Agha H Amin
http://low-intensity-conflict-review.blogspot.com/2011/08/ethnic-strategic-damper-best-strategy.html
04 August, 2011
The Ethnic Strategic Damper-The Best Strategy against Extremism
The Ethnic Strategic Damper-The Best Strategy against Extremism
A.H Amin
01 August 2011
A monotheist believer in God may state that states are created when God wants it !
Assessments cannot divine divine designs but assessments by mean mortals can assess designs of mortals !
While states are key players in state creation they do it when there is a indigenous element involved in the particular case !
This means that states can act as midwives to create a new state apart from divine design.
This has happened in India after 1940 when the Brits decided to divide India.The idea was first propounded by a British civil servant Sir Michael O Dwyer in late 1930s.
Bangladesh similarly was created with major Soviet and Indian role and the US also wanted to limit communist influence in East Bengal and saw Awami league as a alternative.
A de facto Kurdish state has already been created in Iraq but only with US help.
Bosnia and Kosovo were created with active US support.
Pakistan was created by British policy to punish the All India Congress which was refusing to be part of the British war effort and later of British strategic policy in Asia !
Thus the idea of Pakistan was given as a theme to Mr Jinnah by the British Governor General in September 1939 in order to counter the anti British Indian National Congress.
Thus the idea of Pakistan was given as a theme to Mr Jinnah by the British Governor General in September 1939 in order to counter the anti British Indian National Congress.
Pakistan was visualised as a British base against the USSR ! A cheap unstable state which could be manipulated with ease by the Brits ! In 1954 the Brits handed over Pakistan to the Americans !
The crux of the problem is that when the US with Saudi advice and Pakistani mercenary tradition started using Islam as a tool of strategy against the USSR the whole scheme went out of spin by 1999 !
It is clear now that the US is losing the war ecnomically and Pakistan and Saudi Arabia can be severely destabilised by extremist and even overwhelmed !
This is not the time to compose a funeral march but to find a median solution which leads to some counter check !
Seen in the above context if Pakistan was created by Imperialist design why cannot new states be created in the region now to counter extremism ?
The primer of this article was a conversation with a very senior Pakistani military official.
Having studied in Balochistan for many years and having served in the Pakistani military I have the unique opportunity of knowing the key players on both sides !
This includes the paranoid Pakistani intelligence officials whose paranoia in suspecting all even including their wives extends as far as their grandmothers!
In Balochistan what I am seeing is a new kind of Baloch nationalism in which even the Baloch Tribal Chief known as Sardar is becoming irrelevant.
Yes foreign hands are involved. But we must remember that foreign hands succeed only if there is an indigenous genuine insurgency inside a country. The same was true for Bangladesh, and now for Indian occupied Kashmir and Balochistan.
All is not inevitable .this is a failure of Pakistani policy and above all Pakistan Army.
This article may never be published in a Pakistani newspaper ?
This is so because in Pakistan everything is ethnic and ulterior because it is an imperfect , anachronistic state significantly manipulated by the military , by the military intelligence and by classes who have a very unfair advantage in this unstable and volatile state.
It is worth adding some background information for the foreign layman reader here.
How is it that Pakistans political and military establishment which now acts as judge jury and executioner , all three combined in one class became the masters of destiny of Pakistans lesser races ? The Bengalis before 1971 who were regarded a s inferior Dravidian race by this establishment ? The Baloch and Sindhis who this establishment still regards as an inferior race till to date !
The elite which collaborated with british was the Punjabi muslim , settled area Pashtuns and Urdu speaking who gained a position of unfair advantage after partition of India by eliminating the Hindu from competition exams as well as business and agriculture.
The above classes gained a position of unfair advantage in the pre 1947 British Indian Army not because they were more martial but because they collaborated with the British in killing Indians , both Muslim and non Muslim from 1857 till 1947 !
