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Pakistan: vote passed, what next?

By Viktor Mikhin – New Eastern Outlook – 20.02.2024 

Voting in Pakistan’s much-anticipated general election on 8 February began at 8 a.m., but in the meantime, mobile networks were shut down across the country for more than 26 hours. Pakistanis are not used to network blackouts. There is often no connectivity during bank holidays parades, Muslim Eid and Ashura, protests criticising the ruling establishment and political rallies. Last year alone, mobile networks were down for four days after protests erupted when former Prime Minister Imran Khan was arrested outside the Islamabad High Court despite being released on bail in May. Then, in December 2023 and twice in January 2024, all social media platforms were blocked for the duration of virtual rallies by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)  after their street protests were suppressed.

On the eve of the February 8 polls that elect the country’s parliament and provincial legislatures, Pakistan’s Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional the election of Gohar Ali Khan as the new chairman of the Movement for Justice (PTI). The court also stripped the party of its symbol, a baseball bat, which is associated with the disgraced Imran Khan, the former captain of the national cricket team. Since then, the main opposition force, which has no official leader and no symbol (important for Pakistan), has been barred from contesting elections and its members have been urged by the party leadership to register as independent candidates. And even under such difficult circumstances, they achieved very impressive results.

In the National Assembly (lower house of parliament) elections, Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) won in 75 constituencies and the Pakistan People’s Party (PNP) in 54, according to the Election Commission. Independent candidates, the bulk of whom are affiliated with the Movement for Justice, won seats in 101 constituencies. In this context, it is worth considering the additional seats, about 50, that the PML-N and PNP, which are allowed to contest the elections, will gain through the distribution of statutory quotas for women and religious minority candidates. In the event of an alliance, they could become the ruling coalition in Parliament and form a federal government. According to reports, the two sides may agree that Muslim League-Nawaz Sharif (PML-N) leader Nawaz Sharif would become prime minister, while the PNP would become president.

For its part, Imran Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party said it had “absolutely no interest” in Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s offer to form a coalition government after the latter’s party failed to win enough seats to rule alone in the general elections. Speaking to a crowd of thousands of supporters from the balcony of his party’s office in the eastern city of Lahore, the centre of his political life, Nawaz Sharif, a three-time former prime minister, finally struck a conciliatory note. Acknowledging that his party did not win the required number of seats, he called on the rest of all parties, including independents, most of whom tend to support Imran Khan, to unite and govern on the basis of the coalition that has been formed.

The vote itself and Sharif’s personal statement were the culmination of a particularly contentious election season in which allegations of military interference took centre stage, casting a shadow over a historic event that marked only the third democratic transfer of power in the country’s history. The army, which has ruled Pakistan for more than three decades since independence in 1947, has categorically denied interfering in political affairs. But still, leaders of many parties are unhappy with the pressure the generals are putting on society and the voting process itself. On the eve of the vote, Sharif was considered the frontrunner in the election because of what was widely believed to be the army’s support for him. Army officers cleared the way for his return to Pakistan after four years of voluntary exile to lead the Pakistan Muslim League in the country’s national polls.

“We don’t have many seats to form the government alone, so we are asking other parties that have been successful in this election to join us and together we will form the government,” Sharif offered in his first post-election address. Showing unprecedented flexibility, he said the PML-N recognises the legitimacy of this election and respects the mandate of all elected parties. “Whoever gets the mandate, we respect them with all our heart, whether it is a party or an individual, an independent candidate, and we invite them to lead a wounded Pakistan out of difficulties… It is important that all other parties sit at the negotiating table and form a united government together,” he said. But PTI spokesman Rauf Hassan told Pakistani media that the party had “absolutely no interest” in Sharif’s coalition proposal, “We are not going to form any alliance or coalition with them. They are not trustworthy people.”

With no party having secured the required majority -133 seats (there are 265 seats in the National Assembly), the coming days are likely to see numerous political entreaties, negotiations and meetings. The PML-N and PNP parties – in their struggle for dominance in parliament, where a two-thirds majority is required to make the most important decisions – will struggle to forge alliances with other independents and smaller parties. In his speech, Sharif said he had instructed his brother Shehbaz Sharif, also a former prime minister, to meet leaders of other parties, including the PNP, Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-F, to discuss a coalition government. However, he did not mention PTI. While the temptation to leave the coalition with Imran Khan’s party and join another party forming the government will be great, PTI-backed independent candidates have repeatedly said they will not join other parties and will return to Khan’s party as soon as he asks them to do so.

“We don’t expect such a government to last very long,” Zulfi Bukhari, a close aide to Khan, told the media, referring to a possible future PML-N-led coalition government. “Whatever [government] they are going to form, there will be disputes and bickering between them… So, its credibility will be zero with zero public support, which means they will not be able to take any meaningful decisions for the betterment of the country.”

Meanwhile, the delay in releasing full official election results even 24 hours after polling stations closed has led to widespread fears of rigging and raised questions about the credibility of the polls. The government attributed the delay to the suspension of mobile phone services imposed as a security measure ahead of the elections, but opponents, especially from PTI, say it was done to manipulate vote counting. In the run-up to the elections, PTI complained of increasing repression against the party, including that it was not allowed to campaign freely. Imran Khan himself did not participate in the polls as he has been in jail since August last year and has also been barred from running for public office for ten years. The former prime minister, already jailed in one corruption case, was found guilty in three consecutive cases a week before the election and faces dozens of other trials, including one in which he is accused of ordering violent attacks on military installations on 9 May 2023, which could carry the death penalty. Imran Khan, of course, denies all this and claims that all the cases were politically motivated to remove him and his party from the elections.

Many analysts question the legitimacy of the current election, in which Khan, arguably the country’s current most popular politician, was not allowed to participate. And after the election, they fear that the lack of a clear winner could mean more uncertainty for a country where political temperatures have been very high since Khan was ousted in a parliamentary vote of no confidence in April 2022. The country has also struggled for months with a seemingly intractable economic crisis that millions of Pakistanis have experienced. Pakistan’s economy is currently suffering from record high inflation, dwindling foreign exchange reserves, currency depreciation, low consumer confidence and slow growth caused by tough reforms undertaken to fulfil the terms of the latest $3 billion financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved last year.

