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Facing the US bear

Steve Hammond
24/11/2006

'In the Line of Fire - a memoir' by Pervez Musharraf, Simon and Shuster, hardback, £18 99

AS the Taliban give the British army a mauling in southern Iraq the Western media begins to speculate again that the Islamic fighters must be getting secret support from Pakistan.

It is an old tune that will no doubt infuriate Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf whose memoir 'In the Line of Fire' plots the disastrous history of the US and British intervention in the Middle East.

In the most sensational sections of his reminiscences the former head of Pakistan's armed forces is quite candid about his country's involvement in the birth of the Taliban, al Qaeda and every Uncle Tom Cobley of terrorism associated with Islam.

He reveals: "It has famously been said that 'short term gain for long-term pain' is foolhardy, but this is exactly what happened to the allies in the jihad against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, not least the United States, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

"We helped create the mujahideen, fired them with religious zeal in seminaries, armed them, paid them. fed them, and sent them to jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan."

He chronicles how al Qaeda itself emerged noting: "Most of the financing came from Osama bin Laden...Of course this all didn't happen in a vacuum; neither was it the private initiative of a few Arabs. The CIA and Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence were encouraging and helping them along."

He goes on to describe how after 'job done' (i.e. wrecking the Soviet regime in Afghanistan and delivering the country into a nightmare of competing war lords) the US simply walked away.

It is hard not to be sympathetic with Musharraf when he describes, with some indignation when, after the very force the US had created, bit back on 9/11, Pakistan's intelligence chief was warned by the US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage that Pakistan would be bombed back into the Stone Age unless the entire country was immediately put at the disposal of the US government and military.

The President says he had little choice but to go along with the invasion of Afghanistan despite the fact that Pakistan at the time, recognised the Taliban regime as legitimate. As he colourfully puts it: "America was sure to react violently like a wounded bear. If the perpetrator turned out to be al Qaeda, then that wounded bear would come charging straight toward us."

So the US helped to create what it now describes as international terror for its own cynical anti-Communist ends, then, when the package blew-up in its face, it turned round and orders the world to fall in line behind its 'war on terror', wishing to disguise its own culpability, and now, realising the war is being lost in Iraq and Afghanistan, prepares to walk away yet again, hoping that, somehow, the 'axis of evil' states Iran and Syria, will help to extract its war machine from the bloody hole it has dug itself - brilliant.

Musharraf does not it put as bluntly as this, but we know what he means.

The man himself comes across as Pakistan's would-be Ataturk (he spent his formative years in Turkey, his father working for the Pakistan Embassy in Ankara) hoping to curb Islamic extremism and modernise Pakistan.

He disarmingly describes the makeup of the nation as 10 per cent incorrigibly corruptible, 10 per cent incorruptible with 80 per cent waiting to see which way the wind blows.

He scorns the democracy of the Bhutto and Sharif years thus: "What we in Pakistan have consciously constructed instead (of true democracy) is rule by a small elite - never democratic, often autocratic, usually plutocratic and lately kleptocratic - all working with a tribal-fuedal mind-set 'in the name of the people' with democratic camouflage."

He, of course, is going to change all that, but then we have heard that before from every one of the men or women who have led Pakistan since independence in 1947.

What a guy!

Musharraf is not one to underestimate his own qualities as the following extracts from his memrior illustrate.

"All this endeared me to my men, who started looking up to me. They loved me because I was just and compassionate. I would share their worries and help them with their problems. My senior recognised me as an exceptional leader..."

"I melded the men and officers into one team and motivated them to a very high level, installing in them confidence and the will to win."

"I felt proud to say that I have always been loved by those under my command and therefore I could move them to achieve anything I desired."

This impressive self belief eventually moved Musharraf to poetry. He wrote: "O Allah! The only thing I can promise to my Army and my Nation is sincerity, honesty, integrity and unflinching loyalty"

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