What Should The U.S. Do About An Ally That Harbors A Mass Murderer?
One has to go back go back to fascist Italy under Benito Mussolini to find an example of the kind of blatant hypocrisy that characterizes Pakistan.
Pakistan gobbles up billions of dollars in U.S. aid each year but has nothing to show for it, has not just been less than helpful in the dragnet for Osama bin Laden but has allowed him to hide in plain view — giving new meaning to the term terrorist safe haven — in a palatial compound adjacent to the nation’s military academy near a city that also has a large military garrison and is chockablock with retired military and intelligence officers.
As Amrullah Saleh, the former head of Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security, declared: “Does Pakistan want the whole world to believe that the intelligence agency of a nuclear state did not know OBL was there?” Caught out, the directorate now says that it was part of the Navy SEAL operation that took out the Al Qaeda leader, which it most certainly was not. In fact, the special ops choppers had to fly low to the ground so they were not detected by Pakistani radar. Some ally.
Or as Christopher Hitchens, who has now unexpectedly outlived Bin Laden, puts it, “After all, who did not know that the United States was lavishly feeding the same hands that fed Bin Laden?”
There also is speculation, notably in the Indian press, that the compound was built for Bin Laden as a safe house, while speculation is rife in the Pakistani press that it was Pakistani agents who discovered Bin Laden’s hideout but tipped the U.S. to blunt the inevitable domestic backlash.
The only surprise here is that the man who gifted us the 9/11 attacks lived not in a mountain redoubt in a remote tribal land on the border of Afghanistan who in the lap of luxury, albeit a lap without telephones or Internet access.
A question is now begged: Despite its largess, the U.S.’s relationship with Pakistan has been a shambles for years. That relationship is now at a welcome if unexpected turning point, but what turn should be taken?
In its own way, Pakistan is every bit the basket case that Afghanistan is, which has been reduced to further rubble because of Osama bin Laden and his Taliban helpmates. (The big difference is that Afghanistan does not have a nuclear arsenal.) Pakistan will never be a constitutional democracy and it will never be trustworthy.
Any decision about the future of the U.S. relationship with Pakistan has to factor in Afghanistan, including how many troops can be withdrawn and when. It also is a sure bet that Bin Laden’s death will hasten calls for the withdrawal of NATO troops in their home nations.
All that noted, and with Bin Laden now in a watery grave, it is time for the U.S. to bid Pakistan’s contemptible oligarchs a not-so-fond adieu and turn off the foreign aid tap while making it clear that since the government has little to no interest in tamping down the terrorists in their midst they can expect future raids, national sovereignty be damned.
This is letting the chips fall where they may and then some, and raises some troubling questions.
Will getting a divorce from Pakistan speed the rebirth of a safe haven across the border in Afghanistan? Possibly not.
Will it put the American homeland at greater risk? Probably not, because there have been a mere handful of efforts in that direction since 9/11 and hair-on-fire jihadists with box cutters are not credible threats.
Will another foreign power like Russian or China fill the foreign aid breach if the U.S. stops throwing taxpayer money at the Islamabad government? Possibly, but so what? Pakistan then becomes their headache.
Will it impact on Iran’s shadowy role in funding regional terrorism? Possibly not, while the raid on the Bin Laden compound sends a powerful message that the U.S. under Barack Obama is not to be trifled with.
Will it throw the balance of power out of whack in South Asia? No, because it already is out of whack and will remain so until India takes the training wheels off its national bicycle and belatedly assumes responsibility for being the policeman of the region and not merely a country that endlessly feuds with Pakistan over Kashmir and a host of other issues.
12 Responses to “What Should The U.S. Do About An Ally That Harbors A Mass Murderer?”
Shaun – what a truly excellent article, raising many outstanding points in a cogent and even-handed manner.
This really outlines what the problem is with international relations in general – a small handful of countries are basically 100% an ally or an enemy, but the vast majority are some mix of both, often depending on the current circumstances.
Pakistan is of course especially problematic – a semi-unstable, utterly corrupt nuclear country who is a sworn enemy of a much closer US ally, but one that if we abandon will likely fall into radical hands even more opposed to the US and India.