One of the key tasks for any new government will be to negotiate a new financial assistance programme with the IMF after the current deal expires. Another challenge will be dealing with the growing militancy of residents. The election season itself has been particularly bloody, with several attacks on rallies, polling stations and candidates over the past few weeks, while 16 people were killed in violence on polling day itself. So, the new government, which has yet to be formed, faces very difficult challenges in resolving many domestic problems, boosting the country’s economy and increasing the incomes of ordinary Pakistanis.

Victor MIKHIN is a Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences.

February 21, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties | | Leave a comment

Washington, Pro-Democracy? Depends on the Country

By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | February 19, 2024

Pakistan just held an election; Venezuela is about to. Both incumbent governments have banned the leading opposition figure from competing. The United States sanctioned one and was silent on the other. What was the difference? Not international law or responsible leadership, both of which require a consistent application of laws and a consistent response. The important difference was that the United States supported the incumbent coup government in one case and opposed the incumbent coup survivor in the other.

On January 30, the United States reversed the small and rare diplomatic progress it had made with Venezuela by revoking the sanction relief on gold mining and by promising to revoke the sanction relief on Venezuela’s oil and gas sector at the first opportunity. The State Department cited “Actions by Nicolas Maduro and his representatives in Venezuela, including the arrest of members of the democratic opposition and the barring of candidates from competing in this year’s presidential election” as the reason.

Of central concern to the United States was its choice of an opposition leader to run against Nicolás Maduro, Maria Corina Machado, who recently appeared before a roundtable organized by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs subcommittee. On January 26, Venezuela’s highest court upheld the decision to bar Machado from running for president in the upcoming election.

But Machado was banned for reasons that might be considered reasonable in some democracies. She has a long history of being involved in coups against the democratically elected government of Venezuela. During the failed 2002 coup against Hugo Chavez, Machado was a signatory to the Carmona Decree, which suspended democracy, revoked the constitution, and installed a coup president.

As if participation in a coup is not enough to be barred from running for president, Machado was stripped of her position in the National Assembly in 2014 for acting, according to Miguel Tinker Salas, Professor of Latin American History at Pomona College and one of the world’s leading experts on Venezuelan history and politics, as “a delegate of the Panamanian government” who “sought to testify before the Organization of American States.” She sought to testify against her own country.

That same year, Miguel Tinker Salas says, “hoping to precipitate a crisis,” Machado helped organize La Salida, The Exit, to push President Maduro out of power. She “sought to mobilize forces and take to the streets.”

The next year, in 2015, Venezuelan officials produced evidence in support of their claim of a U.S.-backed coup attempt. According to the officials, the day before the planned coup, Machado joined two other opposition leaders in signing a National Transition Agreement. They say weapons were found in the office of the opposition party.

Machado has endorsed economic sanctions on Venezuela and foreign military intervention to remove the government of Venezuela.

Despite this record, the United States reimposed sanctions for barring Machado. The European Parliament went even further, denying that the Venezuelan court has legal grounds and insisting that Machado “remains eligible to run for the elections.” It says “Unless María Corina Machado is allowed to participate in the elections… elections and election results will not be recognised.” The European Parliament then urged EU member states “to tighten existing sanctions” and to add new sanctions on judges of Venezuela’s Supreme Court.

In Pakistan, the story is very different. Former Prime Minister Imran Khan has been jailed and banned from running in the presidential election. His party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), has been demolished by the Pakistani military, who arrested its senior members.

But the American response to the barring—and even jailing—of, perhaps, the most popular candidate has been very different from their reaction to the barring of Machado in Venezuela. The State Department says that the arrest of Khan “is an internal matter for Pakistan” and that, “The United States is prepared to work with the next Pakistani government, regardless of political party…”

The difference may reflect American position on coups in these countries. Whereas, the United States has supported multiple failed coup attempts to remove the current government in Venezuela and, so, opposes that government; it supported what seems to have been the coup that replaced Khan with the current government.

In April 2022, Khan was removed from office in a non-confidence vote. Khan has claimed that the non-confidence vote was a U.S.-backed coup in democratic disguise. He may not be wrong. A leaked Pakistani cable reveals a meeting between Asad Majeed Khan, then-Pakistani ambassador to the United States, and two State Department officials, one of whom was Donald Lu, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs

Lu begins the meeting by expressing that the United States and Europe “are quite concerned about why Pakistan is taking such an aggressively neutral position” on the war in Ukraine. He pins responsibility for Pakistan’s neutral defiance of the U.S. on Khan, saying, “it seems quite clear that this is the Prime Minister’s policy.” Lu informs the Pakistani ambassador that the trigger for the American concern was “the Prime Minister’s visit to Moscow.” On the day Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, Khan was in Moscow, meeting with Putin. He defied the United States by refusing to cancel the meeting.

Lu then advises Pakistan’s ambassador, “I think if the no-confidence vote against the Prime Minister succeeds, all will be forgiven in Washington because the Russia visit is being looked at as a decision by the Prime Minister. Otherwise, I think it will be tough going ahead… [H]onestly I think isolation of the Prime Minister will become very strong from Europe and the United States.”

As the polls closed in the Pakistani election, and the media began reporting stunning victories by independent candidates associated with Khan’s PTI party, the Election commission of Pakistan suddenly paused the announcement of results in remaining constituencies. By the time announcements restarted, PTI candidates who had been leading had suddenly lost.

The candidates associated with the PTI were running as independents because they were neither allowed to campaign under the PTI name nor even be identified by the PTI symbol on ballots, challenging voters’ ability to even identify PTI candidates. TV stations were banned from airing Khan’s speeches. Cell phone and internet services were cut, creating logistical confusion for voters. Voter suppression was widespread.

Despite all the obstacles, PTI candidates forced to run as independents won 102 seats. The second place party, the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz Party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, came in second with 73 seats. Despite winning the most seats, Khan’s party did not win a majority in the 265 seat National Assembly and will have trouble forming the government.

The U.S. State Department assessed that the election featured “undue restrictions on freedoms of expression… electoral violence… attacks on media workers, and access to the internet and telecommunications services, and… allegations of interference in the electoral process.” Despite that assessment, it declared that it “is prepared to work with the next Pakistani government, regardless of political party.”

Yet again following a foreign policy guided by a rules-based order that only applies the law when it benefits the United States and its allies, instead of a foreign policy guided by international law that applies the same universal standard impartially, the U.S. has confirmed the worst suspicions of a global majority that is losing faith in American leadership. The U.S. sanctions Venezuela for banning a candidate from competing in elections but is willing to work with Pakistan who has done the same. “As consistency starts to be questioned,” S. Jaishankar, India’s Minister of External Affairs has said, “many more nations will start to do their own thinking and planning.”

