- The latest Mumbai bombings were not obviously the work
of Pakistani extremists, but reflect the unrest thanks to America's continued
reckless policies of escalation in the region, notes Eric Walberg
-
- India has shown admirable restraint, refusing to accuse
its Western neighbour following the triple bombing in India's financial
capital Mumbai last week which killed 19 people and injured 129. The area
targetted, with its gem and precious-metal traders, witnessed bombings
in 1993, 2004 and 2006, culminating in the November 2008 siege of Mumbai,
in which 166 people died.
-
- No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks,
and Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said, "All groups hostile
to India are on the radar." He has a point, as there are many Indian
insurgents, including Maoist rebels, Kashmiri separatists and Islamic militants,
fed up with the harsh neoliberal policies of successive governments and
the aggressive Hindu nationalism of recent years.
-
- India's own Mujahideen have claimed responsibility for
a number of attacks in the country since 2007, relying on Pakistan's Lashkar-e-Taiba
(LeT) for ideological and physical training. Pakistani militants increase
tensions between India and Pakistan to divert attention from their activities
in Kashmir and to divert resources from the war in Afghanistan. So there
probably is some connection with Pakistan.
-
- India remains committed to recently renewed peace talks,
and Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani expressed satisfaction
at the resolve of both Pakistan and India to continue their bilateral dialogue,
and "not get deterred by terrorists' designs to derail the dialogue
once again".
-
- Attention immediately turned to other possible targets
of terrorist bombings. The 225-metre high Bhakra Dam, located near the
border between Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, India's first and biggest hydro-electric
project, former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru's "temple of resurgent
India" completed in 1963, is high on the hit-list of LeT and the Jamaat-ud-Dawa
(JuD). LeT/JuD allege that India has been hogging the water from rivers
flowing into Pakistan through Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh
by unilateral construction of dams.
-
- So what is the US doing to calm the waters which it has
stirred up over the past decade? After its own unilateral destruction of
Osama bin Laden in May, US-Pakistani relations have plunged. The descent
reached a new low last week, when the Obama administration announced it
would withhold $800 million in military aid to Pakistan, more than a third
of Washington's annual gift horse. The final straw for the US was the refusal
of Pakistani officials - after a CIA tip-off - to attack Afghan Taliban
bomb-making sites inside Pakistan, supposedly allowing the bomb-makers
to escape. The IMF also decided to hold back the sixth tranche of an $11
billion loan, but that, of course, had nothing to do with the US.
-
- In retaliation for the cut in funding, Pakistan's defence
minister threatened to withdraw some of his soldiers from the border areas,
including over 1,100 border checkpoints. This follows marching orders Pakistan
gave to 100 US Special Forces soldiers who were training the Frontier Corps.
-
- Despite the obvious freeze in relations, in response
to the Mumbai blasts US officials pressed Pakistan to let them help build
its civilian law enforcement capacity, and the spy chiefs of Pakistan and
the United States reported made progress in renewing ties. Pakistan's Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI) Chief Ahmad Shuja Pasha went to Washington last week
to meet with acting CIA Director Michael Morell. "This visit has put
the intelligence component back on track completely," said Pasha.
Referring to the assassination of bin Laden, he added, "We have had
difficulties since May 2.Those difficulties are being addressed."
-
- But few are convinced by these diplomatic niceties, especially
in the US, which is already shifting its strategy to greater unilateral
use of drones and covert activity to be coordinated by the new CIA director
General David Petraeus. Drone attacks have been escalating since Obama
took office. On 11 May four separate strikes killed over 50 people. Earlier
this week 48 people were killed in two strikes. Petraeus will no doubt
up the ante: even as lowly CIA chief, he will still command a robotic air
force and a small army of US-Afghan paramilitaries.
-
- The world in taking note. Campaigners against US drone
strikes in Pakistan, led by Reprieve's Clive Stafford Smith and Pakistani
lawyers, are seeking an international arrest warrant from an Islamabad
judge for the CIA's former legal chief John Rizzo, accused of murder for
approving attacks that killed hundreds of people. Opponents of drones say
the unmanned aircraft are responsible for the deaths of 2,500 Pakistanis
in 260 attacks since 2004. This prompted UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston
to demand that the US demonstrate that it was not simply running a programme
killing innocent people with no accountability. And it's not just Pakistanis
that are being murdered. Last week, a US drone strike in southern Yemen
killed at least 50 people, almost all civilians.
-
- Now retired, 63-year-old Rizzo is being pursued after
admitting in an interview with Newsweek that starting in 2004 he approved
one drone attack order a month on targets in Pakistan, even though the
US is not at war with Pakistan. Rizzo, who also admits he was "up
to my eyeballs" in approving CIA use of "enhanced interrogation
techniques", said in the interview that the CIA operated "a hit
list". He supervised civilian operators, effectively unlawful combatants,
as they conducted drone strikes from their computer terminals at CIA headquarters
in Virginia.
-
- And while the Pakistani government has not yet managed
to evict the US from its drone bases, it has already started to turn to
China for military support. In the wake of the suspension of US military
assistance, the Chinese government immediately offered to provide enhanced
assistance. ISI chief Pasha visited China twice after the bin Laden episode
and before his recent trip to Washington. "China will stand by Pakistan
in every thick and thin [sic], but it must be watchful of the environment
around it," Pasha was assured by his Chinese counterpart.
-
- China has been supporting Pakistan's military since the
days of Mao Zedong. During the past decade, Pakistan began jointly producing
the JF-17 Thunder fighter plane with China, and the Pakistan Navy is planning
to purchase up to six new submarines from Beijing. Chinese Foreign Affairs
Ministry Asian Affairs Director Luo Zhao Hui recently called for promoting
the "river civilisation", referring to Pakistan's Indus River,
pointing to the Gwadar port, Karakorum Highway, and JF-17 as China's contribution.
-
- No doubt Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael
Mullen was briefed on all this before his own visit to China last week,
during which Chinese General Chen Bingde, chief of the General Staff of
the People's Liberation Army, boldly weighed in on Obama's ongoing tussle
to rein in the deficit: "If the US could reduce its military spending
a bit and spend more on improving the livelihood of the American people
wouldn't that be a better scenario?" Chen's message was as much to
its neighbours - that they shouldn't rely too much on US support, despite
this week's US-Vietnamese naval exercises. Chen criticised the timing of
US military exercises in the South China Sea as "inappropriate".
Before the financial crisis, Chinese officials were much less outspoken.
-
- The new Great Game playing field in Eurasia is taking
shape before our eyes. It can be glimpsed by noting China's vigorous courting
of key players in the region Pakistan and Russia. And by India's commitment
to work with Pakistan, and its improved relations with China, exemplified
by its regular presence at SCO gatherings and yearly RIC summits with China
and Russia. Even more telling are the good relations of all of the above
with key neighbour Iran, possibly morphing RIC into RIIC sometime in the
future.
-
- Look behind any major political trouble spot in Eurasia
and you see US interference as the underlying cause, a sad fact corroborated
by Zogby's latest opinion poll of the Arab world, even outstripping for
most of them Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian lands. But while
Obama fiddles with drones in the wilderness, US officials are now being
put on Interpol's list of terrorists, and the region's key players are
moving on, preparing for the day when the helicopters ferry out the last
US troops from Afghanistan, leaving the RICs with a nightmare, but at least
a nightmare without the complications that US belligerence brings.
- ***
- Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/
You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com/ His Postmodern Imperialism
is available at http://claritypress.com/Walberg.html
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