Terrorism Through Pakistan Prism
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National Review
October 15, 2009
Pakistan Notebook
Impressions from one front in what we used to call the War on Terror.
By Clifford D. May
Islamabad — I picked an interesting moment to visit Pakistan: four
terrorist attacks in less than a week. The first was at the World Food
Programme office here in the capital: five killed. The second was in
the Khyber Bazaar in Peshawar: more than 50 killed. The third was at
the military’s General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi, where Taliban
insurgents, armed with automatic weapons, grenades, and rocket
launchers, fought for 22 hours. According to government spokesmen, a
brigadier, a colonel, and three commandos were killed. More than two
dozen hostages were taken, but most reportedly were saved when a would-
be suicide bomber was shot and killed before he managed to detonate
his vest.
A couple days later, terrorists attacked a military convoy, killing
about 40 near the Swat Valley — territory only recently liberated from
the Taliban by Pakistani military forces following a difficult and
costly battle.
If you look closely, you’ll see a message written in this blood: “You,
Pakistan’s so-called leaders, can’t provide food for the hungry or
security for the marketplace. Your soldiers and officers can’t even
protect themselves. You are useless and weak. You will submit. Or we
will destroy you.”
Pakistanis can be remarkably nonchalant about terrorism: They have
suffered 129 terrorist attacks in the two years since the
assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Since Sept. 11, 2001, at least 5,000
Pakistanis have been killed in acts of terrorism.
But the assault on the GHQ seems to have shaken people up. Hitting the
Pakistani equivalent of the Pentagon is, as a headline in the daily
newspaper Dawn puts it: “audacious.” The military is the country’s
strongest, proudest, and most durable institution. Retaliation is
expected, probably in Waziristan, where the Taliban seems to have made
recent gains.
I was invited to Pakistan by the State Department under a “U.S.
Speaker and Specialist” program intended to improve the dialogue
between Pakistanis and Americans. My hosts have been the American
embassy in Islamabad and the U.S. consulates in Lahore and Karachi.
Terrorist attacks have been carried out in all three cities. Americans
have been among the targets. An American security official tells me:
“There will be more. It’s a question of when, not if.”
I have been speaking at universities; meeting with journalists,
government officials, religious leaders, and think-tank scholars; and
doing radio, television, and newspaper interviews. People seem eager
to talk to me, to tell me what they think, question me, argue about
terrorism — how to define it, what causes it, how Pakistanis and
Americans should respond.
There are not many Americans and Europeans running around Pakistan
these days. That’s a victory for the terrorists. Last month, a Greek
aid volunteer, Athanasius Lerounis, was kidnapped. He had been in
Pakistan for 15 years building schools, water-supply systems, and
clinics. The Taliban wants $10 million in ransom plus the release of
some of their comrades from Pakistani jails in exchange for letting
him go.
Non-Muslim minorities today constitute only about 3 percent of
Pakistan’s population. In Karachi, a sprawling, sweltering seaside
metropolis of more than 15 million people, a sophisticated Pakistani
tells me: “This used to be such a cosmopolitan city. It was enriched
by the presence of Christians, Parsis [Zoroastrians from Iran], even
Jews. It was a better place then.” When the people who are different
are driven out, he theorizes, the people who remain behind do not get
along better — they just discover more differences among themselves.
Pakistan is a nation of 175 million people — the third largest Muslim-
majority country in the world. Since last year, it has had a
democratic government — but not a particularly popular one. Before
that, it had a military dictator; he had even less support. Pakistan
possesses nuclear weapons — al-Qaeda says it intends to acquire them
in time; the Taliban will help if it can. The Kerry-Lugar bill, passed
by Congress and soon to reach President Obama’s desk, calls Pakistan
“a major non-NATO ally and a valuable partner in the battle against al-
Qaeda and the Taliban.”
But it is a conflicted ally and a fragile partnership. As recently as
last May, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates voiced the suspicion that
within the Pakistani military and the Inter-Services Intelligence
(ISI) agency are those who “play both sides” — who have sympathies for
and links with various militant jihadi groups.
America has not won many hearts and minds in Pakistan. A recent Pew
Research Center survey found that almost two-thirds of Pakistanis
describe the U.S. as an “enemy.” Kerry-Lugar would triple aid to
Pakistan yet it has been greeted by many in the military, the
opposition parties and the media as an insult to Pakistan’s
sovereignty and dignity. Why? Because of its “conditionalities” — in
large measure because it tries to make sure that money given to
Pakistan will be spent only for purposes Americans intend and
approve.
I find people admirably hospitable. Many are friendly. But on the
campuses, in particular, mixed in with hard but fair questions, is a
large measure of anger and resentment. The grievances cited include:
The U.S. interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. support for India
and Israel, U.S. drone attacks against militants in Pakistan (which
allegedly kill many innocents — though both U.S. and Pakistani
officials deny that), Vietnam, Hiroshima — the list goes on.
I meet with a group of religious leaders. They are remarkably diverse
in their views. One refers to “moderate Islam.” Another says: “There
is no such thing as ‘moderate Islam.’” I ask what term he would use
for the Islam of Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar. “Oh, that’s not
Islam at all,” he says. “So they are heretics?” I ask. “If we call
them apostates and they call us apostates, where does it get us?” he
replies. I respond, “What do you do instead? Ignore those around the
world slaughtering innocents in the name of Islam and hope that
someday they might see things differently? Why would that happen?” He
thinks hard, but does not come up with an answer.