February 19, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite | , , | Leave a comment

Khan v the generals

By Junaid S. Ahmad | MEMO | February 13, 2024

Pakistan’s election lived up to some expectations, but didn’t live up to other expectations. What was predicted was that there would be vote rigging and outright fraud as a central feature of the Pakistani generals’ plan, and there was. What was not anticipated was that former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party, the PTI (Movement for Justice), would win the most parliamentary seats of any single party. It was a miraculous outcome, given the horrendous levels of repression of the PTI, and the efforts by the military establishment to prevent the party from even contesting in the election.

What we know now is that the Pakistani military-intelligence establishment, following its violence and terror campaign against the population after Khan was ousted in April 2022, is the proverbial emperor with no clothes. It stands exposed not only for its reign of terror, corruption and fraud, but also for its incompetence by failing to deliver the election results desired by domestic and foreign power centres.

In many ways, perhaps the most analogous relatively recent event was the victory of Hamas in the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council election. The Israelis, the Americans and the Gulf monarchies wanted to give legitimacy to their chosen occupation sub-contractor, the collaborationist and hopelessly corrupt Palestinian Authority (PA) largely controlled by Hamas rival Fatah. These forces believed that they had invested enough financial and political capital to enable Fatah candidates to win an “election under occupation”. To their great surprise — and to the surprise of Hamas, to be fair — the Islamic Resistance Movement won.

Similarly, the military and political elites in Pakistan had guaranteed themselves and their patrons in Washington that the election in Pakistan was a done deal.

This narrative claimed that the appeal of the PTI had diminished, and any remaining popularity of Khan and his political party would be offset by the investment of tens of millions of dollars to buy off the military high command, politicians in all of the provinces and, crucially, the judges of the provincial high courts, as well as the Supreme Court.

The generals said that they had a plan B, and if needed, a plan C, ready in case plan A did not work. Plan A was the simple ousting of Khan from power in April 2022. It was thought that this would eradicate the “Khan virus”. To the surprise of many, including Khan himself, a massive, unprecedented outpouring of support erupted spontaneously, with rallies taking place in cities and towns in every province of the country.

So, the military elites began the charge sheet against Khan to get him embroiled in one court case after another: plan B. That failed to work, and Khan’s popularity continued to soar. Incessant reassurances were meted out from former Chief of Army Staff General Bajwa to Washington and the House of Sharif, the family in control of one of the two dominant dynastic political parties, the PML(N). Bajwa claimed that the situation was under control and that his successor, General Asim Munir, would finish the job. Bajwa was lucky. All he agreed to was to remove Khan from power, and he delivered. He was detested, but he was able to leave the political scene after a few months. Munir was not so fortunate.

Plan C needed to be activated. Public sentiment was turning so antagonistic towards the military top brass for their unashamed targeting of Khan that the “final solution” had to be implemented: assassination. Two attempts, one of which injured Khan in the shin, were unsuccessful.

There really was no plan D, and so one was concocted quickly. Khan faced the most absurd but very serious charges of terrorism and treason, and was imprisoned in complete isolation. He was charged with leaking state secrets in the now infamous “cypher-gate” case, with the allegation that he spoke recklessly about a top-secret diplomatic cable sent to the foreign ministry by Pakistan’s ambassador to the US. The cable stated, in no uncertain terms, Washington’s desire that Khan be removed from power.

Both the military elite as well as, sadly, many in the intellectual class, mocked Khan and his supporters for over a year for this “conspiracy theory” and for inventing this “fictional” cypher. Only when the The Intercept confirmed the veracity of the contents of the diplomatic cable as Khan had described them, did Munir and other senior army officers not only concede that such a cypher does exist, but that Khan would now face charges of treason for revealing its contents. This leak by the former prime minister constituted a grave threat to “national security”. In reality, it presented a palpable unmasking of the collusion of the US foreign policy establishment, Pakistani generals and Pakistani kleptocrats of the two major political parties — the House of Sharif and the House of Bhutto-Zardari – in wanting to depose the democratically-elected Khan from power.

Once the hastily assembled plan D was put in motion, the idea was that it would lead seamlessly to plan E, the ruthless repression of the PTI, so that by the time of this election there would be nothing left of Khan and his party. What the election results last week demonstrated, however, is that even though Khan’s party members could not run on their party ticket and had to run as independents, there is huge popular support for the PTI.

There doesn’t seem to be a plan F, considering the frantic responses of the army chief and the head of the intelligence agencies, or the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Munir is no longer concerned with his big picture “obligations”. He has been reduced to trying to save himself. The only party that he is trying to please at this point is the one footing the bill: the House of Sharif. The general is now arguably the most hated Chief of Staff in Pakistan’s history, and there has been no shortage of competition for that title.

What about Washington’s planners? How are they reacting? One senior State Department official commented very bluntly: “These imbeciles can’t even crush a political novice like Khan. They command one of the largest armed forces in the world, nuclear armed. What is all that for?”

The US foreign policy establishment, after the ouster of Khan, had outsourced the job of managing the old “Af-Pak” (Afghanistan-Pakistan) theatre of the “Global War on Terror” to the Pentagon. Washington believed that its Cold War framework of dealing with the generals would produce a “stable” and pliant Pakistan. There is no entity as irate at the incompetence of the Pakistani military high command as the US Department of Defence, to which both Bajwa and Munir promised the moon. Actually, though, State Department officials are equally incensed since they were tasked to prevaricate for almost two years to conceal Washington’s role, as well as that of Pakistani generals, in this entire scenario.

The State Department had denied any knowledge of the cypher, but that position began to change after the Intercept’s publication of the contents of that damning diplomatic cable. At that point, it was not so much about asserting the non-existence of the cypher, but underscoring how such communication between two governments was nothing abnormal. Washington was willing to give Islamabad a few more months to fix everything by holding faux elections that would quash Khan and his party once and for all.

And now, it seems clear that the US foreign policy establishment is looking for vengeance, and keen on punishing the generals who promised to produce an unashamedly subservient Pakistani political establishment. This is why there has been such an explosion of harsh criticism of the Pakistani army from the State Department and numerous members of Congress.

