Decennia 'korte termijn' buitenlands beleid

[Cees Binkhorst]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Decennia 'korte termijn' buitenlands beleid.
Oftewel, hoe cre-eer ik mijn toekomstige vijanden.

Groet / Cees

http://www.slate.com/id/2236951/
Don't Forget About India
Prime Minister Singh's visit was almost eclipsed by the silly Salahi
story.
By Christopher HitchensPosted Monday, Nov. 30, 2009, at 11:49 AM ET

There are two ways in which the coverage of the contemptible Salahi
couple makes one moan with shame to be a member of the "profession" of
journalism. The first is the sheer amount of ink spilled and air time
wasted on one of those easy-to-cover "breaking news" stories and the way
in which many media outlets are disgracing themselves by begging for the
first "exclusive" interview. The second and much more significant is the
grave insult to an important guest of the United States. By the
journalistic version of Gresham's Law that means junk reporting drives
out serious journalism, the visit of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh was all but eclipsed in this torrent of tomfoolery.*

That would have been bad enough at any time, but the visit was of
unusual importance. It took place very close to the first anniversary of
the Islamic terrorist assault on Mumbai, an attack for which Pakistan
has only just begun to place some of its own nationals on trial. We are
entering a week in which discussion of a new strategy on Afghanistan
will become the dominant theme, and we are doing so having given the
opinions of India and Indians one-millionth of the consideration awarded
to a pair of trashy socialites.


Monday's New York Times carried an extensive report, based on
deep-background diplomatic sources, of the likely contours of President
Barack Obama's Tuesday night speech at West Point. A salient paragraph
read as follows:

        Officials of one allied nation who have been extensively briefed
        on the president's plan said that Mr. Obama would describe how
        the American presence would be ratcheted back after the buildup,
        while making clear that a significant American presence in
        Afghanistan would remain for a long while. That is designed in
        part to signal to Pakistan that the United States will not
        abandon the region and to allay Pakistani fears that India will
        fill the vacuum created as America pulls back.

If this interpretation is correct, then it is consistent with the report
recently delivered to the president by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, in which
our senior in-country military official spoke of Indian influence in
Afghanistan as a danger to be combated. The visit of Prime Minister
Singh should have been the occasion for a vigorous public debate on
whether this growing tendency—the Pakistanization of U.S. policy in the
region—is the wise or correct one.

India was supporting the Northern Alliance against the Taliban long
before the events of 9/11, and it has been providing a great deal of
reconstruction aid since the Taliban were removed. It has excellent
sources of intelligence in the region and is itself a frequent target of
the very same forces against which we are committed to fight. Its
national parliament, the multifariously pluralistic and democratic Lok
Sabha, was the target of a massive car bomb attack in the fall of 2001,
its large embassy in Kabul has been singled out for special attention
from the Taliban/al-Qaida alliance, and of course we must never forget
Mumbai. Nor ought we to forget that India's massive economic and
military power on the subcontinent is accompanied by a system of regular
elections, a free press, a secular constitution under which almost as
many Muslims live as live in Pakistan, and a business class that extends
all the way to Silicon Valley and uses the English language.

Of Pakistan, a state that has flirted with the word failure ever since
its inception, it is not possible to speak in the same terms. Only with
the greatest reluctance does it withdraw its troops from the front with
India in Kashmir, the confrontation that is the main obsession of its
overmighty and Punjabi-dominated officer corps. This same corps makes no
secret of its second obsession, which is the attainment of a
pro-Pakistani regime in Kabul. (This objective, too, is determined by
the desire to acquire Afghanistan for the purpose of "strategic depth"
in the fight with India.) The original Talibanization of Afghanistan was
itself an official project of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, or
ISI, and the CIA has spent the last eight years admitting, or in some
cases discovering, what everyone else already knew: that the Taliban
still enjoy barely concealed support from the same highly placed
Pakistani institutions.

The enormous subventions given to the Pakistani elite in the "war on
terror" are thus partly a subsidy to the very forces we claim to be
fighting and partly a bribe to make them at least pretend to stop.
Meanwhile, Pakistan's press and the remnant of its education system are
virtual machines for the mass production of anti-American and
anti-Semitic propaganda aimed at persuading people that the real enemy
is the democratic secular West. And on top of all this, the country's
"national hero" A.Q. Khan for many years enjoyed state collaboration in
the running of a nuclear black market that shared fissile materials with
countries like Libya and North Korea. Yet the Obama administration,
phrasing its strategy for the crisis, cannot get beyond the silly and
limited abbreviation Af-Pak. By excluding India from the equation, the
political and military planners impose a tunnel vision upon themselves
and dishearten the country that should be our major ally in the region
(for other purposes, too, such as forming a counterweight to the
increasingly promiscuous power of China).

When the throat-slitters and school-burners and woman-stoners come to
the villagers of Pakistan and Afghanistan at dead of night, they have
one great psychological advantage. "One day, the Americans and the
Europeans will go," they say. "But we will always be here." There's some
truth in this: Most of the talk in this country is now of an "exit
strategy," and for all the good they are doing, most of the other NATO
contingents might as well have shipped out already. But if the United
States was to upgrade and cement an economic, military, and political
alliance with the emerging giant in New Delhi, we could guarantee
without any boasting that our presence in the area was enduring and
unbudgeable. It would also be based more on mutual friendship and common
values and less on the humiliating practice of bribery and cajolery. And
the Pakistani elite would have to decide which was its true enemy: the
Taliban/al-Qaida alliance or the Indo-American one. There's much to be
discussed under this heading, but for now—back to the studio for the
latest on Tareq and Michaele.
--------------
The primary reason why we're so chummy with Pakistan and apathatic
toward India (at least politically) is that the status quo is a holdover
from the not-so-Cold War.

Why was the Taliban in Afghanistan? Because they were funded by the ISI
and rose from the ashes of the Mujahedeen, who the US funded to keep the
Soviets out of Afghanistan. And why did the ISI fund them? Because the
US was calling the shots in Pakistan, thanks to India being under the
Soviet sphere of influence for most of the 20th century. The Communist
Party is still a major political force in India, especially in the east,
Bihar and West Bengal.

This situation was highlighted in 1971 during Bangladesh's independence
war, when the US (Kissinger) refused to intercede following Pakistan's
invasion and genocide in East Pakistan (Bangladesh) for fear of
upsetting Islamabad. India jumped at the chance to fight the perennial
enemy, especially since the opportunity arose to end the uncomfortable
arrangement whereby they were flanked on both sides by their mortal
enemy. Bengalis may be grateful, but it had little to do with their
desire for self-rule.

But the commies aren't our enemy anymore, our enemies are the ones we
created 30-40 years ago. Hitchens is right, India is our natural ally,
not the kleptocratic dictatorships we've engendered in Pakistan and
Afghanistan for the past three generations.

-- finkyboy

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