End of Osama bin Laden, trouble for Pakistan

Islamabad will have to stand up to tough questions from Washington: what was Osama bin Laden doing in high security garrisoned Abbottabad? Shahid Husain reports from Karachi

There is jubilation in the air in the US as well as other western countries over the killing of Osama bin Laden. In all likelihood President Barack Obama will win the elections in the next term despite the worst recession the US is facing for the last several years.

But in Pakistan, enlightened and progressive forces, despite heaving a sigh of relief over his death, now apprehend the worst type of backlash once NATO forces in Afghanistan start leaving – and like the Afghan War which ended in the humiliation and ouster of the Soviet Union – Pakistan and Afghanistan in particular will bear the brunt of suicide bombing, a fresh injection of the arms and drugs culture and enhanced terrorism. Needless to say, narco-money will also play a more dominant role.

Osama Bin Laden was killed by US Special Forces which intruded into Pakistan territory, without taking the Pakistani government into confidence, indicating its mistrust of the Gilani-Zardari duo.

The mansion where Osama bin Laden was killed by US Special Forces.

The distrust is also understandable because since long, remnants of military dictator General Zia-ul-Haq in Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) have been playing a double game.

The influence of fundamentalist forces in the ISI can be gauged from the fact that apparently they are not even willing to listen to the Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and ISI chief General Ahmed Shuja Pasha. Both, according to wellknown south Asian security specialist Stephen Cohen, are secular, professional and the best generals in the Pakistan army.

Unlike the meek and thoroughly corrupt civilian governments, they are also tough negotiators and have the gall to terminate the supply lines of NATO forces from time to time. This does not mean taking sides with the army vis-à-vis the fragile civilian government of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani. On the contrary, what is needed in Pakistan is a third option led by enlightened and progressive forces.

According to a story published in the prestigious The Guardian newspaper on Tuesday, “The Obama administration is demanding an explanation from Pakistan on how Osama bin Laden was able to hide in the country for so long before he was killed by US Special Forces.”

Hasan Askari-Rizvi, Pakistan’s top defence analyst, agrees that the Pakistan government will have to face tough questions. “The current strain and distrust that marks the relationship between Pakistan and the US will continue to persist and Washington may ask Islamabad to become vigilant for searching other senior al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders,” he told TSI.

Members of Jamaat-ud-Dawa at a prayer meeting in Lahore to mourn the death of Osama.

Laden was hiding in a luxurious mansion in the vicinity of the Military Academy in Abbottabad, some 30 miles from capital Islamabad. John Brennan, a counter-terrorism adviser to the US President, told journalists at the White House: “People have been referring to this as hiding in plain sight. We are looking at how he was able to hide out there for so long.”

Barack Obama said: “The world is safer. It is a better place because of the death of Osama bin Laden.” The world might have become “safer” for US citizens, but not for the billions residing in other parts of the world because under one pretext or the other, consecutive US governments along with their allies have been attacking sovereign countries, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. Interestingly, their stated aim may be to democratise these countries, but the real purpose seems focused at their energy resources. The Guardian noted that “Although Obama, Hilary Clinton, the secretary of state, and Brennan expressed the importance of Pakistan in helping to fight al-Qaeda, the presence of Bin Laden so close to the capital and just streets away from the principal training ground for the country’s officer corps threatened to create a fresh rift in US-Pakistan relations.

According to it, “Members of Congress threatened to withhold economic aid to Pakistan over the affair,” The Guardian newspaper said.

Hasan Askari-Rizvi agrees. “The US will use economic assistance for building pressure on Pakistan by delaying assistance, raising the issues of accountability and how the funds are being used,” he states. “Carl Levin, a Democrat who heads the powerful Senate armed forces committee, reflected the scepticism in the US about Bin Laden’s ability to remain hidden in Pakistan,” said the Guardian story.

“I think the Pakistan Army and intelligence have a lot of questions to answer, given the location, the length of time and the apparent fact that this facility was actually built for Bin Laden and its closeness to the central location of the Pakistan Army,” he told a press conference, the Guardian newspaper said. “The US will step up pressure on Pakistan to hand over Taliban leader, Mullah Omar and Bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, if they are in Pakistan. The death of Bin Laden could also lead to a rethink of the scale of the US involvement in Afghanistan,” the newspaper further said.

However, despite threatening postures, the US leadership is eager to further use Pakistan with sops and doles, never mind if they never brought solace to 180 million people of this impoverished country and only served the interests of civil and military bureaucracy, landed aristocracy and elitist politicians.

“Clinton, anxious not to alienate a partner that may yet be needed for actions against al-Qaeda and the Taliban, emphasised America’s “close cooperation” with Pakistan. In fact, co-operation with Pakistan helped lead us to Bin Laden and the compound in which he lived,” the Guardian newspaper cited her as saying.