There were, undoubtedly, members of Congress, such as Representative Ilhan Omar, who wanted to express their displeasure much earlier. But they also acquiesced to their Democratic Party leadership in the White House and in Congress, who hung on by a thread to the idea that “stability” would be brought about by the traditional political and military elites. The White House maintained unceasingly that “our guys” in Islamabad would facilitate a smooth and relatively quiet transition to the post-Khan period, without ringing any international alarm bells.

Of course, now it’s become patently obvious that Washington is revising its stance radically, one that effectively tells Pakistan’s generals, “You had your chance, you failed, and now you’re making things worse.” America’s 180-degree turnaround is an attempt to salvage some respect, or at least some tolerance, from the people of Pakistan who know full well Washington’s role in the regime change operation. The generals have put Washington in a deeply embarrassing situation.

However, Washington apparatchiks may be unfair in their treatment of their clients in khaki in Pakistan. The former do not realise that it’s the political has-beens who the generals can control, not the relative new boys on the block like Khan. The old political bigwigs know the rules of the game — proper balance between the enrichment of both the political and military elites — and abide by them. The newbies are too recalcitrant to even learn those rules properly, let alone abide by them. In sum, Washington now considers General Munir a dreadful liability, after only his first year as Chief of Staff, unlike General Pervez Musharraf, who provided Washington with “stability in Pakistan” for eight years until he also became a liability in 2007.

In this entire saga, what’s been truly disappointing is the role of the Pakistani media. The country’s leading and, deservedly, most respected periodical, Dawn, suddenly began to churn out columns praising the democratic “defiance” of the people in this election. It’s a shame that the people’s defiance was not covered over the past twenty months, when apparently it was simply an expression of a cult-following, and the totalitarian and conspicuously undemocratic repression was not worth reporting. The resistance of the Pakistani people could have certainly benefited from some coverage then. Now, such voices in the media are commonplace. It’s rather sad how the Pakistani media seems to be taking its cues from the US State Department about when to cover/report, and when not to. Dawn columnists had many months to praise the democratic will of the people, but did not.

At this point, the divisions within the military officer corps have become evident. Munir and others in the top brass realise how dangerous it is to give the wrong orders to junior officers and soldiers. How many times will the Pakistani armed forces be commanded to open fire, imprison, torture and disappear their population on a massive scale? The crimes of the military establishment in the provinces of Balochistan and KPK have been bad enough.

For almost two years now, the brutal suppression by the army was meant to instil paralysing trepidation in the population. But just as the people of Gaza, of Palestine, of West Asia, have overcome a psychological sense of fear of Israel, so too have the people of Pakistan lost any fear of their national security state and its violent shenanigans. This is a major development.

Whatever political configuration emerges after the election, one thing is certain: this round has been a resounding victory for former Prime Minister Imran Khan, smiling in his wretched jail cell, as well as the people of Pakistan, regardless of their political affiliation.

February 13, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception | , | Leave a comment

Can We Debate?

Is It Still Legal?

BY KEVIN BARRETT • UNZ REVIEW • FEBRUARY 11, 2024

This week’s False Flag Weekly News begins with the Daily Wire article “Harvard Employee Harasses Jewish Student Suing School For Anti-Semitism – Asks To Debate 9/11 Conspiracies.” The implication is that it is “harassment” to ask someone to “debate 9/11 conspiracies.” Especially if that someone is Jewish. And even more especially if they are suing their school for alleged anti-Semitism.

The Daily Wire hit piece targets Gustavo Espada, the financial and systems coordinator for Harvard’s Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations. According to the Wire, Espada “has been active in pushing 9/11 conspiracy theories for 18 years, according to a 2006 piece in The Lowell Sun which reported he spends 10 hours a week ‘handing out literature,’ Web logging and talking with people on the street about his views on 9/11.”

The thrust of the Wire hit piece is that Espada should be fired from his university job because he wants to debate 9/11. Reading the story brought back memories of a my own experience in 2006. While teaching subjects including Folklore, African Studies, and Islamic Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I had begun doing 9/11 teach-ins on campus in 2004, and then gotten involved in the national and global 9/11 truth movements. In 2006 I became the focus of a concerted pushback campaign sparked by Lynn Cheney’s group ACTA and its acolytes in the Wisconsin Republican Party.

Like Espada, I repeatedly challenged my detractors to meet me in a formal debate. In September 2006, while I was under fire from the State Legislature, the UW-Madison Debate Club sponsored what was supposed to be a debate on 9/11. They arranged for me and Jim Fetzer to argue against the 9/11 Commission’s official story, and told us that a history professor and a political science professor (Donald Downs, as I recall) had agreed to defend it. But at the last minute, the two pro-official-story professors backed out. So Jim Fetzer and I were left “debating” two empty chairs.

I reiterated my debate challenge. The university Provost, Patrick Farrell, told me that he would try to have the university set up some sort of formal panel discussion or debate after the media furor died down. Student newspapers at UW-Madison and UW-Oshkosh published op-eds plaintively begging for some knowledgable professor to debate and refute me. But nobody stepped forward to defend the 9/11 Commission.

Six months of media hoopla (July through December 2006) made me unemployable at the University of Wisconsin. I was denied a tenure-track Islam-Humanities job at U.W.-Whitewater purely due to my views of 9/11, according to whistleblowing then-Dean of Humanities Howard Ross. And I was told by the late Professor Muhammad Umar Memon, then a member of the UW-Madison hiring committee for its Islam classes, that the committee was informed by the University administration that I must not be rehired for my Islam 101 teaching job for the same reason.

Rendered unemployable due to my views of 9/11, but with nobody willing to debate me and explain why my views were wrong (privately most of my colleagues I knew personally thought my views were likely right or at least plausible) I offered a $1000 honorarium to any University of Wisconsin instructor, whether professor or TA, who was willing to defend the 9/11 Commission in a formal debate. There were no takers. Years later, the offer was raised to $2000. Still no takers.

Similar debate challenges were issued at other universities. A 9/11 truth group at the University of Michigan sent letters to every professor in the Engineering department seeking someone to defend the FEMA and NIST positions on the destruction of the World Trade Center in a debate with me and Underwriters Labs whistleblower Kevin Ryan. Most didn’t respond. The few who did told the organizers, off the record, that Ryan and I were right.

Could a 9/11 Debate Have Prevented Genocide?