The idea of pakistan in reality was to gain a position of unfair advantage for the above elite by eliminating the Hindu and Sikh who held superiority in business , agriculture and civil service.
An eminent British scholar Francis Robinson has brilliantly explored this ulterior theme in his masterpiece book Muslim Separatism in India.
Jinnah , Pakistans founder represented the Bombay Gujrati business and this is why Adamjee the Bombay business tycoon gave him a blank cheque as support to Jinnahs Muslim Leagues quest for Pakistan.
The whole of jinnahs policy was dual standards.In a united India he wanted weak centre and strong provinces so that Hindu majority army could not chastise the above mentioned Muslim classes that the Muslim League represented. Once Pakistan was created Jinnah wanted strong centre and weak provinces and used army to chastise provinces the first time in Balochistan in 1948.
Kalat states accession to Pakistan was as dubious as accession of Kashmir to India.However this also happened because of Jinnahs self imposed faux pas !
This was when Jinnah rejected the British Viceroy Lord Mountbatten's most just proposal that Muslim majorirty princely states join Pakistan as a formula and vice versa for Hindu and Sikh majority states joining India .
Based on this Pakistan has no case on Kashmir as it joined India by a legal formula? Nehru committed a faux pas when he agreed to include the UN in the dispute and agreed to prospective plebiscite in Kashmir in order to decide whether the Kashmiris wanted to join India or Pakistan.
Based on same formula Pakistani military action in Kalat in 1948 is more illegal than indian military intervention in kashmir which was perfectly legal.
Even kashmir is an ethnic issue as linguistically kashmiris and punjabis are almost the same.
As stated earlier the above Pakistani ethnic cum class elite regarded the Bengalis , Baloch and even Sindhis as inferior and right from 1947 introduced an unfair monopoly in Pakistan.
When Bengalis were in majority in population this elite wanted distribution of funds not on basis of population , but when punjabis became majority this elite wanted distribution of funds on basis of population.
Religion was used by the above elite to further their monopoly. Punjab and parts of NWFP regarded as heart of Pakistan and others regarded as semi traitors or full traitors.
Even the defense strategy as taught at the Pakistani staff college and national defense college regarded north Punjab as centre of Pakistan's gravity and the main idea of the army was to defend north Punjab , specifically spelt as the triangle Lahore Rawalpindi Faisalabad.
While the above elite were king makers they came in open after 1977.The same elite conspired to launch the army in Balochistan in 1948,58,1960,1973.
Anyone who is outside the above elite is branded as traitor.
Religion and use of proxies was adopted in October 1947 as a policy, discarded temporarily after 1948 , re-picked with force after 1969 and fully enforced after 1977.
The battle in Pakistan is essentially over resources. Oil and gas being the centre of it. Even a kilogram of LPG quota can be allotted only by this elite in Pakistan.Needless to state most of the Oil and Gas industry is dominated by this elite.
War with India and Indian threat is used by this elite to justify its unfair monopoly.
Having given a background to the conflict lets discuss the present war on terror .
The Afghan mess was created by the above mentioned Pakistani elite when in order to perpetuate the illegitimate usurper military regime of General Zia this elite collaborated with the USA in the Soviet Afghan War.In the process the USA eliminated a much smaller strategic threat and replaced it with a much larger threat !
The Islamists ! Thus while the Soviet economy could not bear the strain of Afghan war the US economy is shattered thanks to the present ongoing war on terror.
How to kill the dragons that the USA created ! Only dragons can kill the dragons ! The best strategy to defeat terrorism may be to confront the terrorists ideological card with the ethnic card !
What is the threat from the dragons that the US created in the West Asian region from 1979 to 2001 ! The dragons can destabilise the whole region irrevocably and there potential to destroy and destabilise may only be rivalled by Armageddon !
While it is theoretically neat and cosmetically nice to advance the view point that the USA should withdraw from Afghanistan. The idea is far complicated at the strategic and operational level.
