In his 2005 inaugural address, President George W. Bush declared that the United States would support
democratic movements around the world and work to end tyranny. Furthermore, he pledged to those struggling
for freedom that the United States would "not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors." Despite
these promises, the Bush administration—with the apparent acquiescence of the Democratic-controlled
Congress—has instead decided to continue U.S. support for the dictatorship of General Pervez Musharraf,
Pakistan's president.
On November 3, the U.S.-backed chief of the Pakistani Army, fearing an imminent ruling by the Supreme
Court which could have invalidated his hold on power, declared a state of emergency. He immediately
suspended the constitution, shut down all television stations not controlled by the government, ordered
the arrests of thousands of political opponents and pro-democracy activists, fired judges not supportive
of his crackdown, jammed mobile phone networks, and ordered attacks on peaceful demonstrators. Leading
Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir reported that the U.S. Embassy had given a green light to the coup in
large part due to its opposition to the chief justice of the Pakistani Supreme Court Iftikhar Chaudhry,
who had issued key rulings challenging the government's policies on political prisoners, women's rights,
and the privatization of public enterprises. Musharraf's efforts to sack the chief justice six months
ago resulted in months of protests which led to his reinstatement just a few weeks before this latest
crackdown.
No Impact
Within hours of the martial law declaration, a Pentagon spokesman tried to reassure the regime that "the
declaration does not impact on our military support." This reiteration of support comes despite
the fact that the U.S.-armed police and military, instead of concentrating on suppressing extremists
waging a violent jihad along the Afghan border as promised, are instead suppressing judges, lawyers,
journalists, and other members of the educated urban middle class struggling nonviolently for the restoration
of democracy. Indeed, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte argued before a recent congressional
hearing that continued support for Pakistan's authoritarian regime is "vital to our interests," that
it is "contributing heavily to the war on terror," and that it remains "an indispensable
ally."
Musharraf originally seized power in October 1999 following an effort by the democratically elected
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to dismiss him from his position as army chief. Sharif has been exiled
by Musharraf ever since; an attempt by the former prime minister to return in September was aborted
at the airport and he was immediately deported.
Despite its unconstitutionality and its repression, the United States has sent over $10 billion in
military and police aid to Pakistan over the past six years to prop up Musharraf's regime. And, in
2005, Pakistan became one of only a handful of states to be formally designated as a "major non-NATO
ally" of the United States. During his visit last year to Pakistan, Bush praised Musharraf's
commitment to democracy just hours after Pakistani police beat and arrested scores of opposition leaders
and anti-Bush protesters.
Indeed, despite his well-documented human rights abuses, the Pakistani general has been repeatedly
praised by America's political, academic, and media elites. Bush has commended Musharraf's "courage
and vision" while Negroponte told the recent House panel that the dictator was "a committed
individual working very hard in the service of his country." Similarly, Columbia University president
Lee Bollinger—who called Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a "cruel and petty dictator" in his introduction
of the Iranian president—introduced Musharraf at an earlier forum by expressing his "great gratitude
and excitement" of hosting "a leader of his stature," praising the Pakistani general's "remarkable" contributions
to his country's economic development and the "international fight against terror."
Support for Extremists
The Bush administration and its supporters claim that the United States must continue its backing
of the Pakistani dictatorship because of its role in suppressing Islamist extremists. The reality,
however, is far different. For its first two years in power, Musharraf was a major supporter of the
Taliban regime, making Pakistan one of only three countries in the world that recognized that totalitarian
government, despite the Taliban providing refuge for Osama bin Laden and others in the al-Qaida network.
As correctly noted by the 9/11 Commission in its final report, "On terrorism, Pakistan helped
nurture the Taliban" and that "Many in the government have sympathized with or provided support
to the extremists."
Throughout his eight years in power, Musharraf has suppressed the established secular political parties
while allowing for the development of Islamic political groups that show little regard for individual
freedom. Despite claims that they had been shut down, madrassas run by Islamist extremists
still operate openly. Taliban-allied groups effectively run large swathes of territory in the western
provinces and the regions bordering Afghanistan are more controlled by pro-Taliban extremists than
ever. In a press conference during a recent visit to Washington by Afghan president Hamid Karzai, in
which Bush tried to blame Iran for the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Karzai corrected him
by noting that Iran had actually been quite supportive of his government's efforts and it was actually
Pakistan that was backing the Taliban.
Former Kandahar-based NPR correspondent Sarah Chayes noted in her recently-released book The Punishment
of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban that Pakistan has continued its decades-long
policy of using religious extremists to exert its influence in Afghanistan. In return for providing
limited cooperation against al-Qaida, the United States is willing to ignore Pakistani backing of
Taliban and Hizbi-Islami militants as they wreak havoc on the people of that war-ravaged country.