According to the tenets of liberal democracy, all important matters are supposed to be debated on the basis of logic and evidence, and the truth that emerges becomes the touchstone of public policy. Had a real debate on 9/11 ever transpired, the truth that would have emerged—9/11 was orchestrated not by al-Qaeda, but by the state of Israel and its American neoconservative allies—would have prevented the series of wars that has devastated the Middle East, including the ongoing Israeli genocide of Gaza.

People resist debate when they know that logic and facts are not on their side. When would-be debaters like Espada are smeared, and their livelihoods threatened, it’s obvious that those doing the smearing know that their victims are right.

Can We Debate the Ukraine War?

Another topic that’s off-limits to debate is the US war on Russia through Ukraine. As with 9/11, the neoconservative propaganda talking points—the enemy is pure evil, “they” attacked “us” for no reason, and so on—are inflated to the status of sacred public myths, and anyone who wants to debate them is a damnable heretic. Merely for exposing us to Putin’s point of view, Tucker Carlson has been attacked by the whole mainstream media. As with 9/11, the neocon Establishment’s refusal to debate on logic and evidence, and its preference for shrill vituperation and ad-hominem attacks, suggests that it knows it couldn’t win a real debate with the likes of Putin.

Cancelled Candidates

Elections are a form of public policy debate. When the side with power knows that it can’t win a fair debate—as with the Pakistani military’s stand-off with Imran Khan—it may try to cancel the candidacy…or the candidate. Khan, who was very nearly assassinated by the Pakistani establishment, currently languishes in prison despite his overwhelming popularity among the vast majority of his countrymen. The Pakistani junta’s attempt to rig last week’s elections failed, because it’s impossible to convincingly rig an election when your opponent has such high levels of support. So the man who is the people’s choice and the rightful Prime Minister, targeted by ludicrous legal assaults including an attack on the legitimacy of his marriage, remains in prison… for now.

Imran Khan’s plight, we might imagine, is typical of tinpot third world military dictatorships, but irrelevant to the affairs of advanced Western democracies. But in both the US and Germany, pro-immigration Establishments are working overtime to keep anti-immigration parties and personalities off the ballot. Like the Pakistani Establishment vis-a-vis Imran Khan, the US and German Establishments don’t want to have to debate anti-immigration populist movements. So the Democrats in the US, and the ruling elites in Germany, are using various underhanded means to try to keep Trump and the MAGA movement, and the anti-immigration party AFD, off the two nations’ respective ballots.

Donald Trump, like Imran Khan, might very well end up winning an election from a prison cell. Like Khan, Trump has been targeted by a lawfare campaign expressly designed to torpedo his political chances. And Trump’s party, like Khan’s, views itself as the victim of widespread election fraud, and those who try to raise and debate the issue are deplatformed. Though the two cases aren’t fully comparable—Khan is overwhelmingly popular while Trump is controversial, Khan’s complaints are fully justified while Trump’s are only partly so, and Khan is completely honest and ethical while Trump is not—there are enough similarities to raise questions about whether American “democracy” is any healthier than Pakistan’s.

Undebatable COVID

The notion that the truth emerges through free and fair debate took a huge hit during COVID. We were told to “trust the science” and wear masks everywhere, even though the science suggests that there is no convincing evidence that masks significantly slow the spread of respiratory viruses. The debate about COVID origins was unceremoniously quashed, and people were deplatformed for even mentioning the issue. And arguments about whether highly experimental vaccines should be mass-tested on entire populations were likewise suppressed. Only one position—the Establishment’s—was allowed.

One More Question for Debate

So in light of all the signs that liberal democracy is dead and free and fair debate no longer effectively exists, I propose one last subject for debate: Should debate itself be legal? Or to rephrase that in debate-ese: “Resolved: Debate should be criminalized, and would-be debaters should be imprisoned or executed.”

Especially if they are “anti-Semitic.”

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February 11, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Elections in Pakistan. Victory of Imran Khan’s PTI Party

Image via Al Majallah/Rob Carter
By Junaid S. Ahmad | Global Research | February 10, 2024

The elections in Pakistan today were much freer and fairer than I had expected. Hence, the preliminary results simply reflected the obvious for most of us: former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s political party, PTI (the movement for justice) – facing ruthless repression over the past year – have swept the elections in every single province of the country.

Khan, surviving two assasination attempts and languishing in a supermax dungeon since last August, is more popular than ever. Among the youth, Gallup Pakistan surveys have consistently reported around 80-90 percent support for Khan and his party.

The tyranny of the generals in the military high command along with the kleptocratic and dynastic political parties entailed even the suppression of PTI’s symbol (a cricket bat) and virtually a ban, with horrific consequences if violated, on candidates running on a PTI ticket. Thus, all of these candidates ran as independents.

Of course, we have now become used to one criminal travesty after the next by Pakistan’s military-intelligence apparatus. So, we are cautious about any temporary victory for people’s democracy, triumphing over the Washington-backed totalitarian military and political elite. The latter are in full-blown panic mode, and are trying their best at tampering and rigging before announcing the final results.

The preliminary results, regardless of the fraudulent shenanigans of the national security state expected in the next few days, already represents a resounding defeat of the neo-colonial comprador oligarchy in Pakistan. One just needs to see how highly strung the spokesperson of the State Department was in addressing questions related to these elections.

There is one sign of both hope and danger. For the first time in Pakistan’s history, the normally unified and disciplined armed forces are now experiencing deep divisions. The majority of military officers and and 95 percent of soldiers are repulsed by the behavior of Wasington’s minions in the top brass. To the surprise of many of us, these divisions also exist within the intelligence agencies. We are witnessing in an unprecedented way a refusenik impulse within the military. Not to sound like the bogus alarmism we’re used to from Washington think tanks, it’s still worth remembering that Pakistan is a country of 240 million, nuclear-armed.

The Pakistani people badly need international solidarity at this point.

Prof. Junaid S. Ahmad teaches religion, law, and global politics and is the Director of the Center for Islam and Decoloniality, Islamabad, Pakistan.

February 10, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties | | Leave a comment

Ex-Pakistani PM charged amid US interference scandal

RT | October 23, 2023

A special court in Pakistan formally charged former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his then-foreign minister on Monday with breaching state secrecy laws. The charges stem from their alleged conspiracy to reveal what Khan characterized as US interference in orchestrating his removal by political opponents last year.

Special Court Judge Abual Hasnat Zulqarnain lodged indictments against Khan and Shah Mahmood Qureshi concerning the so-called ‘cipher case.’ The allegations revolve around their purported unlawful retention and public disclosure of a classified document, which Khan’s side is said to have had the necessary cipher to decode. Pakistani media reports suggest that additional individuals, including Khan’s aide Muhammad Azam Khan and former Federal Minister Asad Umar, may also face charges in the ongoing investigation.

