U.S. Freaks Out As Pakistan Attempts To Form Coalition Government With Taliban
Guardian:
Pakistan’s newly elected government will seek to negotiate with Islamic militants and demilitarise the campaign against them to end the violence racking the country, leaders of the major coalition parties who will take power next week have said.
The explicit declaration of a desire to talk to extremists and to reduce the role of the army marks a major change for the strategically crucial country and will confirm fears among American policymakers that the heavy defeat of President Pervez Musharraf at recent elections will lead to Pakistan scaling back its support for the US-led ‘war on terror’ in the region. Pakistan’s rugged western frontier is seen as a haven not just for Pakistani militants but also for al-Qaeda and the Taliban and has been the site of fierce combat for several years.
This week a new Prime Minister and cabinet is expected to be sworn in in Islamabad, following an accord between opposition parties. The party of assassinated former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto yesterday nominated the former National Assembly speaker Yousaf Raza Gilani as its candidate for premier. The unprecedented ‘grand coalition’ he is likely to lead is expected to seek ways to permanently remove Musharraf, a loyal US ally who was re-elected president for a five-year term last year, from power.
‘The Musharraf era and everything that was wrong with that era is now behind us,’ said one Pakistani parliamentarian yesterday. ‘We are not going to throw the baby out with the [bath] water, but a lot is going to be different.’
American policymakers fear that any negotiations will both legitimise the militants in the eyes of the local population and give them time to rearm, re-train and reform. There has been a series of truces with extremist leaders in recent years, many arranged by Pakistani military commanders on the ground despite Washington’s opposition.
‘We do not believe that truces or talks with militants are productive,’ one US official in Islamabad told The Observer earlier this year. British diplomats do not dismiss negotiations entirely, but say that the success of talks ‘depends on who is talking and about what.’
In interviews before the election last month, senior figures in both major coalition parties - Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League and Asif Ali Zardari’s Pakistan People’s party - said they favoured a less ‘military’ strategy to counter violence by Islamic extremists. Sharif said he wanted a ‘wide-ranging debate’ on how to fight violence, though he refused to commit himself to a policy. However, the New York Times yesterday reported the Muslim League leader saying that the militants were part of ‘our own people’ and explaining that ‘when you have a problem in your own family, you don’t kill … you sit and talk’.
Asif Ali Zardari, who assumed joint leadership of the PPP after his wife Benazir Bhutto was killed in an bomb and gun attack attributed to the militants in December, told the New York Times that he favoured using talks and a ‘beefed-up police force,’ saying that ‘even a fool knows that … what they have been doing for the past eight years has not been working’.
Decriminalising the fight against the militants is also favoured by the newly elected provincial government in the North West Frontier Province, but may need constitutional amendments to be put into practice.
‘We are not talking about appeasement but taking a different approach by looking at law enforcement,’ said respected analyst Samina Ahmed of the International Crisis Group in Islamabad. ‘If you don’t enforce the law, you won’t get rid of what is an internal problem.’
Ahmed pointed out that one problem will be the semi-autonomous status of the ‘tribal agencies’ where the militants are based. To end their special legal status, the legacy of British colonial government, will not be easy. ‘You need courts, police, judges,’ he said.
Yet any new government in Pakistan has to tread a careful path. Pakistan relies on America for massive aid, particularly to the country’s powerful military. Yet most ordinary Pakistanis believe their army is fighting ’someone else’s war’ and that casualties of the militants’ bombs are paying the price.
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Real smart move Pakistan. The militants will consume you. Whatever freedoms still exist in Pakistan will be removed post-haste.
And the West will have to deal with the militant sanctuaries as they pose the greatest threat to Western security.
Don’t be surprised in Mr.UAV or his bigger brother Mr Cruise missile, pays your country more frequent visits in the future.
Freaking Dhimis. Enjoy your chains.
March 22nd, 2008 at 7:58 pmDan(my brother infidel)
Right on the money as usual.
I saw this coming. the opposition ran on a platform of ‘Musharraf should be ousted for doing too much against the radicals’ as it was. It was pretty much a telegraphed punch towards the war effort over there. They see countless atrocities over there including and definitely not limited to the violent slaying of B.B and then after all that they decide to open dialogue and possible government opportunties for these scumbags. Thats awful
March 22nd, 2008 at 8:45 pmAnother example of DemoCRAZY!
First, Condi insisted on elections in the PA despite Egypt’s, Saudi’s, and Abbas warnings that an election would lead to a Hammas victory. Now, when Musharraff needed our public acquisience, and private support to hold off elections and maintain power in Pakistan, the State Dept/Bush/Neo-Con Crazies demanded an election. And for what! For a demilitarization of the conflict with al qaeda! Was that an expected outcome when State and CIA did an outcome forecast? Of course it was, with a weight of probably 75% or greater (and condi and georgie poo still demanded it)
Here’s a great idea,lets push for one man one vote in Egypt, Saudia Arabia and Jordan too!
I’m not sure who is more stupid. The muli-laterialist do gooder war mongers of the clinton administration or the preemptive war demoCRAZY neo-con war as revolution nuts in the Bush white house…hmmnn…oh sorry, clearly the dumbest is his honorable magnificent barak hussein obama and his prophet the reverend jeremiah wright! He would go negotiate with al qaeda and the taliban just like the appeasers who are taking over Pakistan.
The two dems and the dem calling himself a republican who are running for president remind me of that great hollywood ode to quality: dumb, dumber and dumbest
You pick which candidate falls in which category, but my favorite presidential candidate is - NOTA
March 22nd, 2008 at 9:37 pmI only read the first two paragraphs and came to this conclusion;
A Gen. Pervez Musharraf led military coup is about to take place…again…due to Pakistani Politicians being…DUMBER THAN A MUD FENCE
Just a hunch, what do you think?
March 22nd, 2008 at 10:01 pmA Gen. Pervez Musharraf led military coup is about to take place…this is actually the best case scenario for Paki and it may need to happen in the USA too with the idiot bureacracy that is running this country!
March 23rd, 2008 at 2:50 amPakistani & US Politicians being…DUMBER THAN A MUD FENCE!
I hate stupid people
March 23rd, 2008 at 3:55 amCoup?! Only in my best wet dreams! Very unlikely.
After the dynamic duo of dunces bush and rice insisted Musharraff allow socialist B. Bhutto and Islamist Nawaz Sharif back into the country, after insisting after his crack down that he submit to the popular sentiment of his country for elections, it is unlikely he can muster the quiet international support needed to pull it off. Bushism’s obsession with demoCRAZY has limited American foreign policy options to supporting outcomes that contradict American foreign policy goals. What does that tell you about the inanity of those in power today.
I pray for a coup! But I suspect we will get a whimper from the poodle condi instead.
March 23rd, 2008 at 12:48 pm