Chayes also noted how Pakistani intelligence, through the assassination of moderate Afghan political
leaders and other acts of intimidation, has effective veto power over key decisions of the democratically-elected
Afghan government, and without any apparent objections from Washington.
Support for Previous Dictators
For decades, the United States has backed the military dictators who have ruled Pakistan. Whether
in the name of containing Communism or fighting terrorism, the well-being of the people of the sixth
most populated country in the world has been of little concern to Washington policy makers of both
parties.
During the Nixon administration, the United States served as the major foreign backer of General Yahya
Khan, who declared martial law in 1969. In response to electoral victories by the Bengali-based Awami
league in 1971, he began mass arrests of dissidents following a general strike.
As army units began revolting in response to the repression, General Khan cracked down with a brutality
that Archer Blood, the U.S. consul in Dhaka, referred to as "genocide." In one of the strongest-worded
dissents ever written by U.S. Foreign Service officers, Blood and 29 others declared "Our
government has failed to denounce the suppression of democracy. Our government has failed to denounce
atrocities. Our government has failed to take forceful measures to protect its citizens while at the
same time bending over backwards to placate the [Pakistani] government and to lessen any deservedly
negative international public relations impact against them. Our government has evidenced what many
will consider moral bankrupt." Despite these protests, the Nixon administration continued its
support for the repression, which took hundreds of thousands of lives, before Congress—in response
to public outcry—suspended aid.
Khan was forced from power soon thereafter, leading to a democratic opening until Zia-ul-Haq seized
power in 1977, declaring martial law and executing the elected prime minister he had overthrown. Imposing
a rigid and reactionary version of Islamic law, Zia-ul-Haq systematically dismantled many of the country's
civil society institutions. U.S. aid to his regime increased dramatically after the Soviet invasion
of Afghanistan in late 1979 and the CIA began collaborating with Pakistan's notorious Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI) to arm the Afghan resistance, sending the bulk of the aid to the most hard-line
Islamist elements, particularly the extremist Hezbi-Islami faction, despite its propensity to fight
the more moderate Afghan resistance groups as much as it did the Soviets.
In the summer of 1983, massive and largely nonviolent demonstrations in Sindh and elsewhere in Pakistan
by the pro-democracy movement were crushed without apparent objections from Washington. Pro-democracy
agitation resumed later that decade to again be met by severe repression. The dictatorship did not
end, however, until Zia-ul-Haq—along with U.S. Ambassador Arnold Raphel, top Pakistani military commanders,
and other key supporters of the regime—were killed in a mysterious air crash in August 1988. President
Ronald Reagan expressed his "profound grief" at Zia's death, eulogizing the dictator as "a
statesman of world stature" and praising his "dedication to regional peace and reconstruction."
Pakistan's Nuclear Weapons
Beginning in the late 1970s, as the extent of Pakistan's nuclear program became known, the international
community began expressing concerns over the possibility of politically unstable Pakistan developing
nuclear weapons. Throughout the 1980s, however, the Reagan and the George H. W. Bush administrations
formally denied that Pakistan was engaging in nuclear weapons development despite overwhelming evidence
to the contrary. In addition, the United States continued supplying Pakistan with F-16 aircraft even
as nuclear analysts concluded that Pakistan would likely use these fighter planes as its primary delivery
system for its nuclear arsenal. To publicly acknowledge what virtually every authority on nuclear proliferation
knew about Pakistan's nuclear capability would force the United States to cut off aid to Pakistan,
as required by U.S. laws designed to enforce the non-proliferation regime. The annual U.S. certification
of Pakistan's supposed non-nuclear status was halted only in 1990, when the Soviet-backed Afghan regime
was finally collapsing.
However, George H.W. Bush's administration insisted that the cut-off of aid did not include military
sales, so the transfer of spare parts for the nuclear-capable F-16s aircraft to Pakistan continued.
President Bill Clinton finally imposed sanctions against the regime when Pakistan engaged in a series
of nuclear weapons tests in 1998, but the sanctions as well as restrictions regarding military aid
to new nuclear states were repealed by Congress and the Bush administration three years later.
UN Resolutions
The U.S. government has blocked the United Nations from imposing sanctions or other means to enforce
UN Security Council resolution 1172, passed unanimously in 1998, which calls on Pakistan to dismantle
its nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. (This contrasts with the Bush administration's partially
successful efforts to impose tough international sanctions against Iran for violating UN Security Council
resolution 1696 calling for restrictions on its nuclear program, even though the Islamic Republic is
still many years from weapons capability and is therefore much less of a threat to international peace
and security than is Pakistan.)