The document in question is a diplomatic cable sent by then-Pakistani Ambassador to the US Asad Majeed Khan after his March 2022 meeting with two senior US Department of State officials, including Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu.

Various media sources, including The Intercept, reported that Lu criticized Imran Khan for adopting an “aggressively neutral position” on the Ukraine conflict that erupted in late February of the same year. Unlike the United States and its European allies, the Pakistani prime minister refrained from siding with Kiev.

Instead, he conducted a scheduled visit to Moscow and declared during a rally that Pakistanis were not “slaves” to Washington, defying Western criticisms.

The US official reportedly discussed the no-confidence vote against Khan, which he was facing in parliament at the time. If it were to succeed, “all will be forgiven in Washington,” Lu was quoted as telling the ambassador, while if Khan stayed in power, Islamabad would supposedly face “isolation.”

The US government denied that anything said by Lu during the meeting amounted to taking a position on who should be in power in Pakistan.

Khan was ousted about a month after the meeting and has since been charged with a number of crimes, including some related to terrorism and corruption. He has claimed that his political opponents seek to bar him from the upcoming parliamentary elections with Washington’s blessing. Notably, after Khan’s downfall, US-Pakistani relations experienced a period of thawing.

Islamabad received an unexpected windfall this July when the International Monetary Fund extended a $3 billion bailout. The Intercept claimed that the US backed the rescue in exchange for Pakistan agreeing to supply munitions worth $900 million to Ukraine. The Pakistani government has denied the reported arms sale ever taking place.

October 23, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Conscience of humanity shaken by targeting of civilians in Gaza: Pakistani envoy

Press TV | October 18, 2023

The Israeli regime’s “deliberate, indiscriminate and disproportionate” targeting of civilians in the besieged Gaza Strip goes against all norms of civility and violates international law, says Pakistani ambassador to Tehran.

In an interview with the Press TV website on Tuesday, hours before an Israeli air raid on a Gaza hospital killed more than 700 Palestinians, Muhammad Mudassir Tipu said the “conscience of humanity has been shaken” by the unrelenting massacre of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.

“The conscience of humanity has been shaken by watching innocent civilians, children, older people, pregnant woman being killed; buildings being razed to ground; water and electricity being cut off; massive blockades; and the use of massive ammunition by the Israeli military forces,” he stated.

“That is why people are showing solidarity with the Palestinians, who are symbolizing their struggle for justice, all over the world.”

Demonstrations have been held worldwide in recent days in solidarity with the oppressed people of Palestine amid the new wave of Israeli genocidal bombardment of the besieged coastal strip.

One of the biggest demonstrations was held in Pakistan’s port city of Karachi, where tens of thousands took to the streets following a call given by a local political party with the support of trade unions.

Tipu said the “sense of righteousness is deeply ingrained in the minds” of the people in Pakistan.

“We stand for those principles that are morally justified and right rather than the ones propagated for political and hegemonic ambitions. Pakistanis also believe in the equal application of international law and norms rather than using one set of laws for one country and another set of laws for another country,” he remarked in a conversation with the Press TV website.

“We can’t have double standards and false moral equivalences to justify unjustifiable and illegitimate positions,” the Pakistani envoy hastened to add.

The death toll in the Israeli aerial bombardment in the Gaza Strip has risen to 3,000, including at least 700 children, with tens of thousands of others displaced after the Israeli evacuation orders.

The Pakistani ambassador said massive pro-Palestine demonstrations must be seen in the context of years of forced and illegal occupation of Palestinian territory and repressive policies against its people.

“Our cause resonates with the cause of the hapless Palestinians who are facing unspeakable brutality and massive use of force on the civilians as well as an overwhelming use of military might over its innocent people,” he asserted.

Tipu also “appreciated” the role of the Iranian leadership in “standing up for the oppressed people of Palestine and making resolute efforts to halt and reverse the conflict in Gaza consistent with international norms.”

“The great Iranian leadership has also unambiguously urged for a just resolution of this historic injustice,” he remarked, adding that the foreign ministers of Pakistan and Iran had a phone conversation on Monday in which they “discussed this grave situation” in Palestine.

On Pakistan’s interim Prime Minister Anwaar ul Haq Kakar’s statement on Saturday that the Israeli aggression in the Gaza strip should be seen in the context of years of illegal Israeli occupation, the Pakistani envoy said he “clearly and unambiguously outlined Pakistan’s position on this crisis.”

He also dismissed any speculation about Pakistan mulling normalization with the Israeli regime.

“Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Mr. Jalil Abbas Jilani has categorically articulated that “there is absolutely no move to recognize Israel. Our position is very clear. We take decisions based on our interests and the interests of the Palestinians,” he told the Press TV website.

“I must emphasize that Pakistan is a sovereign country, with enormous capabilities, and would always take decisions of vital importance independently.”

He hastened to note that Islamabad “wishes to seek a just resolution” of the issue of Palestine so that “regional peace, development, and growth can take place and a sense of equity and justice prevails.”

October 18, 2023 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Manipulation’ keeps Imran Khan in prison despite bail, lawyers say

Press TV – August 29, 2023

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has remained in prison despite the Islamabad High Court suspending his recent conviction on corruption charges, with his lawyers claiming that a “manipulation of justice” is keeping him behind bars.

Khan’s legal team said on Tuesday afternoon he remained in detention because of a previous arrest, made in secret, over a case alleging he had leaked classified state documents.

One of his lawyers told reporters outside the prison that Khan was “on judicial remand” and would appear before a special court in Islamabad on Wednesday.

“He was arrested prior to today’s court ruling. The exact date of his arrest remains unclear,” another lawyer, Gohar Khan, was quoted as saying.

Another, Muhammad Shoaib Shaheen, said that “his legal team was intentionally left uninformed and kept in the dark”. “This constitutes a manipulation of justice,” he said.

Pro-PTI lawyers held banners and chanted “Release Imran Khan!” and “Khan your devotees are countless!” outside the court as initial news of his sentence suspension broke.

Khan ally and former Speaker of National Assembly Asad Qaiser has said today’s verdict in the graft case was evidence Khan’s sentence and imprisonment were carried out in “haste”.

