Our ears have been so inundated in recent months with new American names that they have now begun to have a familiar ring comparable to the names of our own leaders. How many among the people in Pakistan, had heard names like Holbrooke, General Petraeus, Joe Biden, Admiral Mike Mullen, McChrystal, and half a dozen other American functionaries till a few months ago?
These are now all household words much like Zardari, Nawaz Sharif and so on. However none of these American names are anything more than just names for the people of Pakistan save for those few who directly interact with them or write about them with varying degrees of first hand knowledge.
HILLARY'S GETS AN EARFUL, BUT ALSO HITS BACK US Secretary of State (equivalent of Foreign Minister) Hillary Clinton's whirlwind tour of the country exposed her in three days to more people in Pakistan (and vice versa) than all the other American functionaries mentioned above put together. Hillary's current tour has had a measurable, though mixed impact on the people of Pakistan. A broad cross section of people in Pakistan discovered, in her visit and availability to freely discuss issues, a new phenomenon in Pak-American relations.
They were face to face, in several forums in a dizzy (for Hillary) schedule, with a top US leader who was ready to meet, to freely discuss matters of mutual interest, to exchange barbs, to receive "ginger" without flinching and for good measure, to dish out "ginger" in return! This made for a remarkable contrast with the lack of occasions our people enjoy for such exchanges with our own leaders, in and out of government.
Chaudhry Shujaat could not resist the temptation to laud her courage in going around the country to meet people and to contrast it with our own leaders who either stay at home in the safety of multiple fortifications and safety cordons, or are shepherded around in bullet-proof convoys. How can they ever get to know what the "ground" realities are?
SOFTENING UP PAKISTAN? Among the various things Hillary heard and said in her three-day tour of Pakistan, a statement of hers stands out like a sore thumb and has potential to further tarnish the image of her country in the eyes of most Pakistanis. She said "our best information is that the al Qaeda leadership is somewhere in Pakistan" and "I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and could not get them if they wanted to".
In other words, apart from accusing our government of lying, she is already urging us on to another front as soon as (or maybe even before) we are through with the ongoing Waziristan war (assuming it has a finite end in the first place). Hillary Clinton, during what has been called "her charm offensive", in retrospect a misnomer, is going far beyond urging us to "do more", which in itself, has been a constant irritant for us in Pak-American relations.
She is now accusing us of lying when we claim that there are no Al Qaeda bases in Quetta or elsewhere in the country. This is adding insult to injury and does nothing for Pak-American relations - an abiding theme with the Secretary of State during the three days she was here.
AMERICA TAKES A GOOD (FIRST) LOOK AT PAKISTAN Sections of Pakistani society with which Hillary Clinton reacted in a free exchange included, in addition to the President, Foreign Minister and the Army Chief, opposition leaders (notably Nawaz Sharif) and other state functionaries, students, TV anchor persons, journalists, business groups, Tribal elders and so on in a hectic schedule.
She took all kinds of questions, replying at length to some of the questions and evading some of them one way or another. On the Kerry-Lugar bill, she expressed surprise at the negative reaction of the people in Pakistan but conceded that its language could have been improved, if the Bill had been debated in time.
This reflects on the performance of our ambassador in the US and that of our highly paid lobbyists in that country and not the least, on our government and foreign minister who never tired of eulogizing the Bill in glowing terms, with or without the "explanations" which followed in the shape of a meaningless appendage.
There was no in-time debate on the Bill in Pakistan for the simple reason that our government from the President down had declared the Bill, right from the beginning, to be a very good thing for Pakistan, to be vigorously defended against all criticism.
At one point Hillary echoed the tired and disappointed response of Joe Biden (or was it Holbrooke) to tell Pakistanis that they could always refuse the "aid" under the Bill if they did not want it. These words will be recalled and will reverberate to shame us for a long time in the future, in case we accept the Bill in its present form, as we appear to be doing.
HILLARY'S SIDESTEPPING: NIMBLE AND PROFESSIONAL Being a very senior and seasoned politician, Hillary came well prepared to say exactly what she wanted to say and no opportunity was given to any one here to put words in her mouth or to get her to say what she did not want to say, which is more than our highly placed government people appear to be able to manage.
She bluntly sidestepped questions on the sensitive subject of Drone attacks, which have continued in violation of both international law and the resolution of the Parliament against them, and have continued to cause heavy civilian casualties. Her response was that she would leave these matters for the military of both countries to sort out. Neat! She avoided answering questions about American officials in Islamabad caught (but released in a hurry) with illicit arms by expressing ignorance about the matter which she said was for the US administration to probe.
She was also asked about the recent withdrawal of check posts of US and Nato forces from the Pak-Afghan border, which put additional strain on the Pak Army fighting in Waziristan. She replied rather lamely that it had become difficult to defend these check posts and that Pakistan had been informed about it.
As an expert commented, once a large number of insurgents had crossed into Pakistan from around the empty check posts, the check posts would be manned again, thus bottling up a new wave of insurgents inside Pakistan and leaving it for the Pak Army to fight them and provide relief to American soldiers. How is that for Pak-blood-for-American-blood strategy!
She was asked about the absurd (quoted) stipulation that military equipment supplied for fighting the insurgents could not be used elsewhere by the Pak Army, which would mean disarming and then rearming the army with different weaponry if the army was moved to a different theatre of operation. She appeared to agree that the idea of such restrictions was not practicable, conceding that "a lot of military equipment is fungible (whatever that means) and mobile and can be used in different places".
She was right in pointing a finger at our low Tax-GDP ratio before a business group. In the US, she said, we tax everything that moves and every thing that does not. Can she shame us into doing better? Without saying that things went well or nearly well for the US during the Secretary of State's visit to this country, how one wishes that our own Foreign Minister and other diplomats would try to learn something from it about representing one's country and about explaining and defending its policies.
QUESTIONS ON THE NRO
1) Can the decision of the Parliament be examined and overruled by the Supreme Court? Babar Awan (PPP) says no. Justices Saeeduzzaman and Wajeehuddin say yes. Aitzaz Ahsan PPP leader and ex-President Supreme Court Bar Association agrees with the retired Justices.
2) Why was not the NRO discussed between Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif when they met last week and why did senior PML-N leader Raja Zafarul Haq declare, in a mysterious and meaningful overtone, that the NRO was not mentioned once in the meeting?
And why would he not give a reason for this absurd and inexplicable omission? Why did members of PML-N not attend the meeting of the Parliamentary Committee discussing the NRO to the end and chose to disappear from the scene during the last part? Why was Nawaz Sharif so keen from the very beginning that the NRO should not be brought to the Parliament? Is there a deep subterfuge involved?
3) Why is Chaudhry Shujaat so sure that PML-N will not oppose the NRO Bill if it is brought before the Parliament, but would find a way not to vote and that there is a deal on the matter between PML-N and PPP? Perhaps the one bright spot in the sordid scenario is the fact that the whole matter is under a wide-ranging discussion in the media and amongst the political parties, unlike the way the National Reconciliation Ordinance was promulgated following a secret deal between Musharraf and Benazir under US tutelage.
(owajid@yahoo.com)