While it is true that the Pakistan and US sponsored so called Mujahideen did not follow the USSR into Russia,their successors the Taliban were allied with parties with a Pan Islamist outlook. Parties which wanted to carry Jihad into Europe,America and Africa.
The USSR withdrawal from Afghanistan was not a military defeat but a political act of withdrawal covered by the creation of the Northern Alliance which was half leftist and pro Russian.
The fact of the matter remains that USSR withdrawal was fallaciously interpreted as a great victory of Islam, while actually it was not so. This interpretation led to creation of many dreams of glory and carrying on of the Islamic Jihad into India, Bosnia, Chechniya etc.
Any US withdrawal from Afghanistan would create another delusion.While 9/11 was a traumatic event , what follows the US withdrawal would be traumatic par excellence !
A false conclusion that Islam has won and USA lost. It would boost morale in the Islamists and would lead to far greater chaos and confusion than ever witnessed before in modern history.
In brief the implications of a US withdrawal would be :-- (1) Collapse of the moderate Afghan regime created after billions of dollars of US and European/G 8 aid within a matter of months. (2) Creation of an unemployed and uncommitted reserve of Islamic extremists who are well trained in military art and would represent a greater threat to the Pakistani state as well as the region and the world than it presently exists . (3) A renewed civil war in Afghanistan with Taliban backed by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and the Northern Alliance backed by Russia, Iran, Central Asian Republics and possibly USA and China.
The key to the present disorder lies in Afghanistans neighbours and not in Afghanistan itself :--
(1) Pakistan and Saudi Arabian states regard Afghanistan as a battle ground in between Iran/Indian/Russian backed Northern Alliance and a Sunni puritan Talibans.
(2) Russia ,India,Central Asian Republics and G 8 in general regard Taliban as a threat to their countries and to the region.
A possible solution may be in the following :--
(1) Continued US presence retaining key military bases in North Afghanistan and in Baloch majority Nimroz as sword of Damocles for the Taliban. Withdrawal of US forces from South Afghanistan while retaining the Kabul Torkham Corridor which is safe in any case. The non Pashtuns and moderate Pashtuns regard the US as their saviour from Pakistan sponsored Taliban and will welcome US presence , failing which Afghanistan will plunge into another bloody civil war !
(2) Integrating Russia,India and Pakistan in a regional solution while creating an Independent North Afghanistan which is Non Pashtun majority, South Afghanistan which is Pashtun majority, and a Baloch Autonomous Region in the south west Afghanistan.
(3) Initiation of dialogue with the Taliban offering them South Afghanistan while withdrawing US/NATO forces north of the line Dilaram-Uruzgan-Ghazni-Paktiya-Paktika while retaining Baloch majority Nimroz.
Nothing in history is inevitable.Afghanistan was a province of Mughal,Saffavid and the Bokharan Uzbeks till 1747.It was controlled by a subsidy of 13 lakh per month by British from 1857 to 1919 and it was a neutral country with no threat to world peace from 1919 to 1978.
It is a misconception that Taliban control 90 % of Afghanistan or all population of Afghanistan is with Taliban unless you believe the Pakistani or Saudi establishment.The Saudi establishment fears the Shias and Iran far more than USA or Israel. Thus the deep Saudi interest in a Taliban dominated Afghanistan.
The fact is that Taliban control some 50 % of Afghanistan while some 60 % of Afghanistans population is against them.
If the USA withdraws what will happen to the 60 % who are against the Taliban ? These include Tajiks, Uzbeks, Turkmens, Hazaras and many educated Pashtuns .This would be a great political and strategic failure of USA and NATO ? The main winners in this case would be Russia,India and Iran in Afghamistans north and Pakistans generals and Saudis in the south.
A solution of war on terror and the Afghan war must be based on a combination of B-52 bombers, US Dollars, Divide and Rule and regional guarantees.
A non Pashtun state in Afghanistans north and extreme west will act as a strategic damper to the extremists in the North and will have Russian ,Iranian and Indian support.
