Jahangir's World Times First Comprehensive Magazine for students/teachers of competitive exams and general readers as well.
Pakistan’s loss of over thirty five thousand people in the war on terrorism for the security of international peace has little impact on the NATO. The economic and financial losses made by Pakistan in the war against terrorism have been rendered useless by such moves.
The May 2, 2011 violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty by the American helicopters near Abbottabad, necessitated that Pakistan air force should have contingency plan to counter hostile movements in the North Western part of the country. Sadly, despite two hours response time, not even a single fighter reached the border to challenge or warn the NATO helicopters. This indifference, therefore, needs a serious inquiry and revision about our armed forces capability to respond at the time of emergency. The entire nation has been protesting. Though the government immediately announced the ban on NATO’s supplies and ordered the American forces to vacate the Shamsi airbase to satisfy the anger of the people. However one needs to wait for understanding the real response of the government. Indeed, Pakistan cannot afford the violation of its sovereignty and killing of its troops by United States, NATO-led ISAF and Afghanistan forces.
Second, Pakistan’s loss of over thirty five thousand people in the war on terrorism for the security of international peace has little impact on the NATO. The economic and financial losses made by Pakistan in the war against terrorism have been rendered useless by such moves. The United States and its NATO allies are not ready to treat Pakistan as an ally in the War on Terrorism. Therefore, it is highly important that our government should seriously review its war on terrorism policy and its alliance with the United States. Though, one cannot recommend bringing an end to relations with USA completely, yet one expects dignity and mutual respect in the bilateral relations. The facts indicate that the attack was deliberate. The US claim that NATO forces were chasing the Taliban was dubbed by the Pakistani armed forces spokesperson as ill-logical. Therefore the situation, in the days to come, would be dangerous for the NATO forces in Afghanistan and very challenging for the Pakistani government as well.
The tragic incident has led to a tug of war between Pakistan and NATO, especially the US, with each side offering its own version of events. NATO claimed that a team of Afghan troops conducting an operation in southern Kunar province came under attack from inside Pakistan, and that it only retaliated upon receiving the call for help from these Afghan forces.
A year ago, three Pakistani soldiers were killed in a NATO strike on a similar border post. However, after an investigation by the US Defence Department held NATO responsible for the attack and the alliance’s Secretary General subsequently apologised for the tragic loss, Pakistan opened the NATO supply route through the Torkham border crossing, which had remained close for over a week for security reasons.
This time again, both US and NATO promptly issued words of regret and condolences in order to mitigate the crisis. White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama believed the attack was a tragedy adding that we mourn those brave Pakistani soldiers that lost their lives. In a joint statement issued the same day the incident occurred, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta offered their deepest condolences. NATO also called the incident as tragic and unintended. Moreover, the US Central Command and NATO-led ISAF began their independent inquiries into the incident.
However, Pakistan does not seem to be satisfied in either apologetic mode or investigative course adopted by the US and NATO commanders or leaders. It has decided not to participate in the investigation process. While Pakistan’s political leadership has expressed rhetorical outburst after the tragedy. Prime Minister Yusaf Raza Gilani said that there would be no more business as usual with Washington until it respected Pakistani sovereignty. Pakistan has taken three tangible steps to punish NATO and US for killing its soldiers.
The first such step was the sealing of Pakistani border with Afghanistan for NATO supplies for roughly 140,000 foreign troops, including about 97,000 American forces, waging the war in Afghanistan. Almost half of such supplies, which include fuel, military vehicles, spare parts, clothing and other non-lethal items, pass through Pakistan. Daily some 580 truckloads of NATO supplies reportedly pass through Torkham. This puts the US and NATO in a quandary, as they are still considerably dependent upon Pakistan for the essential supplies for their troops in Afghanistan.
The United States will face this compulsion and all the negative repercussions it entails as long as the war in Afghanistan continues’ not withstanding Pentagon spokesman George Little’s November 28 statement that the US military will press ahead with its war effort in Afghanistan, despite Pakistan’s decision to cut off supplies to NATO-led forces. It is only a matter of time when the stockpiles of these supplies run out, frustrating the US and NATO to reach out to Pakistan for a compromise settlement, whereby the country’s security and sovereignty concerns are duly recognised and respected.
