No section of the Pakistani bourgeoisie maintains a principled opposition to US imperialism. Historically, the Pakistani bourgeoisie has sought its own survival within the framework of US regional hegemony by subordinating to its demands. Its decades of collaboration include helping to build the anti-Soviet mujahideen guerrilla movement in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the precursor to Afghanistan’s Taliban and Al Qaeda. Together with the CIA, Pakistan’s Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) continued to maintain their associations and sought to exploit those to influence Kabul. A Washington Post report on October 24 detailed extensive communication and collaboration with Pakistan’s government and military between 2007 and 2011 in the course of the CIA-run drone assassination program. This includes military strongman Pervez Musharraf’s government and the former Pakistan Peoples Party-led coalition that initially consisted of PML-N as well. A day before, Sharif spoke alongside Obama from the White House, attempting to placate popular opposition to the drone war back home, on which he had relied in May to secure his election. Sharif said the issue of drones was discussed with US officials, “emphasizing the need for an end to such strikes.” The lengthy joint press release, however, did not carry any mention of “drones.” The October 24 Post report is based on “top-secret CIA documents and Pakistani diplomatic memos” it has obtained. According to the Post, some drone attacks were “at the request of” Pakistan’s government, while some others were the result of a “joint CIA-ISI targeting effort.” This dirty collaboration extends to the notorious “signature strikes” where drones are launched without a specific target, and the victim is selected from the air based on “patterns of behaviour” that are supposedly “militant”. The Pakistan government’s claim that no civilian has been killed in the drone war since January 2012 is absurd on its face. The Amnesty International report “Will I be Next?” US Drone Strikes in Pakistan, extensively documented two attacks in 2012 that killed 19 civilians. In one attack 18 labourers were killed while in the other a grandmother was killed and her five grandchildren were injured. One of these grandchildren gave testimony in a US Congressional hearing last week: “Now I prefer cloudy days when the drones don’t fly.”
Posted on: Tue, 05 Nov 2013 03:20:56 +0000
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