Change we can’t, says Obama

By M H Ahssan

Barack Hussein Obama’s popular chant, “Change we can”, is fast turning into “Change we can’t”. Nothing else explains the huge hike in military aid to Pakistan he has proposed in his Budget. The man who believes that forcing terrorists detained at Guantanamo Bay to listen to American rapper Eminem amounts to ‘torture’, wants to reward Pakistan for waging what is clearly a phoney ‘war on terror’. The most revealing feature about his first Budget, at least for those of us who live in this part of the world, is not what he plans to do to rid the US of foreign (dark skinned) workers — our techies can find jobs elsewhere — but his decision to allocate a ‘substantial portion’ of America’s $533.7 billion defence budget as military aid to Pakistan.

For the last 60 years the US has been pumping military aid into Pakistan for a variety of ‘strategic reasons’. During the US-funded jihad against the Soviet Army in Afghanistan, the ‘holy war’ in which Osama bin Laden and his cohorts were beneficiaries of limitless American munificence, nobody in Washington, DC bothered to keep track of the billions that were spent. After 9/11, there was a similar showering of largesse and praise: America’s ‘steadfast ally’ did not even have to ask for money; the billions just kept on pouring in.

When at last questions began to be asked in Washington, DC around this time last year as to why Islamabad’s claimed ‘war on terror’ was showing no results despite the US spending nearly $10 billion on ‘improving’ Pakistan’s capability to fight jihadi terror, there was an all-out effort to suppress the facts, although there was nothing startlingly new about them. Everybody, including those who were fashioning the Bush Administration’s Pakistan policy, knew that American military aid for Pakistan was being siphoned to sustain those very forces which the Pakistani Army was supposed to be fighting.

As one American official coyly put it, “as much as 70 per cent of American assistance (to Pakistan) has been misspent”. The Guardian quoted the American official as saying that the US “did not know” what happened to this 70 per cent but “suspected that some may have been spent on F-16 fighter jets or a new house for an Army General”. According to the Guardian, “other than that, at least half the money was thought to have disappeared”. The US Government Accountability Office subsequently released exhaustive reports, detailing how the Pakistanis were literally making fools of the Americans.

Mr Obama, before he moved into the White House, had rarely missed an opportunity to berate Pakistan for playing a dangerous double game; his fire-and-brimstone responses to questions about how he would deal with Islamabad if it did not deliver on its pledge to crush Islamic terrorism held out the promise of change in American policy. Since public memory is notoriously short and Mr Obama’s myriad fans in this country would want it that way, it would be in order to recall some of his statements on the issue of America shelling out billions of dollars to Pakistan for the latter’s bogus efforts to stamp out jihadi terror.

In a speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center, which was described by the venerable Washington Post as Mr Obama’s “most comprehensive statement on terrorism”, he said he would “tie US military aid to Pakistan to that country’s success in closing down terrorist training camps, in blocking the Taliban from using its territory as a staging ground for attacks on Afghanistan and in getting rid of foreign fighters”. Craftily playing on America’s post-9/11 fears, he said, “There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans ... They are plotting to strike again … If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.” That was in August 2007.

A year later, during the first presidential debate with Mr John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, Mr Obama repeatedly flew into a fury over the Bush Administration’s folly of paying billions of dollars to Pakistan for doing precious little. During the debate, Mr Obama reiterated that if Pakistan was “unable or unwilling to act” against jihadis within its territory, “American forces should act and take them out … I think that’s the right strategy; I think that’s the right policy”. Mocking at the Republicans, he said, “Although, you know, under George Bush, with the support of Senator McCain, we’ve been giving them $10 billion over the last seven years, they have not done what needs to be done to get rid of those safe havens (for terrorists).” To drive home the point about wasted American aid, he added, “We spent $10 billion. And in the meantime, they weren’t going after Al Qaeda, and they are more powerful now than at any time since we began the war in Afghanistan. That’s going to change when I’m President of the United States.”

In the second presidential debate, Mr Obama continued with his Pakistan-bashing while rubbishing the Bush Administration’s policy of ‘coddling’ Pakistan. “I do believe that we have to change our policies with Pakistan. We can’t coddle, as we did, a dictator, give him billions of dollars, and then he’s making peace treaties with the Taliban ... What I have said is we’re going encourage democracy in Pakistan, expand our non-military aid to Pakistan so that they have more of a stake in working with us, but insisting that they go after these militants.” If anybody doubted that he would change things and shake up American policy, here was the evidence. “Change we can,” chanted his fans.

Well, the ‘dictator’ of Pakistan is gone and a civilian Government is in power in Islamabad. But authority still vests with the Army in Rawalpindi. The jihadis are on the rampage from Swat Valley to Lahore and mullahs are dictating terms to an effete PPP regime. A fidayeen attack has been mounted on Mumbai by the ISI’s hand maiden, the LeT, in which Americans are among those brutally killed. Dr AQ Khan, who ran an illicit nuclear bazaar hawking bomb-making technology to anybody willing to pay the right price is back in business. A shocking ‘peace deal’ has been signed with the Taliban in Swat which, among other things, mandates the ruthless imposition of shari’ah (behead men, stone women, deny education to girls, etc) and full power to Mullah Fazlullah. The visiting Sri Lankan cricket team has barely escaped death in the heart of Lahore. What was described by Ms Madeleine Albright as an “international migraine” is fast becoming an international nightmare.

And how has President Obama responded? He has increased military aid to Pakistan to ‘improve its capability to fight terror’! Change we can?