Which leads to a key question: If co-operation with Pakistan helped the US locate the compound in which Laden was hiding since long, then what is the justification of a threatening posture and a demand from Pakistan to explain as to how Laden was able to hide in the country for so long before he was killed by the US Special Forces? The demand is self-explanatory. Is it because the US knew where Laden was hiding and killed him as a ploy to ensure that President Obama wins a second term?

Says Imiaz Ali, senior journalist at The News, “It is not necessary that in the death of Osama, Obama will win the election. Bush Senior, despite winning the Gulf War, lost the elections in second term.”

The government of President Hamid Karzai, whose jurisdiction is limited to Kabul, is equally worried because once the US-led coalition forces withdraw from Afghanistan, it will not be able to resist the onslaught of the Taliban.

An Afghan government official has been cited to have said that he feared the death of Laden would give “justification for US’ premature disengagement from the region.” How long does the Afghan government want to rule on the crutches of the world’s sole superpower?

In fact, according to all indications, the US is eager to pull out from Afghanistan but wants an honourable exit and is already negotiating with “moderate” Taliban groups.

Despite spending billions of dollars in Afghanistan, the Americans have not been able to break the resistance of the Afghans. It brings back memories of the ill-planned Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan that relied on bad intelligence. The US had then quickly sided with the resistance forces and created monsters in Afghanistan.

These monsters are now threatening the very social fabric of Pakistani society in the form of suicide bombing, bomb blasts, sectarian strife and a plethora of other problems in a country where people are tolerant, peaceful and have respect for each other’s rituals.

Mutahir Ahmed, professor of International Relations at the University of Karachi and an expert on Afghanistan, is of the view that the military establishment in Pakistan will now have to face a tough time. “So far the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) has not issued any statement. Since Musharraf ’s time, Pakistan has been in a state of denial and has claimed varyingly that either Osama is dead or he is not in Pakistan, but all high value al-Qaeda operatives were being apprehended from urban areas of Pakistan,” he said.

Adds Ahmed, “One wonders if the nuclear installations in Pakistan are any safer. Kahuta is not far from Abbottabad. If the Americans can intrude in Abbottabad violating Pakistan’s air space, why can’t they go further. India will also insist with greater vigour that Pakistan was involved in the Mumbai carnage.”

Moreover, the US seems to have ignored the interests of regional powers. Iran, India, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Central Asian Republics, Kuwait. etc, have vital interests in the region and nobody knows who is behind the suicide bombings and acts of terrorism in Pakistan and Afghanistan since these are sort of proxy wars.

Even in Karachi, the financial capital of Pakistan, target killings and suicide bombing have assumed routine proportions and every political party vehemently denies that it has anything to do with these incidents.

Apparently, sectarian outfits, funded by Middle Eastern countries, carry on such exercises and have been so conditioned since Zia’s era that they don’t even know that they are being used.

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Obama’s war on Libya sans US Congress' approval is opening new doors of controversies

It's raining trouble for Obama and his administration. This time the reason being Barack Obama declaring Libya a no-fly-zone and allowing military intervention to free the country from the 'dictatorship' of Muammar Gaddafi.

And here is the twist: All these have been done without the approval of the US Congress which has consequently invited immense discontentment and dissatisfaction from Republicans as well as Democrats.

Apparently, any action taken by the American President, which might have a nationwide implication, cannot be taken without the knowledge of the US Congress. According to the US Constitution, the President is required to seek approval from the Congress before waging war against any foreign regime. Ron Paul, a Republican Congressman, sharply criticised Obama’s act, commenting that “the no-fly-zone over Libya is an act of war, and it needs approval from Congress.” Even Democrat Congressmen like Dennis Kucinich called Obama's move “impeachable.” So much so that a group of Liberal Democrats – Donna Edwards from Maryland, Jerrold Nadler from New York, Barbara Lee from California among others – have questioned “the Constitutionality of President’s actions.” The discontentment is rising with every additional American troop or fighter aircraft being sent to the Libyan mission.

Republican Senator Richard Lugar has raised high doubts on “US interests being served by Barack Obama’s actions.” From the economical point of view, this act on Libya would only cost the US further, which already suffers an extremely high fiscal deficit. The Iraq and Afghanistan costs are also far from over. This would also strengthen anti-American sentiment and protests on the Arab streets. With NATO announcing that the tentative duration of the no-fly-zone could be three months, further possibilities of civilian deaths and demolition of existing infrastructure loom large, which would cost the world massively again after the operation is over.