“If an attempt is made to arrest Chairman Imran Khan in other cases after his release, it will be an attempt to push the country towards anarchy. At this time, the only way to save the country from further crises is to have clean and transparent elections as soon as possible,” Qaiser posted on social media platform X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

The Islamabad High Court overturned a lower court’s decision to jail him for three years, a judgment that kept him from contesting upcoming elections.

His lawyers said he was granted bail and they were initially hopeful he would be released from Attock Jail, a century-old prison around 60 kilometers west of Islamabad, where the 70-year-old has been held for three weeks.

Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party later said nine activists had been arrested outside Attock Jail.

The sentence was handed down this month by a judge who found him guilty of failing to properly declare gifts he received while in office.

The ex-PM’s legal team lodged the appeal against his conviction on the grounds that he was put to jail without being given the right to defend himself.

That was only one of more than 200 legal cases that have embroiled Pakistan’s most popular politician since he was ousted by a parliamentary vote last year.

The Islamabad High Court’s decision to suspend the conviction marks another victory for Khan and comes on the heels of the Balochistan High Court’s decision to dismiss sedition charges against him.

The 70-year-old cricketer-turned-politician lost a confidence vote in the parliament in April 2022. Since then, his ouster has been at the centre of political turmoil across Pakistan.

Khan believes that the cases lodged against him were politically motivated to keep him out of power. He alleges the country’s powerful military is behind these cases.

In the past months, Pakistani authorities have made widespread arrests targeting the PTI party in an attempt to allegedly crush his grassroots support.

No date for the polls has been announced. Khan surged to power in 2018 on a wave of popular support, through an anti-corruption manifesto.

Did the US ask for Khan’s removal after he visited Russia?

The US-based news outlet The Intercept earlier this month published what it claims to be the details of a diplomatic “cypher” – or a secret cable – that suggests the US administration wanted to remove Khan from power last year.

Khan alleged he knew of the “cypher” while he was in office which, according to him, proved the US hatched a conspiracy with the help of his political opponents and the Pakistani military to remove him.

The Intercept published purported details of a conversation between Pakistan’s then-ambassador to the US, Asad Majeed, and Donald Lu, the assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, on March 7 last year.

In the meeting, Lu reportedly told Majeed the US and Europe were “quite concerned” about Khan visiting Russia and Pakistan taking an “aggressively neutral position” on Russia’s military operation against Ukraine

The conversation, according to the report, took place less than two weeks after Khan visited Moscow on February 24, the day Russia launched the operation.

August 29, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties | | Leave a comment

Pakistan court drops sedition case against ex-PM Khan: Lawyer

Press TV – August 28, 2023

A Pakistani court dismissed a sedition case lodged against Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday, according to a court order and his lawyer.

Khan, 70, a former cricket player, was jailed on corruption charges earlier this month.

In March, he was charged with sedition on a complaint that alleged one of his speeches amounted to sedition. The case was registered in the southwestern city of Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province.

Following an appeal by the former prime minister, the Balochistan High Court said prosecutors had failed to obtain the required consent from the federal or provincial government to lodge the charges of sedition.

Hence the court ruled that the charges are “without lawful authority and are of no legal effect,” meaning that the authorities should quash the case.

Khan’s lawyer Naeem Panjutha also made this announcement in a post on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter.

“God be praised,” she wrote on X celebrating the dismissal of the case.

A US publication has obtained a classified document, suggesting Washington pushed for the removal of Imran Khan from office over his neutrality on the Ukraine war.
Khan, who lost power after being defeated in a parliamentary confidence vote in April 2022, is also currently serving a three-year jail term after being convicted of corruption.

He is expecting a high court in Islamabad to overturn his conviction and jail sentence.

He said the cases lodged against him were politically motivated to keep him out of power. He says the country’s powerful military is behind these cases.

The three-year jail sentence issued by a lower court disqualifies him from taking part in elections scheduled for November, though it is likely to be delayed until at least early next year.

Khan has been barred from holding political office for five years.

In past months, Pakistani authorities have made widespread arrests targeting Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party in an attempt to crush his grassroots support, causing nationwide anger against the country’s military for ordering the crackdown.

According to several independent surveys, the PTI will win a landslide victory in the next elections if the party is allowed to run a political campaign without restrictions.

August 28, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties | | Leave a comment

Top UK Journalist Isabel Oakeshott Gloated Over The US’ Role In Imran Khan’s Deposal

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | AUGUST 27, 2023

The Mainstream Media’s (MSM) narrative about former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s scandalous deposal in April 2022 has hitherto been that it supposedly represented a completely independent and purely democratic exercise that was entirely free of foreign influence. These analyses here and here argue that it was actually a US-backed post-modern coup carried out as punishment for his multipolar foreign policy, which readers can learn more about by reviewing the preceding pieces.

The details are beyond the scope of the present piece, however, which focuses on how the MSM’s narrative has abruptly shifted in light of the provocative op-ed published by top UK journalist Isabel Oakeshott for the Telegraph. In her article titled “Imran Khan isn’t a martyr for freedom. He’s a friend of the West’s worst enemies”, she breaks ranks with her peers after being triggered by a recent video about IK’s plight in prison that includes footage of his meeting with President Putin in February 2022.

Here’s her initial reaction to that from the article:

“But hang on a minute! Who’s that lurking in the video? Do I spy an image of Khan gladhanding Vladimir Putin, even as the Russian president rained bombs on Ukraine? Of all the many pictures his spin doctors could have selected of their man on the world stage, they chose this one, as well as an image of their leader meeting Xi Jinping, the Chinese president. What a blunder – and what a disturbing insight into Khan’s new allegiances, now he has left his colourful playboy past behind.”

She then gloated over the US’ role in his deposal:

“A sensational report by The Intercept claims that a leaked Pakistani government document shows his deposal was actively encouraged by the US State Department. No wonder! As the West united to support Ukraine, what was he doing gravitating towards the Kremlin? While his supporters wring their hands over his plight, others may be relieved that this complex character no longer has his finger on a nuclear button.”

Oakeshott is entitled to her opinion, but it surprised many that a leading UK journalist would break the MSM’s narrative on this ultra-sensitive issue in an op-ed for one of the West’s leading outlets. It’s also curious that the Telegraph didn’t include the typical disclaimer that their contributors’ views don’t necessarily reflect their own. Considering this, the message being conveyed is that they – and elements of the Western elite by extrapolation – are proud of the US’ most successful regime change in years.