Ummm gee… Did anyone ever trust the Pakistani government or military? It isn’t exactly a secret that just like most of the Middle East, the balance of power and information in Pakistan is broken up between the government and the military. Besides the Turkish army, I would say the Pakistani army and generals has more control over the government that any other army in the ME. We also know that we absolutely cannot trust the Pak armies in the western part of the country due to the alliance with the Taliban and general tribal anarchy in the region.
We trust them not to blow up India, but we never trusted with when it came to Bin Laden. Is it a bit unsettling that he was basically being protected by their military academy…yes. Surprising?? Not at all.
So… lets pull our support from Pakistan and let them go nuclear with their neighbor. It isn’t our problem… right?
Let them cut loose the western provinces again, so extremists feel completely free to setup new camps. It isn’t our problem….right?
It isn’t like most European jihadists get their training in Pakistan… but I guess that isn’t the US’s problem either…right?
ShannonLeee:
Yes, that is correct. What transpires after the U.S. stops lavishing billions of dollars of taxpayer money on crack-addict oligarchs is India’s problem first and foremost. The U.S. will be down the list — where it belongs.
idi amin lived in Saudi Arabia. the shah live in Mexico and here, and baby doc Duvalier lived in France.
Do i need continue showing how elitists live above the laws that govern common people like you and me?
You bring your outrage a little late to the game. People with money buy insulation, and people who who want money or power provide insulation. It’s really a disgusting fact of the non-naive world view expressed by our world’s leaders.
DH:
A quick search shows that I first wrote about the arch hypocrisy of the Pakistan oligarchs on November 24, 2005, about the time Bin Laden’s compound was being built.
My first article about Bin Laden himself was on August 8, 1998, the day after the U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa, and one of the first portraits of him in the U.S. news media.
And so I guess that “a little late in the game” is in the eyes of the beholder.
Of course continue to attack targets independently. Pakistan is no good ally, but a nominal one; the problem is that it’s as close as can be to being a failed state and a terrorist and adversary-nation playground, yet if we let it fail, the alternative would be worse than what we have now. (The same is true for, e.g., Saudi Arabia.)
Shannon Lee wrote:
> So… lets pull our support from Pakistan and
> let them go nuclear with their neighbor.
> It isn’t our problem… right?
>
> Let them cut loose the western provinces again,
> so extremists feel completely free to setup new
> camps. It isn’t our problem….right?
Nobody is saying we cannot attack the new camps (much less that we should not!).
An extreme case for us (that we wouldn’t do because the subjects are so toxic and the scheme is revolutionary) would be to support partition of Pakistan and Baluchi independence, in a nation not only consisting of those “northwestern provinces” but of the Baluchi people and lands in Afghanistan, too.
As for Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and nuclear programs and facilities (and don’t forget ballistic missile and other WMD threats), certainly we already have or should have plans to seize or destroy the nuclear weapons and all the other facilities.
Shaun Mullen wrote:
> What transpires after the U.S. stops
> lavishing billions of dollars of taxpayer
> money on crack-addict oligarchs [in
> Pakistan and Afghanistan] is India’s
> problem first and foremost.
It’s a primary problem for India now, already.
Note that it’s simplistic and foolish to imagine we simply can, with little effort and no more cost, stop supporting the Pakistani government and everything will magically get better with threats originating there, to the USA and the rest of the West.
shaun
my comment was directed at “the great debater in the sky” who keeps blocking meaningful analysis of killers in exile. Wiki-leaks kind of uncovered that scab and was hammered for it.
i did not mean to point at you. you brought up the subject for very good reasons. i merely pointed out that what we know is right and what passes for acceptable behavior in world politics are two very different things.
DH:
I understand and agree, which is why none of us should be surprised in the least if the upshot of the OBL raid is that things pretty much remain the same between the U.S. and Pakistan. A glaring example of what is right being kneecapped by what is acceptable.
Lets look at some of our allies in the area Pakistan, Saudis Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and Yemen. All are just allies in name only, we pay them to try to behave. Turkey is closest to a democracy, yet t=Turkey acts in its own interest during the W and Obamama administrations.
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