[R-G] Fwd: [killingtrain] insurgency and the absence of the state

[Anthony Fenton]

The writ of the state
Is Pakistan's insurgency fueled by too little state, too much, or the  
wrong kind?
killingtrain.com
Justin Podur

ISLAMABAD JULY 8/08 - Another couple of days of bombings in Pakistan  
and Afghanistan, each with its own message and each by a different  
group. A couple of days ago the Americans hit a wedding party and  
killed over 20 people in Afghanistan. In Kabul yesterday the Indian  
embassy was struck by a suicide bomber killing over 40 people. The  
next day a series of bombings in Karachi - six blasts in an hour,  
wounding dozens. These bombs were low intensity, and not suicide  
blasts. After the bombing of the Indian embassy, an Afghan official  
said something like: "we believe an intelligence agency from the  
region was involved" - a clear allusion to Pakistan's ISI. A friend  
speculated that the bombings in Karachi were India's response - a  
warning in this world where governments send messages to each other by  
bombing people. The American bombing of Pakistani troops weeks ago is  
widely thought of as sending a message to the Pakistani army.

It raises a question of who the sides are in this war. The Pakistani  
army has engaged in some bloody fighting against the Taliban on the  
border in the past, although the current method involves negotiation  
and conceding control of areas to the Taliban. When the government  
fights the insurgents, they are seen as doing the bidding of the US.  
On the other hand, according to Ahmed Rashid's analysis, the  
government uses and manipulates the insurgents and historically has  
used them to try to have their way in Afghanistan. This is why the  
responses to the insurgency are so contradictory. The US mission is  
expensive and its interests there are unclear - the US supposedly  
wants to find and destroy al Qaeda, but there are also ways that a  
constant terrorist threat is useful to governments that try to use  
fear to control the population. The US also probably wants troops and  
bases in the region to watch South and Central Asia.

In his new book "Descent into Chaos", the incomparable Ahmed Rashid  
offers an analysis that is at its core a statement to the US: if you  
really want to get rid of al Qaeda, you have to do something about the  
Taliban; if you want to stop the Taliban, you have to rebuild  
Afghanistan and allow Pakistan to democratize (ie., stop supporting  
the military exclusively). For the US, though, the questions are -  
there are costs and benefits to al Qaeda's existence as a low-level  
insurgency capable of doing occasional terror attacks on US civilians,  
there are benefits to having US troops in the region, but the costs of  
what it would take to really stop them really worth it? Would paying  
those costs bring the US increased control over the region or the world?

Probably not. The Taliban would wither away if Afghanistan and  
Pakistan had the type of sovereignty where the direction of government  
and economy were determined by their people (and if there were  
sensible global agricultural policies and no drug prohibition - but  
more on that in a future column), the dream of third world  
nationalism. Under such conditions the Taliban would have no  
legitimate claim to be fighting foreign occupation and all they would  
have to offer was social conservatism and violence. Other political  
and social forces would emerge they would not be able to compete with.

Unfortunately, a dream of a world of sovereign countries is a  
nightmare for the US. In that sense, I disagree with Rashid: I don't  
think the US will act in ways that would bring its citizens safety  
from terrorism, because the rewards of domination of the region, for  
those in charge, outweigh the risks of terrorism against US citizens.  
On the other hand, not everything is under US control. The Taliban  
(and probably part of Pakistan's establishment) figures NATO will get  
tired of the costs and go, and that they can be waited out. If the US  
choice is between building a sovereign Afghanistan and allowing a  
sovereign and democratic Pakistan on the one hand and cutting some  
kind of deal and leaving on the other, they are more likely to just  
leave.

If it is too much to suggest the US can suddenly act benevolent, what  
about Pakistan? The Taliban, some argue, have flourished not just  
because of the NATO occupation of Afghanistan but also because of the  
absence of the state in the border areas. A story by Anwarullah Khan  
in yesterday's Dawn reports the Taliban setting up Sharia courts in  
Bajuar agency, "and a large number of people are using them to get  
disputes resolved, instead of waiting for action by the tribal  
administration." The Taliban said this was because people were tired  
of the current system. That's one response to a vacuum created by the  
state's absence from an area. Another lynching, as happened in Karachi  
in May. Four men had robbed a house, were caught by a mob and three of  
them killed. Police were stopped from helping the victims. Another  
attempted lynching happened a few days later in Lahore but police were  
able to save the robbers. Anees Jillani in the June edition of the  
(excellent) monthly magazine "Newsline" argues that the police are  
underresourced and untrustworthy, the judges corrupt or afraid.

But it might be too simplistic to talk of the "absence of the state".  
The June edition of "Herald", another fine magazine, had a special  
feature on "The Great Land Robbery": in which elites, entrepreneurs,  
the military and bureaucrats took a great deal of land for the Gwadar  
port in Balochistan (a resource-rich province with poor people) and  
distributed it for personal enrichment, with callous disregard for  
local people's rights. There are stories of local fishing and picnic  
spots being seized to make way for tourist hotels, of people being  
roughed up for trying to get their rights to their own land  
recognized, and worse. The cover story concludes: "Though the focus so  
far has remained on the violent conflict taking place elsewhere in the  
province, Gwadar too is seething quietly." Here the state isn't absent  
so much as present in ways that are negative, which generates  
rebellion as a consequence. That the state then deals with the  
rebellion by force doesn't help address the deeper problem of the  
nature of the state and its relationship to the people.

Without addressing that though, it is hard to see how the current  
problems could be solved. A hard-nosed analyst might say "yes, but we  
live in the world we live in, and neither NATO nor Pakistan's  
government are perfect but they are the only tools to deal with the  
Taliban." That would be true if they were tools that were capable of  
fixing, rather than further breaking, the situation. It might actually  
be less realistic to expect the US or Pakistan's establishment to  
solve these problems.

Ahmed Rashid argues in his book that the Taliban were not of  
Afghanistan or Pakistan but a kind of transnational phenomenon. The  
flip side of that is that they don't have, and I don't think will get,  
deep roots in Punjab or Sindh or even Balochistan, where there are  
other class structures and huge concentrations of economic, political,  
and military power and a 150-or-so-million other people. The maximal  
scenario, it seems to me, is that when NATO leaves, if NATO leaves  
irresponsibly as they are likely to, the Taliban could take over  
Afghanistan and Pakistan's NWFP. That would be a terrible outcome, but  
I believe the counterinsurgency underway makes that outcome more  
likely as time goes on. A similar suggestion has been made more than  
once in the media here in recent days: that Pakistan just withdraw to  
the borders of NWFP and allow the Americans to occupy the region. It  
is offered tongue-in-cheek, of course, because that would just  
precipitate the Taliban takeover and also discredit Pakistan's  
government massively domestically and internationally - governments  
don't, and can't, willingly hand over parts of their country for  
foreign occupation.

Where does that leave the writ of the state? The writ of the US should  
not be over Afghanistan or Pakistan, and it is creating more problems  
than it is solving. Withdrawal is necessary, and the sooner the  
better. One can recognize that there are more and less responsible  
ways to withdraw without supporting an imperial power's claim that it  
needs to be there to prevent things from getting worse. As for the  
writ of Pakistan's state and its transformation, that's a project for  
the people, but one that would also be made easier without destructive  
US interference.

Justin Podur is currently visiting Islamabad. He can be reached at justin at killingtrain.com 
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