The US is not interested in a Pakistani army. It is more interested in a ‘police’ force that will keep a lid on jihadi organizations in Pakistan

OKAY, by now we all know that Sehba and Pervez had a fun day in the mountains of Maryland. The hosts, George and Laura laid out a red carpet and all the niceties that go with it. Winding up the tete-a-tete (euphemistically called Camp David summit), Bush delivered a rose-coloured valediction of all things sweet about the Pakistani President to the press, that surely PDQ’d (pretty damn quick!) Musharraf’s premium around the earth’s stratosphere in seconds! After all, it came from the world’s most powerful lips.

George W says he prefers to talk (down?) to his guests, one-on-one in an informal setting. (I guess he means open-necked shirts with jacket and pants that don’t match). And folks, since there’s no such thing as a free lunch, sure, Bush handed Musharraf his laundry list along with the appetizers, warning that he had better deliver or else...

Neat!

And should Musharraf, the “Courageous”, as Bush called him, on return to Pakistan:

1) Throw out his newborn baby called Democracy (whatever that means) with the bath-water made stinky phooey by political wrangling

2) Fail to produce Osama bin Laden even if he has to go to Hades

3) Refuse to rein in his jihadis from zealously crossing over to India

4) Continue jumping into bed with North Korea to scratch each other’s backs with nukes

Then say farewell to $3 billion gift from Uncle George Bush, which in any case does not kick in before 2005! (Did we know that?)

“Let’s be realistic, three years down the road, if things are going badly in those areas, it’s not going to happen. We’re not going to request it (package), Congress won’t appropriate it. And that is a bargain that the Pakistanis are entering into with their “eyes wide open,” blasts a Bush aide.

But wearing blinkers is our Washington Ambassador Ashraf Jehangir Qazi. Or is he plain lying like most diplomats do when he tells us, “there are no conditionalities attached to the five-year three billion dollars economic package for Pakistan,” dismissing the impression that Bush has laid any conditions. Where are you coming from, Your Excellency?

With one third of Pakistan’s 140 million people living below the poverty line and earning less than $37 a month, how is $1.5 billion aid (the other half will go to defence) help the lives of ordinary people? And oh, by the way, even the $1.5 billion may not be available if finance supremo Shaukat Aziz has his way because he wants to pay back Bush the $1.8 billion we owe to the US.

The politicians are already rubbishing this amount as “peanuts” and calling Musharraf all kinds of names and blaming him for perpetuating poverty in Pakistan by not extracting more money out of Bush.

But wait, if memory serves us right, they themselves are the same fellows whose names or their leaders adorned the gallery of shame only three summers ago, when NAB (National Accountability Bureau) released its list of billionaires and millionaires with monies in Switzerland, Britain, France, Canada and the US. So, PPP’s Senator Farhatullah Babar should be questioning the newly turned fifty Benazir and billionaire hubby AZ, while PML-N’s Makhdoom Javed Hashmi should be returning his stolen millions along with all the other fat cat demos sitting in the parliament today.

That doesn’t mean that Musharraf’s men in khaki are all angels. The chairman National Accountability Bureau, Gen. Munir Hafeez has piously declared that the Bureau is shining light on 12 serving army crooks deputed in different ministries who are busy thieving. But here’s the joke: not a single one has been apprehended! Because the Bureau’s hands are tied when it comes to hauling a khaki.

But here’s a bigger joke! The geckos from Gujarat, lording over our destinies in Islamabad and Lahore, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Pervez Elahi (respectively) who got their loans (Rs 241 million) written off, apart from other plunders, have gotten NAB to squash all cases against them.

The greasy variety must now rub their palms in anticipation of their partner Gen. Musharraf returning with yet more greenbacks so that they can conveniently siphon them off while pretending to carry out Pakistan’s social uplifting.

Stephen Cohen of Brookings Institution thinks that Pakistan should have received $6 billion and the aid package come a year earlier because Pakistan is much weaker internally today. “There’s been a much greater expansion of Islamic extremism. The economy is weaker. A lot of good Pakistanis have fled the country.”

As an expert on South Asia, Cohen has come to Pakistan many times and has watched its political and military swirls over the years.

Agreeing with Cohen is Dr Moeed Pirzada of Columbia University and currently a Brittania Chevening Scholar at London School of Economics. “Pakistanis of all shades and opinions are united in their belief that Musharraf government is short selling Pakistan. This is the third time, since 1955, that Pakistanis, have reaffirmed their trust in an American administration in the hope that it will sustain a lasting commitment.” He wonders given all that Musharraf has done since 9/11, what the “real US intentions are.”

A package of $3 billion spread over 5 years, in real terms, comes to less than $600 million per year; the economic content will be less than $350 million/year. In May this year Centcom estimated that Pakistani economy suffered a loss of more than $10 billion since 9/11,as a direct result of US lead operations in Afghanistan. “In view of this, the package is economically insignificant,” says Pirzada also a member of the Institute of Strategic Studies in London.

The Indian caucus on Capitol Hill has won the day, observes Dr Mubashir Choudry, professor of cardiology in George Washington University, who left Pakistan in 1984 and is currently president of APPNA (Association of Pakistani Physicians of North America) Washington chapter.

“The aid package is so insignificant that it’s not even worth discussing,” says Washington’s leading cardiologist and senior White House Advisor on Drug Control. Choudry blames America for buckling under Indian pressure. “Apart from giving this paltry sum, Indians pressured the US to deny Pakistan the F-16s.”

But brusquely brushing aside the F-16s, the Bush aide declares, “basically, that is a dead issue. Those are long gone, we repaid the money to the Pakistanis. Those don’t exist!”

So who then is to be blamed for this fiasco? “It’s a major failure of the Pakistan government, diplomatic circles and our lobbyists here,” says Choudry, who while loath to go on record and name people, does however go as far as to hint that the previous ambassador (not Ashraf Jehangir Qazi) divided the community and caused irreparable damage, “we should have been more aggressive in activating the Pakistani community here but unfortunately the seeds of dissent sown some years ago have now fully sprouted.”

Moeed Pirzada goes a step further, saying, “Humbling Musharraf on the question of F-16s, and signalling Israel to sell anti-missile systems to India are deeply disturbing symptoms of US priorities in South Asia. At this moment it will be preposterous to comment as to what kind of defence components will be allowed. If it turns out that Pakistan is persuaded to buy pieces like attack helicopters, and transport planes then a question arises: are we seeing a qualitative change in terms of US desire to turn Pakistan Army into a police force equipped for fighting Islamic radicals rather than a force capable of defending its national frontiers?”

What most “astonishes” Stephen Cohen is the term “peace process” used by Musharraf regarding Kashmir dispute. “Pakistanis haven’t used that term in the past,” he says, “and the American administration does not like the term... they’re barely able to engage in a Middle East peace process, and they don’t call it that; they call it a “road map.” I think whoever advised Musharraf to use that language misadvised him.”

Obviously it’s the K-2 and the Q: Kasuri, Khokar and Qazi! Who else?