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$1 billion for U.S. embassies in Pakistan, Afghanistan

In a worrying continuation of Bush administration empire building in the Middle East, the Obama administration is embarking on a $1-billion crash program to expand its diplomatic presence in Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan. The White House has asked Congress for — and seems likely to receive — $736 million to build a new U.S. embassy in Islamabad, along with permanent housing for U.S. government civilians and new office space in the Pakistani capital. Other major projects are planned for Kabul, Afghanistan; and for the Pakistani cities of Lahore and Peshawar, where the U.S. government is negotiating the purchase of a five-star hotel that would house a new U.S. consulate. Peshawar is an important station for gathering intelligence on the tribal area that surrounds the city on three sides and is a base for Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The area also will be a focus for expanded U.S. aid programs,.

The scale of the projects rivals the giant U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, which was completed last year after construction delays at a cost of $740 million. Senior State Department officials said the expanded diplomatic presence is needed to replace overcrowded, dilapidated and unsafe facilities and to support a “surge” of civilian officials into Afghanistan and Pakistan ordered by President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Obama has repeatedly stated that stabilizing Pakistan and Afghanistan, the countries from which Al Qaeda and the Taliban operate, is vital to U.S. national security.

In Pakistan, however, large parts of the population are hostile to the U.S. presence in the region — despite receiving billions of dollars in aid from Washington since 2001 — and anti-American groups and politicians are likely to seize on the expanded diplomatic presence in Islamabad as evidence of American “imperial designs.” The existing embassy in the capital’s diplomatic enclave was badly damaged in a 1979 assault by Pakistani students.

– edited from The Christian Science Monitor, May 28, 2009
PeaceMeal, Sept/October 2009

Crisis in Pakistan increases mistrust of U.S.

The United States sees Pakistan as vital in its plan to bring stability in Afghanistan by defeating al-Qaeda and militant Taliban forces. With Taliban fighters having taken control of Pakistan’s picturesque Swat Valley and moving just 60 miles from the capital, Islamabad, the Obama administration pressured Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari to take action. The Pakistani military launched an offensive in early May in the Swat Valley and neighboring districts to stop the spread of the Taliban insurgency that raised fears for nuclear-armed Pakistan’s existence as a nation. But the fighting has driven some two million people from their homes and heightened Pakistani mistrust of U.S. policies.

Pakistan could face even greater turmoil in the months ahead because the U.S. is pouring thousands of troops into neighboring Afghanistan in an attempt to reverse gains there by a resurgent Taliban, particularly in the southern heartland which borders Pakistan. U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen warned May 21 that a U.S. military offensive in southern Afghanistan could push Taliban fighters into Pakistan. Violence is already rising in the tribal regions from where Taliban and al-Qaeda militants launch attacks on both sides of the border.

The United Nations has warned of a long-term humanitarian crisis in Pakistan and called for massive aid for some two million people displaced by the current offensive and earlier fighting. “The scale of this displacement is extraordinary in terms of size and speed and has caused incredible suffering,” said Martin Mogwanja, the acting U.N. humanitarian coordinator, in launching the appeal. “We require a total $543 million assistance until the end of December this year” to provide emergency shelter, food, education and health services.

About 15,000 members of the Pakistani security forces are fighting between 4,000 and 5,000 militants in Swat, the military says. The army claims to have won back swaths of territory in Swat, which was popular with tourists before the Taliban took over, enforcing a hardline brand of Islamic law and beheading opponents. It says more than 1,000 militants have been killed in the fighting and denies allegations that many civilians have died in army shelling, but there has not been any independent confirmation of those claims because reporters are unable to work in the war zone.

The government has the backing of most politicians and many members of the public for the military offensive, but that support could quickly disappear if many civilians are killed or if the displaced languish in misery. Swat’s main town of Mingora, which normally has at least 375,000 residents, was emptied of all but 10,000 to 20,000 civilians still trapped in the town. Fierce street fighting erupted in the center of Mingora on May 23. Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas warned that the operation there could be “painfully slow” to avoid casualties, as Pakistani soldiers were moving from house to house to secure it.

A senior commander, Maj. Gen. Sajad Ghan, insisted there was light at the end of the tunnel: “The noose is tightening around them. Their routes of escape have been cut off,” he said. “It’s just a question of time before (Taliban leaders) are eliminated.”

No one is predicting how much time that will take. The hardliners in Pakistan’s Islamic political parties want an Islamic government more severe than Saudi Arabia’s run according to Shariah law.

There are tens of thousands of madrassas (Islamic schools) in Pakistan that indoctrinate students in this ideology. Severe corporal punishments are handed out to students in the name of Islam. An entire generation of Pakistanis is growing up in these madrassas, devoid of any critical thinking and developing severe hatred for anything Western. Some teach students to seek martyrdom by suicide attacks. Even those schools without direct links to violence provide religious justification for violent attacks.

– edited from The Associated Press, Reuters, Newsweek and PBS FRONTLINE/World
PeaceMeal, May/June 2009

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Pakistan won’t be first in nuclear strike

Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, has assured rival India he would not be the first to use nuclear weapons in any future conflict and proposed the idea of a nuclear-free South Asia. Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine, like that of the United States but unlike India’s, does not contain a clause saying the country will not be the first to use its nuclear weapons in conflict.

It was not clear if President Zardari’s comments, made Nov. 22 during a video conference question-and-answer session organized by The Hindustan Times newspaper of India, represented a formal change in policy.

Asked by a student whether Pakistan was prepared to say it would not use a nuclear weapon first, Zardari said, “Most definitely! I am against nuclear warfare altogether.” The moderator repeated the question, pointing out to Zardari that his earlier answer was a “headline.” Zardari again replied, “Definitely!”

Zardari then proposed the idea of a nuclear-free South Asia. “I am sure I can get my parliament to agree with that, straight on,” he said. “Can you say the same?” he asked those in attendance, which included Indian government and business leaders. He gave no more details on the idea, which Pakistan — one-sixth the size of India — has proposed before.

Predominantly Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan have fought three wars since they were created in the bloody partition of the Indian subcontinent at independence from Britain in 1947. The stakes got much higher after both tested nuclear weapons in 1998.

– edited from The Associated Press, Nov. 23, 2008PeaceMeal, Nov/December 2008