Indeed, the United States has released the previously-suspended sale of sophisticated nuclear-capable
F-16 fighter jets to that country. A Bush administration official claimed that the U.S. fighter-bombers "are
vital to Pakistan's security as President Musharraf prosecutes the war on terror" despite the
fact that these jets were originally ordered 15 years earlier, long before the U.S.-led "war on
terror" began. They were suspended by the administration of the president's father out of concerns
about Pakistan's nuclear program and the Pakistani military's ties with Islamic terrorist groups, both
of which are of even greater concern today.
Rogue States
One of the most disturbing aspects of U.S. support for the Pakistani regime is that Pakistan has been
sharing its nuclear materials and know-how with North Korea and other so-called "rogue states." The
Bush administration chose to essentially ignore what journalist Robert Scheer has referred to as "the
most extravagantly irresponsible nuclear arms bazaar the world has ever seen" and to instead blame
others. For example, even though it was actually Pakistanis who passed on nuclear materials to Libya, the Bush administration instead told U.S. allies that North Korea was responsible, thereby sabotaging
negotiations which many had hoped could end North Korea's nuclear program and resolve that festering
crisis. Similarly, though it was Pakistan which provided Iran with nuclear centrifuges, the Bush administration
is now citing Iran's possession of such materials as justification for a possible U.S. military attack
against that country.
The Bush administration, despite evidence to the contrary, claims that the Pakistani government was
not responsible for exporting such dangerous materials, but that these serious breaches of security
were solely the responsibility of a single rogue nuclear scientist named Abdul Qadeer Khan. Unfortunately,
the Pakistani military regime has not allowed U.S. intelligence access to Khan, the former head of
Pakistan's nuclear program, whom the 9/11 Commission noted "was leading the most dangerous nuclear
smuggling ring ever disclosed." Recently pardoned by Musharraf, he now lives freely in Pakistan
while Pakistani anti-nuclear activists have been exiled or jailed.
Blowback
Despite President Bush's claim that Islamist extremists attack American because they "hate our
freedom," the reality is that most people in Pakistan and other Islamic countries don't have anything
against our freedom. They do, however, recognize that the United States shares responsibility for their
repression through its unconditional support of the dictatorship that denies them their own freedom.
And, without the opportunity to press for changes through the political system, some turn to violence
and extremism.
The United States has supported repressive regimes in the Islamic world and beyond for years with
little concern over the consequences. On September 11, 2001, however, citizens from the U.S.-backed
dictatorships of Saudi Arabia and Egypt hijacked four airliners, resulting in the deaths of thousands
of Americans. A public opinion poll in Pakistan this past August showed that Osama bin Laden has a
higher approval rating than either General Musharraf or President Bush. Extremist Islamist parties
would not come close to winning a free election in Pakistan today, but in denying Pakistan's pro-Western
democratic opposition a chance to compete and in jailing its leaders, Musharraf and his American supporters
may be creating the conditions that could eventually lead to the takeover of this nuclear-armed country
by dangerous extremists.
As President John F. Kennedy observed, "Those who make peaceful evolution impossible will make
violent revolution inevitable."
The American Public
In 1971, during the height of the massacres of Bengalis by the Pakistani army, a small group of American
Quakers organized a flotilla of canoes in Baltimore Harbor to block a Pakistani freighter from docking
where it was to be loaded with American arms and munitions while other protesters on shore blocked
the train which carried the weaponry. Though most of them were arrested and the weapons were eventually
loaded, the publicity from the event alerted the American public of the largely clandestine U.S. military
support for the Pakistani regime.
When protestors met another Pakistani freighter attempting to pick up weapons in Philadelphia shortly
thereafter, dockworkers refused to load the ship, preferring to not get paid that day rather than to
work for what their local union leader referred to as "blood money." Within weeks, in the
face of public outcry against U.S. support for the genocidal Pakistani regime, Congress cut off military
aid, a testament to the power of nonviolent direct action.
Given the unwillingness of both the Republican administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress
to stop U.S. military support for the current Pakistani dictatorship, it may be time once again for
concerned citizens to engage in similar nonviolent actions to end U.S. support for the oppression.
For those at risk as a result of U.S. policy are no longer just those currently oppressed by the Pakistani
regime. Some day, as a result of a possible blowback from this policy, it could be Americans as well.
Stephen Zunes is Middle East editor for Foreign Policy In Focus. He is a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco and the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press, 2003).
