Beggars’ foreign policy

By
 
Aneela Shahzad 
tribune.com.pk
5 min
View Original
What the US did in this war was that it broke all UN conventions of war and obliterated all
ethics of war

The writer is a geopolitical analyst. She also writes at globaltab.net and tweets
@AneelaShahzad
Iranian parliament Speaker Baqer Qalibaf has accused the US of using Daesh to create
insecurity and ethnic-religious rift in Afghanistan so that the Islamic Emirate yields to its
demands.

Despite a sudden increase in terror activities in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, the parliament
in Pakistan may not be in a position to openly name the US for restarting its dirty games in
the region. Perhaps because, according to US defense analyst Rebecca Grant, Pakistan has
already been punished for its independent foreign policy with the recent removal of its Prime
Minister because of his ‘anti-American policies’. Moreover, she categorically dictated that
“Pakistan will have to support Ukraine, stop making deals with Russia, cut ties with China
and end anti-US policies.” And perhaps because the replaced regime is here to fulfil the
above dictation, no one in the new parliament would dare question the US restarting to abet
terrorist outfit to destabilise the two countries again.

Appallingly, the US is at it again after losing a two decades’ long fruitless war upon the
Afghan people, upon the stability of the region and upon the peace and prosperity of the
people within. After spending $2 trillion of US taxpayer’s money on a war meant to prolong
dying US imperialism; on the way, making Afghanistan the world’s largest producer of
opium; and on the way, destroying the lives and livelihoods of millions of Afghans because
for the US, power and hegemony is everything. In this pursuit, Afghan lives were counted
less valuable than cannon fodder by the US.

But the Afghans withstood, they fought back and defeated the world’s biggest military setup
with their mere shoulder-held rocket launchers. And Pakistan, facing an existential threat
from US and Indian presence in its neighbourhood, and facing the moral question of standing
with its brotherly neighbour in its difficult times, stood beside it. For two decades, the two
counties faced suicide bombings, humiliating drone attacks, loss of life and disruption of
economy. For two decades, there was uncertainty, chaos, fear and stagnancy. For two
decades, the two countries had no respite to look to the outside world with a free and friendly
foreign policy. We were forced to look inwards, for we were all the time bleeding and in
misery.

What the US did in this war was that it broke all UN conventions of war and obliterated all
ethics of war. They operated “unconstrained by battlefield rules designed to protect civilians,
conducting night raids, torture and killings with near impunity”. The death toll of innocent
Afghans has been counted well above 200,000, though the actual number may never be
known and the International Criminal Court has collected 1.17 million statements from
Afghans who say they were victims of war. But in October last year, the ICC decided to
“deprioritize” a probe into crimes by the US and its allies, crimes that could amount to
genocide and crimes against humanity, because the US had been obstructing the case since
day one.

And this is exactly the culture that the US imports in all its client states, in all its puppet
regimes. It allows the delay and obstruction of judgement upon the crimes of its allies and
puppets. And with so much effort it is able to turn the reins of a country like Pakistan to
whichever path it desires. The people of Pakistan do not deserve to be masters of their own
sovereignty, rather they deserve to be beggars, sellouts and bootlickers.

The results of this effort have been immediate: India has been on cloud nine ever since, the
first thing that Blinken, Austin, Rajnath and Jaishankar did was a joint statement asking
Pakistan to take “immediate, sustained, and irreversible action” to ensure its territory is not
used for terrorist attacks and the very next thing, terrorist attacks began in the two countries.
Now what would you say regarding the foreign policies of these two states that have been
funding, training and abetting terrorist outfits against the Taliban and Pakistan for decades.
And now that the war was finally over, and the two states could think of inclusive regional
economic prospects in a peaceful and cooperating region, the US and India just couldn’t
stand it; they couldn’t stand that there would be peace and prosperity for the two countries;
they couldn’t stand that the region was being strengthened for Russia and China and their
friendship with the two! And after the bombings and attacks, the new regime in Pakistan,
dancing to the tune of their masters, issued a warning to Afghanistan’s Taliban leadership,
accusing it of sheltering the militants. And in turn, the Taliban government accused Pakistan
of killing dozens of civilians in its recent bombings — oblivious of the fact that our people
have borne the brunt of war for twenty years, countless lives of soldiers and civilians have
been lost, and the two peoples have paid heavily to win the war of their self-determination
and freedom.

Ashraf Ghani, another puppet of the US, has also been charged by the regime change in
Pakistan. He has sent a message, warning that if there is a “monopoly of power, the situation
will get worse” and that if “once the door of explosions and suicide is opened, it is difficult to
close”. Perhaps he knows by experience the strong hand behind such a door! More US assets,
like Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, are also still pivoted in the Afghan soil. Perhaps if
the Taliban could have been voted out, another coalition of Ghani, Karzai and Abdullah
would have been in too by now! US Special Representative for Afghanistan Thomas West
has warned that the Islamic Emirate needs to fulfil its commitments in order to be recognised
as the legitimate government by the international community, and there is news that former
security personnel want to return to Afghanistan. All this points to the reality that US policy
on destabilising Afghanistan has been unchanged for twenty years, and will continue. But in
Pakistan alas, policies can be rolled back and forth with a little bribe money and a handful of
sellouts!