 13 air strike on Damadola village,
Bajaur Agency, saying such attacks should
be cleared with Islamabad first. Excuse
me? Does he seriously mean what this
sounds like? Not only are Musharraf
and Aziz being obsequious they seem
willing to facilitate the massacre of
Pakistani civilians. It is as though
America next time around will be given
up to the minute information about the
whereabouts of the terrorists, and remember,
with the 22-year-old sitting on an aircraft
carrier playing point and click with
his computer’s mouse, Hellfire
missiles could rain on metropolitan
Multan.
There are news reports that Musharraf
and senior Pakistani government officials
did know of the air strikes, though
they seem to be playing “that’s
my story and I’m sticking to it”.
For US senators Evan Bayh and Trent
Lott, both of whom serve on the Senate
Intelligence Committee, have said that
they had "every reason to believe"
senior government officials in Pakistan
were told of the strikes in advance.
They are also entirely unapologetic
and promise more strikes in the future.
So much for the Musharraf-Aziz-Rashid
refrains of “this should not happen
again”.
The torrent of email after each of my
articles is published actually informs
me that it has. I get loads from irate
Indians. They unabashedly pepper their
fury with expletives directed at Islam,
Pakistan and me. With the article “Preying
on Pakistan” that spoke of the
killing of 18 civilians in Bajaur, there
was an unusual volume from Pakistanis/Pakistani-Americans.
The chorus seemed to be Pakistan’s
lack of sovereignty for the past several
decades. Many labeled Pakistan a slave
of America.
Interestingly very few American newspapers
wrote editorials of protest about the
air strikes though irate letters to
the editor seemed plentiful. Under titles
like “America terrorizing Pakistan’s
innocents” and “Amoral CIA
kills women and children” much
disgust and outrage were expressed.
A colleague said that my article reminded
him of a joke, apparently attributed
to a couple of friends in Karachi. One
slaps the other real hard. The victim
says to the aggressor “listen
if you do this again it will be real
bad for you, I’ll hit you real
hard”. The guy hits him again;
he says the same thing again, and so
it goes on until the victim is about
to die of his wounds. “I will
respond to you on the Day of Judgment”
he threatens as he dies. There is more
of a parallel between this story and
the sorry state of affairs in Pakistan,
than I am willing to acknowledge. And
it compounds my pain to an unbearable
magnitude.
At the risk of sounding paranoid I will
say that there appears to be a concerted
effort to brush this grave violation
of international law under the proverbial
carpet. Why can Musharraf and Aziz not
see that if there is capitulation now,
it will be forever? And yes I know there
has probably been unconditional surrender,
years ago.
Much is made of the pillage of Pakistan
by Benazir and Nawaz Sharif. They stole
from Pakistan, and lavished diamonds
and estates upon themselves. Musharraf
and Aziz have sold Pakistan’s
sovereignty and self-respect, and lavished
power and photo-ops upon themselves.
Whose is the greater crime?
(Mahjabeen Islam, M.D. is a physician
and freelance columnist practicing in
Toledo, Ohio USA. Her email is mahjabeenislam@hotmail.com)
