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Nine days is a long time in Pakistan these days.
Since Londonstani went off on his (mostly) road trip around Pakistan a lot has happened. Not much of it has been good.
Several incidents occured on the day Londonstani climbed into a car and drove several hours eastwards. On October 24, the Pakistani army said it had captured Kotkai, the home village of Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud. However, considering Mehsud was not based there and the area contained no real Taliban assets, structures or stores, Kotkai's capture seems more of a morale boost than a key achievement.
The same day, in Bajaur north of Waziristan, a drone missed its target - apparently senior Taliban commander Faqir Mohammed - instead killing 22 others. Londonstani had thought that the less than surgical drone strikes might dampen what has become a widespread desire to see the army deal with the Taliban threat, but that was not the case. Also on the 24th, the Pakistani military lost a helicopter in the rough area of the drone attack. Although, a technical fault was the stated reason for the incident which killed three soldiers, there were reports that Taliban fire had brought it down.
A car suicide bomb exploding at a police checkpoint on a motorway seemed a relatively minor incident by Pakistan's standards as only one person died. But depending on your point of view it was either a worrying sign that militants were dispatching car bombs all over Pakistan or a signal that Pakistan's law enforcement agencies were proving capable of picking up information on such hard-to-spot threats and communicating them in time to officers on the ground. Of course, for the officer who died after stopping the car, causing the driver to detonate, it was just bad.
On October 27, a second high ranking military officer became the target of an assassination attempt in Islamabad. Brig Waqar Ahmed Malik survived when a gunman fired at his car. Brig Moinuddin Ahmed was killed along with a soldier in a similar attack on October 22.
October 28 saw what Reuters called Pakistan's bloodiest militant attack in two years. A huge car bomb ripped through Meena bazar in Peshawar. The dead are still being pulled from the rubble, but the most recent death toll is around 120.
Of a truly gruesome attack, this is the harrowing image that will stick with Londonstani for a long time:
"A fire-fighter said that many children and women trapped in the debris of several buildings were crying for help, but rescue workers could not reach them because of huge flames."
The Taliban and al-Qaeda have since denied involvement in the attack. One local newsreport in Urdu quoted a Taliban spokesman saying that Western private security firms were probably behind the blast. However, Pakistani reports carried comments from local shopkeepers saying that they had received threats from militants who didn't approve of the market's popularity with women. It's not beyond the realms of probability that at least one bunch of people amongst the diffuse groups that are referred to as the Pakistani Taliban thought the attack would be a great idea. And when it actually happened, more senior strategists quickly realised its potential to alienate public opinion in a big way.
Of course, US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton was in Pakistan over the same period. A day after the attack, she faced a group of students who articulated the deep suspicion most of Pakistan now feels towards the United States.
“What guarantee can the Americans give Pakistanis that we can now trust you ... and that you guys are not going to be betraying us like you did in the past,” one student asked at a “townhall-style” meeting Mrs Clinton held at the Government College University in Lahore.
The student was being overly polite. The reality is that if you polled 10,000 Pakistanis on the question; "Do you feel the United States is secretly funding the Taliban to destablise the country?" the answer would be something like 96 percent "yes".
So not something that's gonna get fixed by the visit of one US official whose charm-ammunition is the line; "I had Pakistani friends at college".
Part of the reason for Londonstani's tour was to find out what the much-mentioned "real" Pakistanis think. In Londonstani's mind this phrase is used when people mean "poor, probably illiterate and unexposed to Western media, outlooks or views". There is a nagging feeling then that wealthy, literate (at least in English) and Western educated/travelled Pakistanis are then "unreal", however, that is another discussion.
What follows is a summary of many conversations had in Punjab, Pakistani Kashmir, NWFP and Sindh:
In very stark terms; the army has lost its traditional authority as the only neutral and relatively competent public institution. Previously, the army stepped in to separate warring tribes in FATA. Now the tribes gang up to take on the army. It's previous aura has gone.
The government is full of incompetent crooks, installed by the Americans, who are like rabbits in headlights when it comes to the country's many economic and political problems (not even counting security). While the country slides off a cliff, the ruling party guys line their pockets and wait for the last plane to Dubai/London. The government is not providing educational services, electricity, water, jobs or anything else. At the same time, for the average man or woman any interaction with the government is likely to be short and brutal or long and grindingly painful. This is true whether to you getting paperwork done or are stopped for a driving offence.
