|
How does the chief crusader for "democracy" plan to meet this challenge? Anthony Zinni, a retired general in charge of the US Central Command (which oversees Pakistan and other nations) at the time of the Musharraf coup in 1998, has come out against "moves that would continue to punish Pakistan's military." Adds Zinni: "If the U.S. had problems with a country on human rights or other issues, I was always ordered as a combatant commander to punish the country's military. We shoot ourselves in the foot in a security sense when we do that."
Meanwhile, we have it on the authority of The Washington Post that, in early 2008, US special forces are expected to vastly expand their presence in Pakistan, as part of an effort to train and support indigenous counterinsurgency forces and clandestine counterterrorism units.
There was talk some time ago of the possibility of the US striking to take Pakistan's nuclear weapons forcibly in order to prevent their "falling into the wrong hands." The plan obviously rested on the presumption that the Pakistan army was not to be entirely trusted in the matter. The US security think-tank is now speaking in an entirely different voice.
The current head of the US Special Operations Command, Adm. Eric T. Olson, citing the same concern about Pakistan's extremists, has argued for better and closer relations with the country's army. The US Central Command Commander, Adm. William Fallon, has, in fact, spoken approvingly of Pakistan's counterterrorism efforts in a recent media interview. He has promised the Pakistani army "a lot from the US in providing the kind of training, assistance and mentoring based on our experience with insurgencies recently and with the terrorist problem in Iraq and Afghanistan...."
Speculation rages over whether the army, under its new chief, Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, a known Washington favorite, will intervene if Musharraf fails minus his uniform. What seems nearly certain, however, is that the army will not incur Washington's serious displeasure if it does play an anti-democracy role in the present context.
Bhutto may have been Bush's candidate as Musharraf's successor or subordinate in a system with a mere semblance of democracy. But those in Pakistan and elsewhere, who stay loyal to her memory and do not miss the primary lesson from her martyrdom, must resist and rebuff Washington-led efforts to save and strengthen the country's military and militarists further.
|
|