The silver lining is that anyone who tries to gaslight by claiming that it’s a so-called “conspiracy theory” to allege US involvement in IK’s deposal is now discredited since those who they’re attacking can simply point to how top UK journalist Oakeshott gloated over this in the Telegraph. Without realizing it, she just dealt a powerful blow to Western soft power by exposing the hypocrisy of its “rules-based order”, which in this context lends credence to many Pakistanis’ claims that their government is illegitimate.

August 27, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

Pakistan arrests opposition leader in crackdown on Imran Khan’s party

Press TV – August 19, 2023

Pakistani authorities have arrested opposition leader Shah Mehmood Qureshi in a widening crackdown on former prime minister Imran Khan’s party by the military-backed interim government.

Qureshi, who twice served as Pakistan’s foreign minister, was arrested by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Saturday in the capital Islamabad shortly after he denounced the newly installed caretaker government for its attempts to delay the elections which are scheduled to be held later this year.

“He was arrested from his residence by Islamabad police. We don’t have any further details yet,” a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP.

In recent months, Pakistani authorities have made widespread arrests targeting Khan’s PTI party in an attempt to crush his grassroots support, causing nationwide anger against the country’s powerful military, which most people believe is behind the crackdown.

According to several independent surveys, the PTI will win a landslide victory in the next elections if the party is allowed to run a political campaign without restrictions.

PTI spokesman Zulfi Bukhari condemned Qureshi’s arrest on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, saying the vice chairman of the party was “arrested for doing a press conference and re-affirming PTI stance against all tyranny and pre-poll rigging that is going on currently in Pakistan.”

“PTI Vice Chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi has been illegally arrested once again,” the PTI said in social media post on X.

Qureshi was also arrested on May 11 and released on June 6.

In the meantime, Khan, 70, is currently serving a three-year jail term.

Khan was arrested earlier this month and taken to jail after a court found him guilty in one of the more than dozens of cases he has faced.

The former prime minister has maintained that some 200 cases against him are politically motivated to keep him out of power. He says the country’s powerful military is behind these cases.

The three-year jail sentence issued by a lower court disqualifies him from taking part in elections.

August 19, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

US role in Pakistan chaos is obvious and logical

RT | August 16, 2023

A recently leaked secret diplomatic cable revealed that the United States had pressed Pakistani diplomats to seek the removal of Prime Minister Imran Khan in 2022. Khan, who was ousted from office later that year, was not a supporter of the US or its geopolitical agenda, and had sought closer ties with both China and Russia.

Ejected from the leadership, Khan was quickly arrested and then banned from participating in politics. Then, within the same week, Pakistan signed a new defence agreement with the US, affirming age-old ties between Washington and the Pakistani military elite, who have long formed the backbone of the state.

This is no conspiracy theory, it’s very easy to see what has gone on here. The US has engaged in a subtle regime change operation in Pakistan; an unusual choice given its simultaneous pursuit of stronger ties with India. This shows the ambitions of the US to play the two countries against each other and assert its own military domination over the South Asian region, using India as a pawn in its struggle against China, while simultaneously blocking the strategic rise of India by using Pakistan as a counterweight to it.

First of all, we must understand that the US ‘Indo-Pacific strategy’ is tailored toward one thing: hegemony. That is, ensuring the explicit strategic dominance of the US over the Pacific and Indian Oceans by containing the rise of China, but also ensuring that no rival power emerges. While India is seen as a critical partner by Washington in containing Beijing, one should also understand that this does not mean the US consents to India, a nation of 1.4 billion people with enormous economic potential, becoming a superpower and taking control of the region. A Pax Indica is not a Pax Americana, because India’s foreign policy is premised around its maintaining strategic autonomy and a “neighbourhood first” doctrine.

While India-China tensions are high, the biggest, most direct and historic military threat to India is of course its neighbour, Pakistan. Traditionally, Washington has maintained a very strong military relationship with Islamabad, as it was an ally in the war on terror in Afghanistan and is a huge buyer of US military equipment. India in turn, always resented US support of Pakistan, which was one reason the countries never got too close in the early 2000s. However, as the strategic environment changed, Pakistan tilted toward China, and India toward the US. Beijing became the biggest economic backer of Islamabad through the Belt and Road Initiative, seeking to create the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as a new route to the Indian Ocean to bypass the waters the US was militarising, as well as the Indian subcontinent itself.

Under the leadership of Imran Khan, Pakistan’s foreign policy increasingly took on an anti-Western stance. He embraced China wholeheartedly, distancing himself from the US while increasing defence ties with Beijing. In addition, Khan also sought closer economic ties with Russia, having visited Moscow on the day the military operation in Ukraine began. However, with Pakistan being such a geostrategically important country, the US found Pakistan’s foreign policy direction increasingly disruptive to Washington’s own interests, and therefore lobbied for Khan’s removal. Although the US relationship with India has been growing simultaneously, Washington is not interested in creating an “either/or” situation on the Indian subcontinent where the US backs India and China backs Pakistan. Rather, it seeks to divide and conquer.

The existence of Pakistan, a nation with over 200 million people and nuclear weapons capability, is a useful military and strategic check on the power of India. India may be bigger than Pakistan, and will of course be the more successful country in the long run too, but Pakistan will always be a potent threat which can never be fully removed. In the eyes of US strategists, why should Pakistan be purely China’s strategic benefit? What the US wants is to enjoy favourable relationships with both Pakistan and India, so that it might be able to use them against each other, and profit accordingly. The US may be backing New Delhi right now, but it should be known this does not mean Washington consents to the rise of New Delhi as a rival power when the only acceptable vision the US has for the world is unipolarity.

If the US succeeds in containing China and strategically subordinating it, India will be its next target. How will Washington go about that? It will create strong relationships with all of India’s neighbours and will then purvey a narrative that New Delhi is a “bully” and “aggressor” and use that to boost its military and economic relationships with them. Who will be top of the list? Pakistan, of course. The US sustains its power by backing small countries against big ones, and then presenting itself as the only defence and security guarantor.

For that reason, the US has overseen the removal of Imran Khan and reasserted its defence relationship with Pakistan. Washington does not want a Pakistan that is a partner of Russia and China, and a global advocate of Muslims. It wants to see Islamabad and New Delhi in a contest with each other, using US-supplied equipment, then framing itself as the peacemaker, saviour and, ultimately, overlord.

August 16, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , | Leave a comment

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