As the United States enters the 10th year of its occupation of Afghanistan, it is concerned about the stability of its client state in Pakistan. The U.S. relies heavily on Pakistan as its main supply line from the Indian Ocean to Afghanistan, which is a landlocked country. Washington is also dependent on Pakistan for fighting forces in the mountainous border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where forces resisting the U.S./NATO occupation go back and forth.
 Aftermath of U.S.drone attack in Pakistan |
On Sept. 30, NATO helicopters went into Pakistani airspace, attacked a military outpost and killed three Pakistani soldiers. As a probable reflection of the extreme anxiety of the government, Pakistan later lowered the number of casualties from three to two, saying that one soldier had survived despite sustaining what seemed to have been lethal injuries.
NATO aircraft and U.S. drones have for years invaded Pakistan’s airspace as they please. An understanding exists between Islamabad and Washington whereby Pakistan’s government allows the violations of its airspace while making mild public protests periodically. The U.S. government does not take responsibility for the drone attacks, activated from CIA operations centers in Nevada. Whoever the victims might be, the corporate media benignly report the number of victims killed, identifying them as “suspected militants”. No evidence is sought as to whether the victims were actually “suspected militants,” nor is it questioned why “suspected militants” deserve to be summarily killed. In September, the United States conducted the highest ever number of drone attacks in a month. In 2010, the U.S. has conducted 82 drone strikes so far, compared to 53 in all of 2009.
Given the strong resentment of the Pakistani people to constant violations of their country’s sovereignty, when NATO forces killed Pakistani soldiers on Sept. 30, Pakistan’s government found itself scrambling for damage control in the public relations arena. Desperate to create the appearance of independence, Pakistan announced the closure of the Torkham border crossing, which connects northwestern Pakistan with Afghanistan through the Khyber Pass. One of the two main supply routes for the United States and other NATO convoys crosses through Torkham.
The closure of the Torkham Pass has resulted in hundreds of trucks being stranded near the border, and forced NATO to use other roads as its supply route. This has presented the militants in Pakistan with an opportunity to launch spectacular attacks on the convoys. Between Oct. 2 and Oct. 6, four convoys carrying NATO fuel were attacked, burning tens of thousands of gallons of fuel. In the Oct. 6 attack alone, 55 fuel tankers were torched. As of Oct. 7, there had been a total of seven attacks on NATO supply convoys since the Torkham border was closed.
Fuel convoys have become common targets for forces resisting U.S. occupations. One U.S. Army study found that, in Iraq and Afghanistan, for every 24 fuel convoys one soldier or civilian involved in fuel transport is killed.
The recent embarrassment for Pakistan’s government comes in the midst of an unprecedented human tragedy. Floods this summer have taken a tremendous human toll, with their devastating effects likely to continue for years. The floods caused 1,800 deaths in their immediate aftermath, but the real death toll is likely to rise much higher because of the catastrophic damage to infrastructure of vast areas of the country. Almost 2,500 miles of roads have been destroyed, 1.9 million homes damaged and huge amounts of crops washed away, making famine and severe food shortages already a reality for millions of people. The floods have directly affected 20 million people. But with the expected rise in agricultural prices, all of Pakistan’s working and poor people are likely to be severely affected. According to Pakistan’s farm minister, Nazar Muhammad Gondal, $3.27 billion worth of crops have been destroyed.
The reaction of Pakistan’s government to the floods was gross negligence. But government negligence and indifference are the least of the problems that hinder the relief and reconstruction effort. Pakistan’s governments have been notoriously corrupt for decades, but Pres. Asif Ali Zardari has a particular reputation for corruption. When his wife, Benazir Bhutto, was president of Pakistan, Zardari earned the nickname “Mr. 10 Percent” for the kickbacks he received for government contracts as a minister. In fact, both Bhutto and Zardari, living abroad, had arrest warrants against them for documented cases of theft of public funds. The warrants were only lifted as part of a British/U.S.-brokered deal when Gen. Musharraf’s military dictatorship was in crisis and the imperialists were scrambling to put together a compliant civilian government.
The need for reconstruction in the devastated areas is great. Zardari must be salivating at the sight of millions of dollars of international aid that has arrived in Pakistan. The aid is grossly insufficient to address the needs of the people, but much of it is likely to be stolen by Zardari and company.
Pakistan has been under military rule for more than half of its years of existence as a state. When the military dictatorship was replaced with a civilian government in 2008, many Pakistanis had high hopes. It was militant popular protests that had made the survival of the U.S.-supported military regime impossible. But it did not take long before those hopes were dashed. Even before the current crises, Zardari’s civilian government was quite unpopular.
The government has proved to be incapable of responding to the devastation of the floods. It has been unable to create even a semblance of independence, given its overtly subservient relationship to Washington. And the aftermath of the floods havs further strengthened the role of the military, the main force involved in the relief operations.
This has led to speculation that Pakistan is on the verge of another military coup. Musharraf, who led the 1999 coup and ruled Pakistan for a decade, is now demanding more power for the military. Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, handpicked by Musharraf as the chief of the army, met with Pres. Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani in late September. Pakistani media characterized this as a “crisis meeting” and reported that Kayani “demanded a shakeup in the civilian setup.” Musharraf is calling for the constitution to be amended to give the military a legal political role in the country’s power structure.
On Oct. 4, Pres. Obama addressed U.S. lawmakers, stressing that his administration would continue its current policies towards Afghanistan and Pakistan: “We are continuing to implement the policy as described in December and do not believe further adjustments are required at this time. … As the Congress continues its deliberations on the way ahead in Afghanistan and Pakistan, I want to continue to underscore our nation’s interests in the successful implementation of this policy.” (dawn.com, Oct. 5)
The “successful implementation” of U.S. policy has meant nine years of occupation for Afghanistan and corrupt and incompetent governments in both countries, whose main function has been to safeguard the interests of U.S. empire. The people of both countries continue to pay the price for imperialist war and intervention through untold misery and suffering. But, as the events in recent days have demonstrated, the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan are not just victims of oppression, but are waging a determined struggle for independence.