Outside the main cities, the army/police is not in control. Even in the towns where they have garrisons, they are boxed in. There's a definite sense that "ungoverned spaces" are expanding and government control is shrinking. On certain main roads in Punjab (let alone NWFP or Sindh) locals advise against driving at night in case of banditry.
In terms of perception of religious observance and its role in public life, there seems to be a shift towards the more severe and less tolerant. This doesn't necessarily translate always into practice, but more a shared understanding that more severe and more rigid must equal more righteous, and that those who are very severe (or even just look it) must be deferred to.
Now, where this gets scary is when you hear a conversation like:
Person 1: "The Taliban couldn't have blown up the market in Peshawar because a Muslim wouldn't do that."
Person 2: "No, the Americans did it. But you know, the market that got blown up catered for women. And you know it's haram for women to go out of the house."
Person 1: "oh.....yeah"
To come: Pakistan Dispatch: Conversations with "real" Pakistanis.
In the meantime, Londonstani is gonna figure out how to get more photos on the site.
Thanks as always. What can I say....damn
Thanks for the dispatches Londonstani. You would make a pretty good foreign correspondent, the kind I hope to be one day. A lot of insight as always. Just out of curiosity, why do you write in the third person?
Originally, they all wrote in the third person.
Why do I get the impression, that this place is going to fall apart, if US reduces its commitment to Afghanistan in short term(2yrs).
One question, how are you perceived by Pakistanis ? Do they view you as British/ a reporter/expatriate/one of them.
Great posts!
"“What guarantee can the Americans give Pakistanis that we can now trust you ... and that you guys are not going to be betraying us like you did in the past.."
I can offer a guarantee that the Paks will continue to betray USA as they've done in the past. And no doubt their own no matter whose in power.
"The government is full of incompetent crooks, installed by the Americans.." (you mean the US Congress?) No?
Really. How far down in the bureaucracy do we go on our installations. And weren't they really once installed by the Brits? Not possible of course they installed themselves...or on occasion were voted in by the Pakistani's themselves?
Not certain military aid and economic aid constitutes installing a puppet government.
I was amused to hear we installed the Taliban. Perhaps we installed the ISI as well, and of course we installed India, and fuck it why not the Raj? We also installed Alexander the Great and Babur. It's that time machine we've built in Area 51. Bush went hog wild with it. Then he passed out choking on a pretzel...and oh God Cheney took the controls.
I heard a rumor actually that the Zionists installed the government, acting of course at our direction.
Maybe we should just cut a deal with the Taliban (we'll use the Zionists to broker it). The Talib seem more..rational.
Afghan Taliban say the People Do Not Support Runoff Elections
“What guarantee can the Americans give Pakistanis that we can now trust you ... and that you guys are not going to be betraying us like you did in the past,” one student asked at a “townhall-style” meeting Mrs Clinton held at the Government College University in Lahore.
None, obviously. If the United States cleans out Al-Qaeda, or somehow leaves Afghanistan, we'll probably leave the Pakistanis in the lurch again. Truth be told, we were already heading that way anyways before 9/11 - close ties with India are just more important for us now (for economic and geopolitical reasons).
But it's an interesting conception they have there. We "betrayed" them by abandoning them? How so? Did they have some weird illusions about the relationship we built up during the fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan, that this was more than merely another front in the Cold War?
Elf Installs:
All this talk of installations puts a picture in my head is all that Pakistan.gov needs is its own Steve Jobs and a TV campaign entitled: "He's Zardari. I'm a Mac"
It's funny (in the strange sense, not the ha ha sense) that, aside from the armed insurgency and illiteracy, the average American and average Pakistani are pretty close in that they accurately view their government as corrupt and incompetent.
Despite being correct about this, we're also both pretty far into Plato's Cave when it comes to understanding what's really going on. So how might we, as the US, change the minds of the average guy on the Pakistani street of such basic things as "The US is not funding the Taliban" and "It's the Taliban, not the US, who's blowing up women and children"?
