US SENATOR URGES WAR AGAINST PAKISTAN

On 25 September 2011, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham serving on the Senate Armed Services Committee stated on FOX NEWS that the U.S. should consider war against Pakistan, a country known to have supported anti-NATO Afghan rebels. Although the war in Afghanistan is unpopular with the majority of Pakistanis, although it is unpopular with NATO allies, and although the US has decided to pull out in three years or so because it is not making any progress toward the stated goal of 'democratizing' (in reality containing) the country, there are politicians who use the emotional issue of 'terrorism' to perpetuate the policy of militarism at any cost to society. While nationalism works to mobilize voters around a hyper-sensitive cause such as 'terrorism' in the manner that the US has defined it, the flip side is that nationalism of one side is responsible for engendering nationalism on the other side, in this case Pakistan.

In a recent testimony, Adm. Mike Mullen, Joint Chiefs chair, acknowledged that Pakistani intelligence has been implicated in Afghan Haqqani rebel network engaged in anti-US activity, including planning and executing assaults on the U.S. Embassy. Sen. Graham argued that unless Pakistan agrees to submit its defense and intelligence policies and actions to the US, then it is itself 'terrorist' and war against the country should be considered. 

But why stop with Pakistan? If the US policy of containment of radical Islam is to work, why not go to war with every country that has Muslims and is suspected of having 'Muslim terrorists' on its soil? How else would containment work, unless there is a global campaign and wars on multiple fronts? Why not declare war against the entire horn of Africa, why not Yemen, and why stop there and not extend it down to Indonesia as well?

Why not adopt the policy of the Romans in the Third Punic War when they decided that Carthage must not exist, so that Rome can feel hegemonic. Why not raise the defense and intelligence budgets and send the public debt through the roof in order to satisfy the psychotic obsessions of ideologues that will not admit Pax Americana was finished right after the Tet Offensive and never recovered since? Why not indeed reduce the US into an armed camp like ancient Sparta and devote all of society's energies toward war?

One reason for Sen. Lindsey's bellicose rhetoric is because this is election season and the Republicans want to energize the base and perhaps take away votes from Southern Democrats. Another reason is that Pakistan has indeed been playing both sides in the last ten years, but so have other countries, including Saudi Arabia. It is true that Pakistanis do not want US military occupation of their country, just as it is true that they would rather have an Islamic regime in Afghanistan rather than a secular pro-West one.  

It is true that chair of the Joint chiefs of staff Adm. Mullen gave ammunition to warmongers like Sen. Lindsey by leveling accusations against Pakistani intelligence agency and its support for Haqqani rebels. It is also true that the Pakistani government is anxious for the US to stop threatening with war, to stop destabilizing the country and the region, and to stop using the Indo-American alliance as leverage against Pakistan, simply because the US fears Iran now has the advantage in determining the regional balance of power.

A further reason is that the Republicans feel emboldened by the NATO campaign in Libya and feel that Syria cannot be far behind. Besides, the argument that Pakistan is helping Afghan rebels because it does not want a pro-US Afghanistan makes sense because it means that Pakistan would have to change and emulate its pro-American neighbor. These are all assumptions on the part of the Republican demagogues whose ignorance on the complex geopolitical issues involving US military intervention is only exceeded by their desperate ambition to win their own elected seat by invoking the 'terrorism threat' issue. 

What would the US gain and what would it lose by going to war against Pakistan?
1. An even larger percentage of Pakistanis would make sure to sabotage all US efforts to have their country remain a miltiarily occupied semi-colony.
2. A protracted war against Pakistan would involve China and Russia in some form, because they have a stake in the Asian balance of power.  3. A protracted war against Pakistan would benefit both China and Russia because it would weaken the US economically in the short-term and militarily in the longer term.
4. If the US cannot protect the CIA compound from a bomb attack on the same day that Sen. Lindsey announced US war as an option against Pakistan, how can the US ensure any type of security or any kind of success against terrorism in the region?
5. A war of short duration would damage US prospects for any kind of influence in most of the Islamic countries and it would entail a sharp rise in Muslim 'unconventional war', or terrorism against any US or pro-US target around the world. In short, the idea of taking any kind of military action against Pakistan, even if that means stationing troops as a sign of unofficial occupation would entail greater instability for the West and greater cost for overall security. Such a scenario would definitely strengthen Iran and China and perhaps Russia, unless there is an agreement with Moscow before any unilateral US action.

Pakistan has now been under semi-occupation for ten years. It had no choice other than to permit the US to come in and launch a war against Afghanistan, otherwise the US air force and navy would have bombed the country into oblivion. In September 2011, there are US politicians and Pentagon officials who feel that the choice are reducing Pakistan into a permanent US military base of bombing it into oblivion. Imperialism has a logic of its own, but even that logic must have some pragmatic basis in order to prevent the hastened or eventual demise of the imperialists.