A recent CNN public poll revealed that seven out of ten Americans have supported US military action on Libya. But it is also true that three American cities have already gone to streets to protest... and there are predictions that more will soon follow. Strangely, Obama's recent acts do not differentiate him much from former American President George Bush – except that Bush was cunning enough to justify his actions more eloquently. Also, Bush had garnered criticism for much of his action post the Iraq 'victory', while Barack Obama is facing flak here and now. With latest news trickling in that Gadaffi might after all retain power, even the brownie points Obama wanted to gain from US citizens seem to be flittering away...

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Few issue back, I myself wrote an edit on how the revolution was happening in Egypt and how the civilisation was changing elsewhere in the Arab world... So when a few days later we got this article - from my icon Fidel Castro - it was a tough decision to run it instantly. We feared people would think it’s the opposite of what I wrote. We didn't discard it but thought we would carry it in the next issue with a note... And then the Japanese disaster took place and this went on the back burner. I would have wanted this to be the cover story this issue but for the fact that Dr Binayak Sen’s Supreme Court hearing is coming close and, after all, we are more committed to India than to any other part of the world. However, whats happening in Libya makes my blood boil. Col Muammar Gaddafi is that man who, 40 years back, made the OPEC and in one go made the western world pay the right price for oil and made Arab nations rich. He is that way an icon by himself for the developing world. That one stroke which hit the West so hard is something they haven’t been able to digest yet. And therefore, the moment they got a chance, they have started bombing Libya and, for a change, India has rightly shown true courage in strongly condemning the attack. Sarkozy, on the other hand, has totally lost it at home and found this a lovely way to divert attention and act smart. But the most disgusting part is the final revelation that Obama, the ludicrous Nobel Peace Prize winner, is no different from Bush. Shame on what the greedy West is doing. The real rogue nations like Pakistan and conspiring nation like Saudi Arabia remain friends of the West while they ruthlessly bomb the oilproducing nations for their personal benefit. The saddest part, however, is that oil was USD 40 a barrel before the Iraq war and following the war, it touched the hundred plus mark. Now with the pounding of Libya, it will end up touching a hundred and fifty plus. And the West seems to not have learnt its lessons from Afghanistan. You can't win a war in such lands through air strikes... And in Libya again they will lose it. I will only end by saying that it’s time for a grand alliance of India, China and Russia to neutralise these imperialistic forces from creating more destruction in this world for greed. I hope the article of Fidel Castro, the greatest living revolutionary, throws more light on this matter.

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The talk on India's potential to be a global power is not new. The world is realising and recognising it very fast. The same is being expected from the US too, especially after Barack Obama's coming to power. However, it has been a thorough disappointment for the last 18 months. But, the long wait seems to be over. US president Barack Obama's upcoming India visit, scheduled in the second week of November this year, is one of the most discussed news items doing rounds in both India and the US media. So far, ambiguity surrounded Obama's India policy, that only deepened when the US president concluded his Asia visit without visiting India. Even though countries like Singapore, Indonesia and China were on his itinerary, he somehow ignored India. Many foreign affairs experts in India felt it was insulting. However, things are taking a favourable turn now and the two nations are moving towards strong relationship. US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's efforts do deserve a mention in this regard, as she welcomed a high level Indian delegation and made them meet President Obama. And it became clearly visible when Obama expressed his desire to 'strengthen ties with India' as one of his administration's most important goals. He said at a reception at the State Department hosted by Hillary Clinton, "Our relations with India are at the highest of priorities for my Administration and for me personally as President of the US". He further called India "a responsible global power." And the US President had enough reasons and logic to support his comments, as he said, ''It's a rising power and a responsible global power. That's why I firmly believe that the relationship between the US and India will be a defining partnership in the 21st century." These have become signature tunes. Officials, diplomats and media fraternity in the US and India are going ga-ga over Obama's upcoming India visit.

American Presidents' visits to India have always been historic for both the nations. The relationship has just strengthened with time and with India's emergence in the global diplomatic arena. The first ever visit by an American President was that of Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was then perceived as an emissary of peace by Indian intellectuals. The trips were followed by Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter who delivered a stirring speech in Parliament on democracy. Later, while Bill Clinton's visit was more of a holiday trip at the end of his second term, Bush succeeded to create a mixed impression during his visit.

History has changed since then and Obama isn't Bush. However, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seems to be very lucky to welcome two consecutive Presidents of the US. But till now, the nation did not achieve much out of it. Can he do something now? The most striking agendas to be discussed is India's permanent membership in the UNSC, Kashmir issue, tie on trade and tackling terrorism.

Individual camaraderie will prove to be the pivot around which our PM can present a changed India to Obama. But can Dr Singh do it?

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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