< http://www.outlookindia.com > Bombed Out Credibility The USA's Afghan War: critical analysis V -- lucid thinking and analysis seem to be the other casualities B. Raman
On his return from his West Asian tour last week, the British Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair, briefed his counterparts from some West European countries on his assessment of the US-led "war" against international terrorism, which is now a month-old.
A BBC correspondent quoted Mr. Blair as having told his counterparts that "though there are no tangible results, progress is being made."
On November 6, 2001, the BBC showed the Pentagon spokesman as claiming that the carpet bombing by the USA's B-52s had inflicted serious damage on the Taliban formations in the North. As proof of this, the spokesman claimed that for the previous two days the Taliban formations were no longer returning the fire.
The BBC then went live to its correspondent in Northern Afghanistan, who contradicted the Pentagon spokesman and said that the Taliban had been returning the fire as always.
How to judge the "progress" claimed by Mr. Blair when there are no palpable results on the ground?
Whom to believe?
The CNN whose reputation in Asia has taken a nose dive? How deferential the CNN has been to the anxieties and how responsive to the requests of Gen.Parvez Musharraf should have been evident to anyone, who had noticed how, without a moment's hesitation, it moved out Satinder Bindra, the journalist of Indian origin, from New Delhi to Northern Afghanistan when Pakistan's military dictator reportedly protested against Bindra's alleged pro-Indian bias.
The BBC, not yet as bad as the CNN, but still not as forthcoming as it ought to be in its focus on the follies of Washington?
The Qatar-based Al Jazeera, which has exposed the CNN for what it is---- no different from Radio Moscow, "Pravda" and the "Izvestia" in the worst days of the communist rule in the USSR ?
The American academics and journalists, who have had no qualms about complying with the advisories from their State Department, barring some honourable exceptions?
The "war" has not yet produced significant "body bags" of human beings, but it has definitely produced a huge body bag for all to see -- that of the US credibility, which has been the most serious fatal casualty of the first month of the "war". Large sections in Asia -- neither in the Islamic nor in the non-Islamic world -- do not believe what comes out of Washington.
Since September 11, 2001, there have been dozens of seminars on the meaning and implications of that horrendous day. Some of them were attended by non-governmental counter-terrorism experts from many countries---including many Islamic countries. However, notable absentees were those from the US and Pakistan. The corridor talk was that the American and Pakistani experts invited had been advised by their Governments not to attend, either due to security reasons or due to fear of facing embarrassing questions.
To what extent, the American and British credibility has been damaged by their post-September 11 conduct would be evident from the following:
Not one of the experts from the Islamic world was prepared to accept that Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda was responsible for the September 11 terrorist strikes. They strongly suspected that either the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were misleading the Bush Administration or the latter was misleading the public of the US and the rest of the world.
Not one of these experts was prepared to accept that the Taliban was a terrorist organisation.
Every one of them felt that there had been horrendous civilian casualties due to the US bombings in Afghanistan and that the US Administration had been concealing from its own public not only the extent of the civilian, but also its own casualties.
The Taliban may still collapse and the US may still win the war---one ardently hopes it would; otherwise the implications of a Somalia-like denouement would be very serious for the international campaign against terrorism. But, objectively viewed, the ground situation as it exists today is far from reassuring.
What are the ground realities as on November 8, exactly one month after the war started?
The Taliban's control of the territory under its administration has not yet been shaken. The Northern Alliance's claims of making progress towards Mazar-e-Sharif have to be treated with reservation until actually proved to be correct in the days to come.
The Taliban's retention of the loyalty of the Pashtoon community remains strong. Reports of challenges to what is projected as the Kandahari junta led by Mulla Mohammed Omer, the Amir of the Taliban, from the Jalalabadi Pashtoons remain products of wishful-thinking encouraged by Musharraf himself in order to prevent a total US gravitation towards the Northern Alliance.
The Taliban, despite its widely-believed medieval mindset, has shown itself to be remarkably modern in its conduct of the Psywar against the US.
The Taliban continues to be the recipient of volunteers from the Pakistani madrasas and the Arab world without being stopped by the Pakistani authorities and of material assistance and guidance and direction from Pakistan's military-intelligence establishment. The flow of volunteers, assistance and professional advice continues to be orchestrated by the brains-trust led by Lt.Gen.(retd) Hamid Gul and Lt.Gen.(retd) Javed Nasir, former Directors-General of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Are they doing it with or without the complicity of Musharraf? Either way, it does not reflect well on Musharraf as a dependable ally. If it is with his complicity, it highlights his perfidy. If it is without, it underlines his lack of control; the military-intelligence establishment is letting him continue so that the US lollipops continue to pour on Pakistan, while carrying on its pro-Taliban machinations.
Musharraf has reasons to be grateful to Osama bin Laden. He has been the only beneficiary so far of the Al Qaeda's terrorist strikes of September 11.He has created for himself the happy and enviable position of emerging as the privileged ally of the US in its till now "ill-waged" war against terrorism--- a terrorist joining the chase for terrorists in order to divert the chasers away from him. How can the US wage a successful "war" against terrorism when the principal suspect is in its midst?
Musharraf has been playing to perfection the role of the double agent---ostensibly helping the US against bin Laden and the Taliban and helping the latter against the US.
Musharraf, who was the creator and the creation of bin Laden and the Taliban, is the one man in the world who could have produced bin Laden alive or dead before the US, if he had been sufficiently pressurised by the US to do so. He is the one man in the world today who is totally well informed about the whereabouts of bin Laden and his accomplices. The talk in Peshawar is that the Al Jazeera's telecast (November 3) statement of bin Laden against the hessian background was shot in the Peshawar military hospital when bin Laden had come there for medical reasons.
Instead of being forced to produce results, Musharraf has been watching from the sidelines the USA's war in slow motion.
The world needs the US as the engine for progress and prosperity. It needs the US as the upholder of all the noble ideas and concepts enshrined in its Constitution, but not in the minds of the Pakistani military-intelligence establishment. It needs the image of the US as the true reflection of what the under-privileged nations of the world can hope to become if they draw the right lessons from its model. Right-thinking people of the world ardently hope for a US victory in the war against international terrorism, even if the objective of the war be only selfish, namely, making the US safe from terrorism.
The world has, therefore, reasons to be concerned by the way the "war" is being waged, which shows lack of lucid thinking and analysis. A so-called frontline ally, who prefers to keep away from the front, so that he could continue to stab from the back. The reported plans for the induction of Turkish special forces into the Uzbeck area, which would ultimately drive a wedge between the Uzbeck and the Tadjik components of the Northern Alliance and between the Shias and the Sunnis and add to the fears of Iran. The projected participation of German troops, who know little of the region etc etc. These are not products of lucid thinking and analysis.
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(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director, Institute for Topical Studies, Chennai)