And how can we expect our government to do that (I'm especially looking at you, State Department), when we're our political apparatus is so worthless.
Pakistan?
Nope, the nuclear blackmail ("save us from ourselves, but you're to blame!")is no longer working. Burn the whole place down and see if I care.
Pretty scary. Especially the conversation at the end of the report.
In today's connected world, with several million Pakistanis living in Europe, it is possible that such conversation will take place in Finsbury Mosque anytime soon. Ideas spread incredibly fast these days, and bad ideas seem to outpace the speed of light.
If there's not enough conspiracy theorists running around already....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/nov/02/matrix-producer-plans-muhamma...
This is sure to rile up part of the crowd, no matter which way they go. Maybe they do it like Doonesbury and instead of an actual person, Muhammed is actually just a walking CGI Cresent.
Londonstani,
I posted these two comments weeks ago and I think they are still relevant....btw, I think you are still falling too easily into the trap of thinking the current political leadership is somehow in charge of Pakistan. They are corrupt and incompetent, but their incompetence fades into nothingness compared to the mess the highly competent army has generated. They get maligned so easily BECAUSE the army has the best PR team and gets its view across, blaming Zardari for a corrupt system that Zardari did not invent, build or run for most of its history.
Anyway, here are my previous comments:
There were multiple terrorist attacks across Pakistan today. I posted the following comment on my email group this morning and thought it may be of interest to some people here:
I just spoke with some friends in Lahore and they (and according to them, "everyone in Lahore") were convinced that these attacks were carried out on American instructions. The argument was that the US wants Pakistan in turmoil so it can get them to launch an operation against the very people America is using to create turmoil so that those same people can be attacked by the Pak army..I know. My jaw dropped as well.
OR, its doing this to sell them weapons. or steal the nuclear bomb. Or build a gas pipeline. or raise Obama's poll numbers. or just because its America and America does evil things. or something, no one really knows for sure. I was also told that "the army has reported that some madressas in Rajanpur got funding in dollars. The conclusion is obvious"? Naturally, I was speechless. Ahmed Qureshi and Zaid Hamid have done their job all too well, the army apparently cannot now convince the people to fight the jihadis EVEN IF IT WANTED TO. Aap apney jaal mein Sayyad aa gaya...
No fiction writer could ever have written this and got away with it. Indeed, truth is stranger than fiction.
btw, does anyone have any information about who is funding Ahmed Qureshi and company? Is ISI still employing them or are they free-lance now? When the history of this time is written, the role played by professional generators of conspiracy theories will be studied and historians will wonder how so few could confuse so many for so long. (and of course, even the paranoid have enemies, so I am not saying ALL the conspiracy theories are incorrect).
The ruling elite (and their American and Saudi and now Chinese partners) has spent 50 years manipulating things from behind the scenes. By now, the trust level in society (in these matters) is so low, the army cannot fix its own mess.
If I was not from Lahore, I would sit back with my bag of popcorn and my diet coke and watch this shit go down on live TV. But I cant. I am afraid that a situation worse than Algeria might be coming down the pike, and we are less prepared for it than the Algerians were. Some of the pathologies are similar (corrupt elite, unjust system, post-colonial schizophrenic culture, rebels who have picked a particularly vicious ideology to express their hatred of this awful elite) and some are even worse (no history of common liberation struggle, greater penetration of Saudi influence, partition and its unique pathologies, much larger population, more ungoverned areas, lack of credible political leadership). This is not looking good.
And this one:
These predictions are cynical and pessimistic and off the top of my head and I HOPE that some of them turn out to be wrong; Maybe they will (in some infinitesimally small way) even contribute to making themselves wrong....
.... That woman who is viceroy in Pakistan looks smart and hard and maybe up to the job, but if the US is pulling out of Afghanistan, there is no way in hell they can get a good result in Pakistan. The Pakistani army will continue to lose men in a confused fight with the "bad taliban" while continuing to ignore the "good taliban". If they could think that far ahead, they would know that "defeating" the US in Afghanistan will ruin their own future (well, it wont ruin all of them, some will retire to ranches in the US before the shit well and truly hits the fan)..OK, some of them actually know that by now, but they are scared, confused and trained to think like anti-Indian automatons (remember, they went to NDC and I have never met a Pakistani officer whose thinking had not been completely warped by his time at NDC).
