The President of Pakistan Reaches Out
09 December 2008 7:15 am by Taylor Marsh
BY TAYLOR MARSH
In and op-ed in The New York Times. He quite specifically points back to the the Reagan era, citing the west and without using the American president’s name, who was so committed to stopping communism that after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, Reagan was nothing less than the benefactor of the ISI through General Zia, who, according to Ahmed Rashid, imposed “an ideological Islamic state upon the population.” It was through Zia’s rule that torture and government oppression gained strength in Pakistan, while Reagan ignored it, banked it, and hoped it would help topple the Soviets, through using the Pakistanis to get arms to the Mujahadeen. The result is what we’re seeing finally coming to a head today. It gives you an idea of how long it takes some national security plots to play out. Money can buy a lot of blowback.
President Zardari is reaching out at a time of supreme crisis for his country, which is tetering on a ledge.
THE recent death and destruction in Mumbai, India, brought to my mind the death and destruction in Karachi on Oct. 18, 2007, when terrorists attacked a festive homecoming rally for my wife, Benazir Bhutto. Nearly 150 Pakistanis were killed and more than 450 were injured. The terrorist attacks in Mumbai may be a news story for most of the world. For me it is a painful reality of shared experience. Having seen my wife escape death by a hairbreadth on that day in Karachi, I lost her in a second, unfortunately successful, attempt two months later. [...] These militants did not arise from whole cloth. Pakistan was an ally of the West throughout the cold war. The world worked to exploit religion against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan by empowering the most fanatic extremists as an instrument of destruction of a superpower. The strategy worked, but its legacy was the creation of an extremist militia with its own dynamic.
Pakistan continues to pay the price: the legacy of dictatorship, the fatigue of fanaticism, the dismemberment of civil society and the destruction of our democratic infrastructure. The resulting poverty continues to fuel the extremists and has created a culture of grievance and victimhood. [...]
For India, Pakistan and the United States, the best response to the Mumbai carnage is to coordinate in counteracting the scourge of terrorism. The world must act to strengthen Pakistan’s economy and democracy, help us build civil society and provide us with the law enforcement and counterterrorism capacities that will enable us to fight the terrorists effectively. …
Provoking a confrontation between India and Pakistan would be a terrorist’s dream. India has shown amazing restraint in the aftermath of Mumbai. It makes a difference that by most accounts Zardari is reported to be cracking down on L-e-T (h/t Juan Cole), the Pakistani based terrorist group who is believed to be behind the bombings.
