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Volume 1, No. 8 - January 2002 |
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Terrorism Update [In consideration of the current situation in South Asia, this is a special version of our Terrorism Update section.] Post-September 11 America: Tilting Back to a Terrorist Sponsor September 11 was a landmark, earth-shaking event for America. The biggest, most murderous attack ever on American soil by foreign forces shook its self-confidence, sent its economy into a tailspin, and changed the security environment in the nation permanently. Such is the havoc that terrorism causes, and it would be but natural to expect that Americans would understand the evils of global terrorism like never before. But did it? The facts are clear: after three months of bombing Afghanistan, that country is relatively free of terrorist cells, but the approximately 700,000 jehadis in Pakistan have only lost about 10,000 amongst them. Thus 690,000 or so jehadis remain in Pakistan. Tens of thousands of madrassas teaching jehad continue to function there. Terrorist bases of Al Qaida related groups in Pakistan are alive with trainees long after their sister bases were destroyed by US bombing in Afghanistan. Much of the Taliban and Al Qaida leadership has escaped into Pakistan, clearly with the connivance of Pakistani officials. Dangerous international terrorist groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and Jaish-e-Mohammed, remain active in Pakistan. For now they are biding their time and focusing on India’s Jammu and Kashmir state, but anti-US utterances are never far from their lips, and their ultimate goal is obvious. Pakistan’s ISI and military leadership have not ended their ties to these terrorists. Pakistan’s nuclear establishment’s ties to Al Qaida are also well entrenched and documented. The attack on India’s Parliament was designed to distract from the hunt for Al Qaida leadership while at the same time decimating Indian democracy. So where should the terror war go next? The answer to that question is obvious to anyone concerned about truly rooting out global terrorism. Pakistan remains the biggest threat to the civilized world. But nearly four months later, when India has challenged Pakistan to end its terrorist sponsorship, and the opportunity exists to permanently drain the vast extremist swamp in Pakistan, what does the US do? It tilts back to Pakistan. Bush is putting extreme pressure on India to exercise ‘restraint’. US pressure on Musharraf sounds more like the sound of kid gloves, compared to when it made the ‘you are with us or against us’ threat on September 13th. So what is different? Why is the Bush administration so hesitant to go after the real remaining power centers of terrorism in Pakistan? The answer lies in how Bush sold the ‘new war against terrorism’ to the American public in the days after September 11. It would have been too much of a learning curve for America to go from 30-second sound bites to understanding that ‘our allies’ the Pakistanis had created the Taliban, sponsored terrorist groups, and facilitated the Al Qaida network over the last six years. It would have been even harder for him to mention that the true enemy was a nuclear power, and that we had ignored all signs of disaster. How could Bush give a January 2002 state of the union address without having to deal with US casualties and a complex war effort, and still declare victory over the war on terrorism? The shortest route was to declare Pakistan as an ally, and to turn all the focus on Bin Laden as the evil one. That turned out to be a great strategy for keeping Bush’s ratings high. Bin Laden and Mullah Omar’s forces were no match for the US military, especially after their Pakistani handlers deserted them. With Bin Laden and the Mullah on the run, Bush was close to his goal of declaring victory in his January address. However, all the while the Bush ‘victory’ script was debatable at best. All it took was a terrorist attack on India’s parliament on December 13th to undo the script. Suddenly, his frontline ally stood accused of sponsoring 12 years of terrorism, 30,000 deaths, continued ethnic cleansing of Hindus, and attacks on Indian democracy. That was not news in the subcontinent, but on evening news in New York, it would be hard to explain. Thus Bush’s strategy for short-term victory had nullified his ability to go after the long-term, deeper threat that still exists in Pakistan. In order to cover up the hollowness of his earlier decision, he could not possibly now make a 180-degree turn against Pakistan after spending the last three months praising it. In slapstick comedy shows that blanket American television, a common story line is that of our protagonist making an initial mistake for instant gratification, then compounding it with error after error to cover it up. The situation gets resolved happily in 30 minutes, after a lot of laughs. Similarly, the Bush administration, rather than explain the entire situation to US citizens, opted to go for the easy score against Bin Laden. But it had little control over the conclusion to this story. With even that victory now on the line, Bush is trying hard to save it before his January address. He would rather not explain that the hundreds of thousands of jehadis are still alive and well in Pakistan, the Lashkar and Jaish groups are still recruiting and training terrorists, and that the ISI is still collaborating with those groups and sheltering the fleeing Taliban and Al Qaida. Or that significant members of the Pakistani nuclear establishment had close ties with the Al Qaida. Or that the ISI’s proxy groups have killed many more civilians in Kashmir than those killed around the world by Al Qaida. Or that Musharraf’s ‘freedom fighters’ continue to kill women and children in Kashmir. So instead Bush takes the tangential approach, and goads Musharraf into making cosmetic moves against terrorists that he can sell to India. The goal: let’s bury these unpleasant facts before they complicate the picture relayed on CNN and CBS News. But the Indian government, having just survived a terrorist attack, has no patience to delay its own terrorist war just so Bush can make a victorious State of the Union address. The latest tilt by the US towards Pakistan is based on shortsighted goals that have little value to the interests of its long-term security. Rather than swallow the bitter pill of acknowledging its mistake in calling Pakistan an anti-terror ally, it will continue down that comedy of errors. Some people compared September 11 to Pearl Harbor. However, by omitting the ISI-run terrorist infrastructure from his anti-terrorism goals, President Bush has almost guaranteed that more September 11s, and perhaps an event bigger than Pearl Harbor will occur in the future. The Year in Numbers At the end of the year 2001, much has changed in the global terrorism picture. But in Jammu and Kashmir, the song remains the same. The ISI-sponsored terrorist violence has claimed over 3,300 lives in the state (incidentally that approximates the latest estimates of the World Trade Center toll). Nearly a third of them were civilians, many of them women and children. Massacres of Hindu and Sikh civilians continued this year. December incidents included 3 Sikh and 2 Hindu women being killed by Pakistani terrorists in the third week. Four Hindus were killed in Rajouri and their houses burnt on December 30th. The most ghastly attack killed 17 Hindus in Kishtwar on August 4th. Similar attacks drove out almost the entire nearly 400,000-strong Hindu population from Kashmir valley in 1990, and they remain in refugee camps till today. Pro-India politicians continued to be targeted for assassination. The most brazen attack in Kashmir itself was the October 1 suicide bombing of the Srinagar legislature building. That attack turned out to be the precursor for the December 13th attack by Pakistani terrorists on India’s parliament building in New Delhi. |
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