US should talk to the Haqqanis

While the 9/11 was a big tragedy and caused the loss of around 3000 human lives, it is an undeniable fact that hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, Afghans, and Pakistanis have died in the last decade as a direct consequence of the hubris and irresponsible and reckless actions of America. The 9/11 pales in comparison to the sufferings of Pakistanis as a nation. Yet they are demonised - with the help of a loyal corporate the US media - to hide the blunders of the US establishment.
The unfortunate reality is that the US always needs a whipping post, especially for its domestic audience. Before Osama's death, it was al Qaeda and now it is the ISI. Your wife is sleeping with your neighbour...blame it on ISI, you slip in the bathroom ... blame it on ISI, your daughter is a lesbian ... BINGO ... ISI. About time American officials get real and think hard before they sink deeper into the mess called Afghanistan, a mess they created in the first place.
The US media - dominated by a handful of corporations, including the thoroughly discredited News Corp of Rupert Murdoch - must ask the US establishment what its wars have achieved? After 1.3 trillion dollars (probably more if one takes into account the indirect costs), and 10 years later, it seems certain that American response to 9/11 will go down as one of the most catastrophic blunders of the US foreign policy in the modern history.
The US establishment and its mouthpieces in the poodle corporate media (eg CNN, New York Times, et, al.) continue to be in denial. They talk about the US forces in Afghanistan as if it is their birthright to be there. A plain and inconvenient truth is that the US forces in Afghanistan are occupation forces and Afghans are within their legitimate and moral rights to resist occupation. Afghans have a right to determine their own future without any outside interference including that of Pakistan or India. It is irrelevant whether those Afghans are ethnic Pakhtoon or Tajik or Uzbek, modern or conservative, liberals or right-wing Islamists.
In real politik terms, escalation of conflict is incompatible with the declared intention of the Americans that they want to unwind the war and reach a political settlement. It is a folly to think that the Americans can beat the Taliban and negotiate from a position of strength. It is too late for that.
The history is not on their side. While the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, and their blind followers in the US media and the so-called think-tanks have carried out synchronised attacks on Pakistani Army generals (for whom I do not have much sympathy either) for either supporting the Afghan Taliban or not doing enough to fight them, the Americans themselves have been secretly meeting the leaders of the Haqqani group to draw them into talks to end the war, according to the US media reports.
This is not the first time the US officials have approached the Haqqanis since this war began in 2001. In fact, the US made several attempts to seek reconciliation with the Haqqani group but failed. According to a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report of November 8, 2007; back in autumn 2002, Jalaluddin Haqqani - a one-time partner of the Central Intelligence Agency - secretly sent word that he could ally with the new US-friendly Afghan government.
The CIA officers held talks with his brother, Ibrahim, and made plans to meet with Haqqani, who was leading some of the Taliban's troops. But, according to the WSJ, the US military forces operating separately from the CIA, arrested Ibrahim - cutting off the talks and entrenching his brother as a nemesis. So it was basically a case of blowing away an opportunity to reconcile due to the fact that the US misadventure in Afghanistan has been an unmitigated policy and operational disaster since November 2001, forget what happened in the "Afghan jihad" of the 1980s and thereafter.
Those Pakistanis who have maintained and continue to say, 'this is our war', do not seem to understand that extremism cannot be countered with more violence because violence begets more violence and hatred. It is a vicious cycle. These 'socially liberal' Pakistanis are in denial of the realities of international politics and Western policies. They dismiss everything as conspiracy theory whereas the fact is they demonstrate little understanding of the frustrations, motives and selfish interests of the Western powers that have shown unmistakable signs of financial, moral, and intellectual bankruptcy in the past decade. Misguided polices and irresponsible actions of big powers have serious widespread repercussions around the globe.
The US and its Nato allies, in their desperation to salvage their declining global power and save face (eg blatant lies about everything including the WMDs and double-dealings with militant groups like the Haqqanis), have resorted to taking help of even of al Qaeda linked so-called Islamic militants in Libya and Syria.
A French newspaper La Temps recently reported that Abdel Hakim Belhadj, who leads the rebel forces in Tripoli, was a founder of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, and is believed to have been close to head of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The Huffington Post - an American online publication - noted that for US intelligence services, the man who led the rebel assault on Tripoli, and is now the de facto military governor of the capital, is an old acquaintance.
The CIA had tracked down him, and eventually captured him in Malaysia in 2003. The agency is believed to have then transferred him, in total silence, to a "top secret" prison in Bangkok. Other Western papers, such as the Guardian, have also reported on these links.
Both Libya and Syria have had autocratic governments, but democracy is hardly the issue. The US and its European 'poodles' cannot fool the world any longer by talking about human rights to justify their military campaigns to topple anti-Western governments in those parts of the world that are rich in natural resources and have more than 70% of the world's oil reserves.
Given the neo-colonial agenda of the US and its allies like the UK and France, it is not surprising that China and Russia recently vetoed the European Union-sponsored UN Security Council resolution that threatened sanctions against Syria. Noticeable abstentions were Brazil, India, South Africa and Lebanon. Talk about East-West divide. This wide gulf of views between those of the US/Nato and the rest of the world was also observed in the recent UN General Assembly session when the US/Nato countries were the only ones to walk out when Iranian President questioned the incidents of 9/11.
Here in Pakistan, whose military and civil elites have fought America's war for money are wrong to assert that only emotional Muslims oppose these wars. For example, two-thirds of Britons want Nato to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. Even in the United States, there is little support for the war. The CBS News/New York Times poll of June 24-28, 2011 reported that the majority, that is 58% of Americans, oppose the US military involvement in Afghanistan - the highest level of opposition yet recorded by the poll - while only 35% thought the US was doing the "right thing" in fighting its war in Afghanistan.
The cost of the war is turning out to be more than just human lives and economic stagnation. It could result in the balkanisation of Pakistan. Ironically, Pakistan's elites and its corrupt and intellectually deficient generals who sided with President Bush's mad and reckless 'crusade' failed to anticipate its longer-term consequences. Bush's policies stand discredited within America and the world over. Pakistan's political leadership and its civil society ought to ask themselves why they continue to follow this policy, never mind their mostly justified and legitimate grievances against the military establishment.
Pursuit of peace with respect for the basic principles of non-violence, non-interference in the affairs of other countries, and observance of fundamental human rights, in summary, a principled stand can help us get out of the quagmire we are in. We should stay firm and tell Americans that a negotiated peace settlement is the only option, and that they might have to swallow the bitter pill of talking to the Haqqanis if that is what it takes.