They will jump up and declare victory and appoint Hakeemullah Mehsud the governor of Waziristan the moment the US leaves. The irony is, Hakeemullah will then have some of them shot just for fun and "on principle". They will then fight Indian and Iranian proxies in Afghanistan down to the last Afghan and all the mayhem will probably end when India and Pakistan finally blow each other up. This being kalyug and the downward spiral and all that...
....check out the Housman poem I found when I went looking for the satanic verses quote.(http://evildrclam.blogspot.com/)
comments?
Londonstani,
Isn't it interesting that mixed up with all this jive is the usual propaganda about the US recklessly, or even sadistically, slaughtering women and children - as if the Air Force ROE were still determined personally by Curtis LeMay?
Obviously, everyone who reads this blog is aware that the US military circa 2009 is more concerned about collateral damage than any military force in history. Yet still, the jive persists. Conclusion: does it matter how many women and children we slaughter? In a moral sense, of course, it does. But I see people writing on a daily basis that it matters in a practical sense.
(Meanwhile, the US military circa 1945 positively reveled in collateral damage. It had no trouble in making friends and keeping them.)
If the people whose "hearts and minds" matter are so comfortable in holding opinions so completely at variance with reason, how can anyone possibly hope to reach them with the truth? And I know through my own eyes that this is the norm for the Third World. If not the entire world.
Thus, the practical choice seems to be: either (a), find a way to ignore them; or (b), find a way to talk to them in a language that they understand. And I don't mean Pashtoon. Naturally, no one in any position of authority is interested in either of these options, and neither will be pursued.
Mencius,
How about the option of leaving them alone? Except when they choose to attack you? in which case, attack back by all means and dont worry about the PR....i can bet the PR will not be too bad.
The problem is, the US has worldwide interests (not charities, interests) and does many unsavory things to protect those interests and gets into tangles with all kinds of unsavory characters as a result. What if the US was not Israel's primary supporter? Would this many people in the Arab world be looking for ways to attack "our freedoms"?
Just a thought...
Londonstani 8 24: It echoes my conversations with leftists and pakistanis and other muslims as well:
"its a giant plan for armageddon!"
"Have you ever considered plain stupid as an alternative explanation to the Dan Brown solution?"
"Eh, no?"
"Well, try. They are just screwing up. Therte is no strategy."
"Oh."
Fnord, a man after my own mind. When faced with a choice of explanations - either a master conspiracy or stupidity and incompetence, I believe in stupid.
[Hey, that would make a good election slogan. A better re-election slogan].
I've come to think it's cuz it's much more easier psychologically to believe there is a logical end and that someones in control, even if it's horrifying than to realize no one's in control and hence there's potentially no end and no bottom.
Look at Africa.
@Omar,
US interests, and attacks.
If you are being specific to Pakistan, they aided and abetted and continue to aid an abet our attackers. And now their Frankenstein turns on them.
If you are talking in generalities - the last people I recall us attacking that absolutely had not wronged us were - the Serbs.
Try and remember too about the Collapse of Empires that took place in the 20th century.
We were never the world's policeman. We're the worlds fireman. But don't worry. Were the worlds fireman.
We're leaving. Now fortunately for you, you already have a relationship and border with our closest feasible successor. His names Han. Just don't dick him around the way people have been screwing with us.
Goodbye Cruel World. And you are. You kids have fun now.
Elf, I sympathize with your position. And I think withdrawal will probably be a huge boon for the US. It will be a disaster for the region, but hey, they asked for it.
Han, if he is smart, will stay the hell away from this job. On the other hand, the urge to become Sherrif of Dodge is apparently irresistible for certain adventurous types, so who knows. In that case, our blessed army and their afghan trainees will have a new revenue stream to kick around. Happy days...
I am being facetious. I dont think the US is totally done with being policeman yet. I think they were overconfident and arrogant enough to get taken for a ride for a few years, but reality is settting in. I dont expect the US to just leave, I expect them to get local elites to do some work in exchange for protection, or be prepared to "die for democracy". Many Americans appear naive and innocent, but I am sure there are some hardnosed bastards around and the show will go on. And I am sure Han will get a lot of the subcontracting work...
