Editor’s Note: This Guest Voice column was written for TMV for the Pakistan-based website The Pakistani Spectator.
How America Can Help Pakistan
By The Pakistani Spectator
The delayed elections in Pakistan now scheduled to be held on 18th February are rocking with suicide bombings, allegations of pre-poll rigging, and apathy of Pakistani voters. On the fringes, some American bloggers and columnists are very much eager to “help” Pakistan by deploying American forces around Pakistani nukes in case militants try to capture the nuclear arsenal.
For one, there is no chaos in Pakistan, nor is there any chance even remotely for the extremists to take over the nuclear arsenal or even a conventional weapon depot. Extremism is present in some remote region of Pakistan which borders with Afghanistan, but that is not threatening to the critical sites of Pakistan which are far away and very well guarded. The track record of Pakistan is far much better in safe-guarding the nuclear arsenal, and here no B-52 bombers take a leisurely flight while enjoying nuclear missiles as their payload.
At this crucial juncture in history, when a great chunk of history is being shaped up for the entire world in the South Asia with China showing its economic might, India flexing its nuclear muscles, Iran threatening USA, Afghanistan being exploited by international powers, and Pakistan being pushed to the wall; the need of hour for America is to strengthen the democratic process in Pakistan.
A democratic, progressive and stable Pakistan is in the interest of the world, especially America. There is no chance that United States would get any oil or gas from Pakistan, and there is no chance that Pakistan could prove any strategic location for US to tackle China or Iran, so the only interest of US is to see such a Pakistan which couldn’t be used by the militants for terrorist activities. There are very handfuls of extremist in Pakistan, and they are being tackled fairly competently by the Pakistani authorities.
There are two areas, where US could help Pakistan; one in combating the terrorism and the other is facilitating free and fair elections on time.
Terrorists are being send in to Pakistan by Indian agency RAW, which has established terrorist training camps in Mazar-e-Sharif city of Pakistan. RAW finds, brings, brainwashes, trains and sends suicide bombers in Pakistan, and US could do loads of good to her cause by evicting RAW from Afghanistan. Secondly, the US could use its backdoor and front door channels to exert pressure on Pakistani authorities to hold free and fair elections, and US should also monitor the fairness of elections.
This all is possible only if US really and earnestly wants to help Pakistan in these dire times.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.