A second tangible step Pakistan took after the incident was the decision by the Defence Committee of its Cabinet, in an emergency session on November 26, to issue a 15-day notice to Washington to vacate the Shamsi air base. The United States has been using this airbase since 2001 and, in recent years, allegedly for its drone operations inside the country’s tribal areas. The Obama Administration has intensified this campaign. If at all the said air base was connected to the US drone effort, then its denial should hurt the US counter-terrorism campaign, even though not as much as the cut-off of NATO supplies through Pakistan.
A third step Pakistan has taken since the tragedy is to boycott the International Conference on Afghanistan in Bonn. The decision not to attend this conference principally means that Pakistan has withdrawn its offer of facilitating the Afghan reconciliation process by using its influence over the forces of Afghan insurgency. The Bonn conference was held in the backdrop of US and NATO’s decision to withdraw their combat troops from Afghanistan by 2014 and hand over security responsibility to Afghanistan by 2015. Since political resolution of the Afghan conflict constitute the most important agenda item at the conference necessitated by NATO’s decision to withdraw its forces by 2014.The absence of the principal regional actor that can secure this goal will hurt this significant event’s peace-making credibility.
The alleged presence of insurgent safe havens in Pakistan’s tribal areas has been a lingering issue in recent years, and it has often caused bitterness in Pakistan’s ties with the US and NATO in Afghanistan. In the past, whenever such tensions surfaced between the two sides, their sources were tackled by their respective top civilian and military leaders through enhanced interaction.
Yet, hours before November 26 tragic incident, US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General John Allen was reportedly conversing with Pakistani army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani at the Army Headquarters in Rawalpindi about what the two countries can do for each other. Following the incident, General Allen and US military’s top-ranking officer in Afghanistan, General Martin Dempsey, did reportedly call General Kayani to express their regrets, while assuring him to investigate the matter.
However, in this particular case, given its gravity in terms of the loss of life and severity of Pakistani public response to it, the United States and NATO would perhaps have to go an extra mile in publicly pronouncing their unconditional commitment to respect Pakistani sovereignty in future. In the absence of that, we can expect Pakistan which supposedly is a non-NATO ally of the US in the War on Terror to continue its hardened stance for some time to come.
It can at least expect China to stand by it in this hour of need. The Chinese were also quite prompt in condemning the incident. China is deeply shocked at the incident and expressed its strong concerns and deep condolences to the victims in Pakistan, said Hong Lei, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, the same day the tragedy occurred. This is despite the fact that Pakistan cannot afford to isolate itself from the West’ the US, the UK, the EU and the rest in the longer run, if not for anything else but for crucial economic and military assistance, trade ties and international financial help.
As for Pakistan, it is undoubtedly South Asia’s important player and Muslim world’s only nuclear power. The country is lived, by and large, by a very dynamic and hospitable people who come together in times of national crises even if they seem to constitute a divisive nation on so many counts. Its concerns regarding sovereignty are perfectly legitimate and the United States of America and NATO should act in a mature way by giving due respect to all the stakeholders.
The US and NATO would make a serious error of judgment by perceiving Pakistan as another Afghanistan or Somalia. It should make complete sense on their part to take Pakistan’s legitimate security interests and sovereignty concerns into consideration and re-engage it constructively offering public apologies for the recent tragedy. After all, the price Pakistan has paid for fighting terrorism in the past over ten years, both in human and material terms, is massive and deserves due recognition and appreciation from not just the US and NATO but from the entire world.
As for the future course of action, The US and NATO urgently need to fundamentally agree to a clearly-defined body of new rules of engagement and cooperation with Pakistan for combating terrorism in the region in a way that its sovereignty is not compromised. Being an important player in the region Pakistan deserves due respect by its allies and The US and NATO should avoid any misadventure in future. For peaceful withdrawal, sensitivity of the volatile region should be taken great care of.
