When in July he came forth with an even worse piece, From Abbotabad to Worse, he troded along the same lines I wondered where his anti-Pakistan sentiment came from – and was surprised to see that he is cultivating his (for me unarguably poorly wrought) polemic narrative since a decade. And it all commences with the poorest, most polemic but most detailed of the 7 part series in Slate and Vanity Fair. His later articles are mere repetitions, aptly underlined by the fact that he basically has one source he quotes – himself. Hence to understand Hitchens’s writing on Pakistan (or simply to marvel at it), it suffices to read this first piece of polemics.

Apparently before he wrote his first article on Pakistan (I am not aware of earlier accounts) he “used to love the city of Peshawar” – but from this very first sentence it all goes down. And all seemingly based on a situation set up by himself.

I chose this devotional moment, one choking evening at dusk, to get out of my car in an Afghan bazaar and approach a vendor of Osama bin Laden T-shirts. I wanted half a dozen for friends, and though I normally will pay rather than haggle, I was not going to part with the 200 rupees that the startled tradesman demanded for each item. Fifty was my limit, and I was prepared to be British about it. I have never been so swiftly and completely surrounded. It was as if, in this formerly cosmopolitan city, they had never seen a foreigner before. “Why you want these?” Faces right in mine, fingers and hands prodding and pushing me. “You like Osama?” “Of course. He is my brother.” “He is your brother?” “All men are my brothers.” Much jeering and sneering, and then: “Why you not scared? Why you show money here?” “Why should I be scared? Muslims do not steal from guests.”

To buy Osama-paraphernalia is pretty awkward, to set some guys up by such feigned statements and portray them as the general population and sentiment is pretty poor. His shock over the fact that such T-Shirts are freely available is laughable (they are sold, because tourists – be they international, or national – like him buy them for ridiculous prices!) and his naive assumption all Pakistanis who have no access to the English writing of “brave Pakistani dissidents and secularists” (only those writing in English are?, only those secular are?) are from the America-hating side is simply stupid.

Foreigner’s, especially women, who have been on the Hippie Trail in the 70s now looking back, but also some who travelled there today may come up with such a story – I can hardly blame them. The staring male crowd has left unconsolable traces in many people I know, it is indeed an awkward feeling and, combined with ignorance of the country and poor media coverage abroad, leaves a negative Stigma on the country. But even such a person hardly ever goes on to imply that this unpleasant crowd equates with an untrustworthy and failed society.

He goes on to mention the only positive Pakistani appearance in his writing, his “old friend Ahmed Rashid, Pakistan’s best and bravest reporter” (Rashid’s last book, Descent into Chaos, features this connotation as a front cover praise – combined with the fact, that he (Rashid) is among the ones who praises Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson, leaves me with the impression, that he has quite poor judgement when it comes to other writers). From here, he moves on to history. And just like his perception of the Pakistani society is based on a highly flawed observation, his historical understanding of the place is based on an outright ridiculous argument (to which I think one does not have to add any remarks).

Unlike India, which fought tenaciously for independence for many decades (until 1947), Pakistan cannot claim any glorious history of struggle as its birthright. It is the product of a carve-up, against the wishes of a majority of the subcontinent’s population.

During this piece he also consolidates his use of Islam in the failure narrative, an issue that I think has been dealt with in Hitchen’s writing. He also introduces his idea that Pakistan could also be called “Kapistan” or “Akpistan” – a “theory” he later uses,  solely in combination with a comment by the expert on that issue Bernard Henry Levi and by consulting a map, to prove that Kashmir and not Palestine is the world’s problem (Look at any atlas and you can see that Kashmir is the keystone in the arch of Indo-Pakistani confrontation. – really, it’s just that easy). The fact that Rawalpindi is close to Islamabad the Marriot’s bar is a “rip-off”, Gul rymes with ghoul (actually it doesn’t, it sounds the same) holds more potential for interesting conclusions. In the end he goes intellectual and introuces his only two literature sources of which he will use the earlier in later articles to elaborate – Salman Rushdie and, not being able to help himself, Rudyard Kipling. What the first holds for Pakistan, Ahmed has elaborated on brilliantly here. It’s important to note, since Hitchens, in his to date last article on the issue, uses Rushdies’ Shame and the narrative concept of his Midnight’s Children, to transfer the appaling misconceptions he has so far introduced for the rather impersonal country (with it’s elite as a concept, not so much a Pakistani person) to the Pakistani as a person, or in a wider sense as a society. Like Rushdie let’s Saleem be the Subcontinent, Hitchens turns his Pakistan into a person (supported by a matching caricature), stuffing in all concepts he has introduced in the first article. And from the stories he has wrought so far about the country’s society, he means it.

