FAIR’S AFFAIR CONTINUES

May 28, 2015

Ms Fair’s articles no longer make waves. They are so tiring and boring and the topic is always the same — Pakistan. This time the title of her latest is — Honor our Fallen By Getting Real on Pakistan — and sadly she honors no one, certainly not the fallen, by yet another tirade against Pakistan. One wonders what she teaches her students as assistant professor at the prestigious Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service — could not be diplomacy for sure! She is no credit to the institution that has chosen to employ her in spite of her obsession driven single track warped thinking on US Foreign Policy and Pakistan. Sad but true.

This time her motivation comes through in the part where she suggests a way forward for the US — a misnomer if ever there was one because what she is suggesting is a recipe for disaster and a negation of all the hard work done and sacrifices made by the State Department, the Pentagon and the White House. She says that — ‘the US must take advantage of our diminished troop presence in Afghanistan to wean itself off of the poisoned Pakistani teat. India is the most important partner in South Asia’ — thereby implying that the teat sucking US should now latch on to the Indian teat that she has discovered, no doubt to her advantage, is not poisoned. She suggests a throwback to the old policy of playing India and Pakistan against each other — an utterly useless idea in the present scenario.

Fair lists the count of the American fallen but fails to even mention the hundreds of thousands of the Pakistani, Afghan and Iraqi fallen. She does not mention the women and children killed in bombings and atrocities. Surely an assistant professor should know that the Drone strikes that kill and cripple innocents (including American hostages) and the atrocities like the ones at Abu Ghraib and in Afghanistan serve as recruiting posters for Al Qaida, the Taliban and the IS. How do the Afghans feel when American troops urinate on their fallen, or when drug crazed sergeants kick down doors and wantonly kill Afghan women and children. Pakistan even if it wants to, and it does not, needs to do nothing because the hatred is spawned by blundering Bushes and Blairs and those who do their bidding.

Fair the assistant professor, mentions the weapon and funds given and sold to Pakistan and the GAO audit that oversees these funds. Again she forgets to mention how much goes back to Washington through lobbyists, contractors and middle men. Enough has been highlighted in the US media about corruption right at the origin of these sales and aid funds. She forgets that Pakistan has been a US ally for more than six decades and has helped US many times and continues to do so. Today Pakistan does not want to fight a war with anyone except with the terrorists and insurgents created by past policies in which the US was complicit. The US understands that in an asymmetrical situation like the one between Pakistan and India it is dangerous to let one side have total conventional superiority especially when there are unresolved issues because then the focus shifts to nuclear weapons. So what the US is giving to Pakistan is well considered and is meant to give it capacity to deter and the capacity to counter terrorism,

Fair cannot get over the OBL episode but she conveniently ignores how Arabs lived, trained, travelled and planned right in Washington and then hijacked commercial flights to carry out 911. She also forgets, what no Pakistani will ever forget, the murdering antics of the US contractor Raymond Davis and the subsequent senseless killing of Pakistani soldiers and civilians by air attacks and a Drone strike. While blaming Pakistan for duplicity she forgets who called Raymond Davis a US diplomat. The US and Pakistan have been in contact at all levels long enough to forge and amend policies without half baked ideas being preferred by delusional assistant professors. Like declaring Pakistan a hostile state and following a policy of ‘containment’ towards it (an old hackneyed idea) yet keeping it in the IMET program and giving it support for counter terrorism. Who is confused and whose new India oriented ambitions are outrunning her talents?

Ms Fair and those who are her fans and students need to understand some realities. Pakistan today does not want conflict with India and will do nothing to trigger it. Pakistan is not carrying out subversive activities within India nor is it sponsoring any such activity from its soil. India is doing this in Baluchistan, FATA and Karachi and the Indian Defence Minister has owned up to such a policy in his recent statement about countering terror with terror. Pakistan, the US and Afghanistan have converging interests that are the basis for their current cooperative policies. The US and Pakistan discuss concerns and interests and this process is institutionalized with no room for doubts on intentions. Pakistan has its nuclear assets under full control and the US knows this and Pakistan conforms to all international norms. The Afghan Taliban (once compared to US’ founding fathers by a US President) are fighting to rid their country of foreign presence and both Afghanistan and Pakistan with US and Chinese support are helping to bring about peace in Afghanistan. India needs to come on board and Ms fair might want to work in that direction with her sponsors. The stakes for Pakistan are very high and it is now a facilitator for peace and stability in the region — US policy makers understand this fully. Ms Fair unfortunately does not nor does she want to.