A Baloch semi autonomous state at with confederal ties with Pakistan at some stage will be an invaluable strategic damper to the Taliban in the south of Afghanistan as well as against Iran.
The secular Baloch are the best strategic bet in this scenario.The Pakistani fears about losing its oil and gas can be removed by declaring Balochistan as a neutral zone and an oil and gas agreement guaranteed by international organizations like the Indus Basin Treaty of 1960s.
The above mentioned neutral Baloch zone Combined with the Baloch autonomous region in west Afghanistan in Nimroz province , western parts of Farah and Herat provinces in Afghanistan is a neat solution to the strategic and geopolitical dilemmas of regional stability as well access to oil and gas !
Through this corridor donors can gain access to Central Asian oil and gas without getting involved with the blackmailing Taliban. Irans designs to support perpetual disorder in South Afghanistan will also be defeated when this neat strategic corridor from Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean is in place.
A neutralised Balochistan with a border fenced with Talibanistan can also severely reduce Taliban export potential of hard drugs to the Arabian Sea.
A neutralised Balochistan with a border fenced with Talibanistan can also severely reduce Taliban export potential of hard drugs to the Arabian Sea.
The present international crisis requires great statesmanship in USA and the key actor states. The Ethnic Strategic Damper may be the best strategy in this situation.
But who will impose this strategy ! The myopic Americans who have everything but strategic vision ! Perhaps they should seek guidance from their far more talented English former masters !
Policy makers must remember that the Roman Empire was not built on military might or hardware alone but on Divide and Impera ! Even then when Rome relied extensively on military force it was overwhelmed by barbarians.
Edward Gibbon the greatest western historian in his magnum bonum Decline and Fall of Roman Empire has left a prophetic warning about the greatest threat to the Western civilization ? Islam !
There is nothing inevitable in history and in order to be effective a statesman must be agnostic in matters of policy ! Fear made men believe in the worst ! But in this case the fears expressed in this article are genuine to the best of this scribes convictions !
Louie Gohmert's Afghan strategy
Carve out Balochistan from Pakistan to beat Taliban
LAHORE: Arguing that US President Barack Obama is losing the war in Afghanistan to the Taliban, US Republican Louie Gohmert proposed one way to win: create a new, friendly state within the borders of neighbouring Pakistan, The Huffington Post reported. The Texas Republican took issue with Obama's assertion that "the Taliban's momentum has been broken". He told the newspaper he had just visited Afghanistan and came away with a very different sense from talking to members of the Northern Alliance, a multiethnic confederation of warlords, and other forces who led the US-backed ouster of the Taliban in 2001. Gohmert argued that, far from being broken, the Taliban are feeling powerful enough to demand that members of the Northern Alliance apologise before the United States leaves in 2013. "If you look at the objective facts ... they're not on the run," Gohmert said. His solution was first to supply more arms to the Northern Alliance. But then, he said, the Afghan border with Pakistan needs to be shored up. "Let's talk about creating a Balochistan in the southern part of Pakistan," Gohmert told The Huffington Post. "They love us. They'll stop the IEDs [improvised explosive devices] and all the weaponry coming into Afghanistan, and we got a shot to win over there," said Gohmert, who accused Obama's national security advisers of giving the president bad intelligence on Afghanistan. "His strategy of working from ignorance and thinking we have them on the run is no way to go through life, son," Gohmert said, adding, "I'm about to borrow from an 'Animal House' line, but anyway, that's no way to go through life when you're that ignorant of what's really going on." The White House did not answer the newspaper's request for comment, and Gohmert's office did not elaborate on how the United States could even discuss carving off Balochistan from Pakistan. The United States recently has been talking about a truce with the Taliban. Gohmert, a member of the US House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security, characterised such efforts as begging, backed by an offer to "let all these Taliban murderers" go free, The Huffington Post said. daily times monitor
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