September 21, 2009

If you want to know what happens to an ill-led and ill-governed, small country which, under the leadership of its corrupt rulers who owe everything to Washington, attaches itself to a powerful country like the United States, visit Pakistan.

With the full knowledge and approval of our government, American predators and ground forces strike wherever they like and kill innocent men, women and children in our tribal territory. With the targets now spreading, an expanding US role inside Pakistan may be more than anyone can stomach. The anger level in the country is reaching a dangerous level.

"The single greatest threat to (Pakistan)", Obama said recently, "comes from Al Qaeda and their extremists allies". This is not true. All our major problems, including terrorism, stem from the American invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. It has turned our tribal area into a protracted ulcer, a quagmire – a place where Pakistan is spending blood and treasure to protect American interests.

"The United States", Obama said, "has great respect for the Pakistani people". Bombing our villages and killing innocent men, women and children, Mr. President, is no way of expressing friendship or earning the respect of our people. Who says we are friends? There can be no friendship between the strong and the weak. There can be no friendship between unequals, neither in private life nor in public life. "The strong do what they can", the Athenians told the intractable Melians, "and the weak must suffer what they must." This is where Pakistan stands today. With the help of power-hungry generals, like Musharraf, and corrupt civilians now in power, Americans have turned independent, sovereign, proud Pakistan into a "pseudo - Republic" and a "rentier state" and allowed venal dictatorship to take root. Angry. So very, very angry. Unable to speak due to mega-anger washing over every pore and fibre of my being. My anger at the people in power today is not blind rant. It is a righteous, concentrated stream of anger.

The farewell address of George Washington will remain an important legacy for small nations like Pakistan. In that notable testament, the Father of the American Republic cautioned that "an attachment of a small or weak toward a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter". "It is folly in one nation", George Washington observed, "to look for disinterested favours from another…it must pay with a portion of its independence for what ever it may accept under that character". No truer words have been spoken on the subject. Pakistan is paying and will continue to pay a very heavy price for the folly of attaching itself to America.

This is the bleakest era in the history of Pakistan since 1971. The independence of Pakistan is a myth. Pakistan is no longer a free country. It is no longer a democratic country. Today Pakistan is splattered with American fortresses, seriously compromising our internal and external sovereignty. People don’t feel safe in their own country because any citizen can be picked up by FBI agents in collusion with our government and smuggled out of the country, making a mockery of our independence and sovereignty. To apply the adjective sovereign to the people in today’s Pakistan is a tragic farce. American military personnel cross and re-cross our border without let or hindrance. They violate our air space with impunity and kill innocent men, women and children. Everyday I ask myself the same question: How can this be happening in Pakistan?

In the backdrop of this grim situation, American marines are pouring into Pakistan, unchecked and unchallenged, in pursuance of their neo-colonial designs, America has set up bases and fortresses scattered across our country. Why is United States acquiring Pearl Continental Hotel in Peshawar? Why is it acquiring hundreds of houses in all our major cities including Islamabad? What is all this in aid of?

Today Pakistan is virtually under American occupation. Its presence in Pakistan is large, unwelcome and highly disruptive. America has disrupted the solemn agreement between Mr Jinnah and the tribesmen in FATA, and in the process it has destabilized the area. Americans have granted themselves leave to chase their elusive enemies in Pakistan territory. Our so-called democratic rulers have allowed them to bomb our tribal area, an intrusion no patriotic citizen can tolerate for long.

America, for all of its nascent idealism, began as an instance of brutal European imperialism, with the extermination of indigenous peoples and the enslavements of Africans. The invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan were, therefore, not isolated episodes. They were the culmination of a

110 –year period during which Americans overthrew 14 governments for various ideological, political and economic reasons. The first foreign leader to be overthrown (January 1893) was Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii. In Puerto Rico, Americans crushed the elected government of Louis Munoz Rivera in 1898 after he had held power for just 8 days. In Philippines, Americans fought poorly armed Filipino rebels in a war of resistance which lasted for three and half years. More than 4000 Americans and 35000 Filipinos were killed.

President Jose Zelaya was the most formidable leader Nicaragua ever had. His attempts to regulate American mining companies, and his insistence on seeking loans from European rather then American banks, led the United States to overthrow him in 1909. In 1911, Miguel Davilla of Honduras was overthrown in an operation staged jointly by the United States Navy and a band of rebels led by the American mercenary Lee Christmas.

The CIA staged its first coup in Iran, when Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh nationalized his country’s oil industry. Mobs paid by the CIA rampaged through Tehran in the summer of 1953. Mossadegh surrendered. "I owe my throne to God, my people, my army – and to you"! A grateful Reza Shah told Kemit Roosevelt, the CIA operator, who had masterminded the coup.

When President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam refused to promise the Americans that he would not negotiate with communist – led insurgents, he was overthrown six weeks after his meeting with McNamara and Lodge and was killed. President Salvador Allende of Chile was overthrown in an American-sponsored coup. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger met afterward with the country’s new leader, General Augusto Pinochet.

These are just a few examples of the most direct form of American intervention – the overthrow of foreign governments – a seemingly unending process which continues till today. Pakistan, it appears, is next on the hit list. It is now abundantly clear that Pakistan, the only nuclear power in the Islamic world, will soon be denuclearized and emasculated.

Why is there no public outrage? Why is the opposition keeping so quiet? Why this conspiracy of silence? One thing is clear. Today the true guardians of Pakistan are the people of Pakistan. People power alone can save Pakistan. Time and again – in 1789, 1848, 1871, and 1968, to name only the most historic years – mass protests have kicked out foreign intruders and their agents. Our rulers and their masters in Washington know that the street is all they have to fear. Confronting them has now become a patriotic duty. Today there is no other path for our country, but the one, which led to the restoration of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.

The writer is a former federal secretary. Email: roedad@comsats.net.pk and www.roedadkhan.com