But whatever way you look at it, the reaper will have much business in that region for some years to come...
Pakistanis may be pissed at us Americans but they are far more pissed at their own failing civilian government. Its like a cyclical nightmare that seems go on forever. Besides the possible success in the operation in SWAT (which is debatable), Zardar'is gov't has been inept in almost every area of political and economic policy. Gov't economic policy is continuously used to protect and feed cartels in the various economic sectors (perfect example is the so-called "sugar crisis" Pakistan is facing right now). And ultimately the military operates outside the sphere of control of the civilian gov't, having its own economic and security interests. The moment civilian rule becomes either intolerable or in conflict with Military interests, the wheel turns, and the cycle continues................as they say in Battle Star Galactica (I'm such a Nerd):
'This has all happened before, and it will all happen again.'
Hukook Al-Insan
http://tqa81.wordpress.com/
Omar,
Unfortunately, you're dealing with bureaucrats. So common sense is not to be expected.
Still, I think the cause of the Middle East problem is not, as you believe, the US's support for Israel, but its support for both Israel and the Arabs. If it could support only one of these sides, that side would win and there would be peace in the Middle East. War continues, because neither faction within Washington will give up on its proxies. In the Middle East they fight, on the Metro they just glare at each other.
And obviously, if Washington supported neither side and simply left the other side of the Atlantic to its devices, adopting a classical Westphalian neutrality, Israel would pretty much recreate the empire of Alexander the Great. Or at least, if it it chose not to recreate the empire of Alexander the Great, this would be entirely at its own discretion.
So be careful what you wish for, Arabs! Although naturally, in this case, the Arab states would instantly find it imprudent to continue harassing Israel. Since I don't believe the Jews actually want the empire of Alexander the Great, the result would almost certainly be permanent and amicable peace under present boundaries. Which the Arabs could have tomorrow, of course, if they wanted. So once again, all the suffering in the world originates inside the Beltway.
@ M.M,
"So once again, all the suffering in the world originates inside the Beltway."
Not even I would lay the world at their doorstep. It's just that they fuck up most of what they touch.
Palau will regret the day the Great Eye gazed upon them. It's like taking one of the Nazgul rings, except there's about 900000 of them instead of 9.
Fucking everything's inflated these days.
M/M check out my Blethis Collapse of Empires
@ Before/Again,
Glad I'm not the only B.G nerd here...
Now if you excuse me, it's time for :-o)
Mencius,
Collateral damage among enemy civilians is one thing, but here the US drones are killing citizens of an ally -- Pakistan -- which has a democratically elected government where the ruling party does not even have a majority in Parliament and needs public support to stay in power to continue its pro-US policies.
The US needs Pakistan on its side -- and as long as Pakistan has a democratic government, the US needs the support of the Pakistani public -- mainly because:
-- Pakistan has a long and porous border with Afghanistan, and men and materiel cross it in large numbers every day.
-- Pakistan's side of the border has semiautonomous tribal areas that can serve as a refuge for bad guys
-- Most supplies to Afghanistan -- military and civilian -- pass through Pakistan, and alternative routes are much more costly.
Visitor,
Only your third excuse is a good one. Afghanistan's borders can be sealed within Afghanistan, and should be. See under: Morice Line. This is impractical for USG only because USG is not comfortable operating unilaterally within Astan, which is exactly why it is losing its war. (It is not even fighting a war, really. It is sending armed missionaries, misnamed soldiers, to walk around in the middle of nowhere, hand out Bibles and get blown up.)
Moreover, whose fault is it that Pakistan has a democratically elected government? Who pushed Musharraf out? What two-word phrase ends with "Department" and starts with "State?" If USG didn't want Pakistan to have a democratically elected government, believe me, it wouldn't. And if the security forces are firmly and permanently in control of Pakistan, they no longer need the Taliban as foils.
Of course, there is another option that is not frequently discussed: just ceding Afghanistan to Pakistan. That way, they don't need the Taliban for their "strategic depth." Soft power! Victory through magnanimity! Alas, this will never work either. We cannot cede Afghanistan unless we admit that we own it, and this we can never do. Lies have consequences.
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