Flying from Lahore to Karachi, I sit next to a young man with a bushy
beard, reading a book on sharia finance. I try to keep to myself but
eventually we begin talking. He is a pilot for Pakistan International
Airlines. Also, it emerges that he is an enthusiastic trekker and is
pleased when I tell him that, years ago, I hiked in northern Pakistan,
that I visited Hunza, Gilgit, Skardu, and the Swat Valley. He gives me
the URL of a website where he has posted his photos from these fabled
places.
He tells me he is worried about the possibility of more wars and
conflict and a deteriorating economy. He has a wife and two children,
a five-year-old and a three-year-old. He has a brother, a doctor, who
lives in Oklahoma. But he also tells me that he does not think America
can be trusted. The usual reasons: The U.S. is too close to India and
“the Zionists.” What’s more, Pakistanis suspect that Americans want to
take away their nuclear weapons. That would mean “a small and weak
Pakistan under the control of India — if it even remains as Pakistan
and is not divided into small states.” He adds: “Who created the
Taliban? It was America herself!”
Many Pakistanis view the Taliban as an enemy. But others will tell you
that there is a “good Taliban” and a “bad” Taliban. If that is meant
to imply that some groups that call themselves Taliban don’t really
buy into the ideology and are therefore “reconcilables” — fine; I have
heard that also from senior American military officers in Afghanistan.
But sometimes it seems to be implied that the “bad” Taliban attacks
Pakistanis, while the “good” Taliban attacks Americans. And there are
those who condone the “bad” Taliban as well. Their thinking goes like
this: The Taliban attacks the World Food Programme because it supports
the Pakistani government, which supports the U.S. government, which
supports India and Israel. So you have to cut them some slack.
On a television program, Breakfast with Dawn, the interviewer reads a
passage from one of my columns and asks me to defend it. I’m puzzled.
I have written that al-Qaeda’s central leadership is based on
Pakistani soil. I ask her what requires defending. She says I can’t
prove that al-Qaeda is here and Pakistanis doubt it is true.
Ironically, Pakistan is awash in conspiracy theories lacking even the
most flimsy evidentiary basis. There are those who contend that 9/11
was a CIA operation, probably in league with the Mossad. What, I ask,
would be the motive? To have an excuse to invade Muslim countries,
comes the reply. On another television show, Islamabad Tonight, an
otherwise smart and well-traveled panelist tells me that President
Obama wants to establish permanent military bases in Afghanistan. “You
really think Obama wants that?” I ask incredulously. “Yes,” he says.
“It’s not a matter of the personality. It’s big-power politics, the
Great Game.”
America is criticized for “occupying” Afghanistan. America also is
faulted for having abandoned Afghanistan in the 1990s, after working
with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to support the Afghan insurgency
against the Soviets. The result of that abandonment: anarchy leading
to the rise of the Taliban. My response becomes: “So there are just
two things you insist Americans must never do: leave and stay. What
third option would you recommend?” This generally gets a laugh.
Pakistanis are not without humor.
At the University of Karachi, I debate these and related issues, one
after another. I say I find it curious that no one ever mentions the
genocide of black Muslims in Darfur, the brutal oppression of
protestors in Iran, the plight of the Chechens and the Uighurs. But no
one does — not even after I’ve said that.
As for terrorism, I propose that we agree that whatever your
grievances, it is wrong to address them by killing other people’s
children. Most in the audience seem to find that sensible — at least
in theory. At the end of the conversation, I receive polite, even warm
applause. But one young man, clean-shaven and in western dress, throws
his shoe at me. It misses, more because of his lack of pitching skill
than my agility. Almost everyone else in the room appears mortified.
Apologies are repeatedly proffered, even from students who had asked
hostile questions and to whom I’d responded sharply. The student is
thrown out of the classroom. I learn later that he then limped on down
to the local press club. The next day, the shoe-throwing incident is
reported on the front-page of major newspapers and debated on
editorial pages.
At Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, a professor of international
relations responds to my remarks by instructing: “Injustices and
terrorism are two sides of the same coin.” I reply that the world has
never been — and I’m afraid never will be — free of injustices. But by
his reasoning, we not only must accept terrorism — we should give it
license. If I decide to address the injustice of 9/11 — or of Darfur —
by blowing up this university, would that be okay with him? Just two
sides of the same coin? He doesn’t concede the point, but at least he
keeps his shoes on. And others tell me they think I’m right and he’s
wrong.
Pakistan is having a historic debate and it is having it in the midst
of a civil war. Pakistan is a front-line state in a global conflict.
For a while we called it the War on Terrorism; now we can’t even agree
on a name. I’m persuaded that the majority in this country is on the
right side of the debate, the civil war, and the global conflict. But
among history’s lessons is this: When moderate majorities face radical
and determined minorities, there is no guaranteeing the outcome.
— Clifford D. May, a former New York Times foreign correspondent, is
the president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a policy
institute focusing on terrorism.