Again to quote myself from 2001, if Pakistan were a person, he (and it would have to be a he) would have to be completely humorless, paranoid, insecure, eager to take offense, and suffering from self-righteousness, self-pity, and self-hatred. That last triptych of vices is intimately connected. The self-righteousness comes from the claim to represent a religion: the very name “Pakistan” is an acronym of Punjab, Afghanistan, Kashmir, and so forth, the resulting word in the Urdu language meaning “Land of the Pure.” The self-pity derives from the sad fact that the country has almost nothing else to be proud of: virtually barren of achievements and historically based on the amputation and mutilation of India in 1947 and its own self-mutilation in Bangladesh. The self-hatred is the consequence of being pathetically, permanently mendicant: an abject begging-bowl country that is nonetheless run by a super-rich and hyper-corrupt Punjabi elite. As for paranoia: This not so hypothetical Pakistani would also be a hardened anti-Semite, moaning with pleasure at the butchery of Daniel Pearl and addicted to blaming his self-inflicted woes on the all-powerful Jews.

While to this point all his articles were simply based on very flawed arguments and distorted, even outright wrong, facts, by turning on the Pakistani as a person, blaming him for all the wrongs Hitchens percieves and has elaborated on, his writing becomes unacceptable. As Fair puts it in her otherwise clumsy critique of Hitchens last article, “many other commentators [and then presents Hitchens as the prime example on the US side] have taken the recent events in Pakistan as an opportunity to stoke further anger and mistrust between the wary governments and their peoples.”

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All articles by Hitchens on Pakistan so far:

On the frontier of Apocalypse – Vanity Fair – January 2002: Introducing all his ever recurring concepts (which are: blaming Islam, twisting History, his name-theory, Salman Rushdie’s Shame, the military top-brass, nuclear weapons, Pakistan owing the US something and for some weird reason Rawalpindi’s Flashman hotel)

Inside the Islamic Mafia – Slate – September 2003: On Bernard Henry Levi, Daniel Pearl and Kashmir

Daughter of Destiny – Slate – December 2007: On Benazir Bhutto (and her death)

Pakistan is the Problem – Slate – September 2008: On the missing focus on Pakistan in the AfPak war

Why does Pakistan hate the United States – Slate – December 2009: On Pakistan being deeply indebted to the US

Our Man in Pakistan – Slate – February 2011: On Raymond Davis

From Abottabad to Worse – Vanity Fair – July 2011: To sum it all up

UPDATE: Pakistan is the Enemy – Slate – September 2011: Just to keep going

One does not need to read Ahmed Rashids recent book , to understand that the involvement of the US and the NATO in Afghanistan may be necessary but the way it is currently undertaken is flawed and may at worst have an even worsening effect to the whole situation. To get a grasp of what the ideal solution would be we need to stand back and listen to people who know the complexities of the area – at best experts on Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Central Asian states, China and the US each and others who are able to link this knowledge together to a coherent picture.

Why Europe needs to contribute more

Focusing on the geographical core of the problem, the Afghanistan- Pakistan region itself, unfortunately most of the material available comes from American sources – which is problematic in two aspects. Firstly, most of the US writers on AfPak focus foremost on the impact of the conflict on their homecountry, judging from Washington, often calling themselves „National Security Experts“ and often missing the gerater picture when imminent threats to the US are not given. Secondly when staying in the area itself the foreigners one meets in public space are non-American. Americans are mostly barred from moving around freely or don’t even come in the first place. Nationalities who are present in larger numbers (outside their respective embassies, travelling, researching or working in normal jobs and thus arguably being able to get the picture) are French, Chinese and Japanese, the latter’s views (via blogs or research papers) hardly accesible to Europeans and Americans who are not familiar with their language.

The material, based on which we and the governments in Europe and America (which are the two continents currently contributing to the US led actions in the area) form our opinion can thus hardly be called reliable. Americans who have insight in the area and travel the countries frequently like Barnett Rubin or Steve Coll are rare and not listened to enough, European viewpoints are rarely available at all and if, often not in English translation. Local contributors to the discussion (foremost the Pakistani intellectual and blogging scene) are available but to a big extent still not free of a continuous anti-India complex which is detrimental to unbiased work. Papers by Afghanis from inside the country are only slowly becoming more accesible.

Preferring the hedgehog approach

A recently published book review by Philip Tetlock addresses the different tactics in political forecasting and his terms may be just applied to the available forecasts on the AfPak situation – there are too many hedgehogs around and too few foxes. Tetlock calls experts, „who know one big thing from which likely future trends can be deduced“ hedgehogs, whereas experts, „who know many things and are not finicky about where they get good ideas“ are the foxes. Many writers try to make out the ultimate failure of US involvement less by arguing with different scenarios and arguments why this will be so (which would give good hints where to start to improve the approach), but rather – and that is the cheapest but most often applied argument – because they see Vietnam and the famous destruction of the Britsh Army under William Elphinstone by Akbar Khan in 1842 on the dooming horizon when new casualties of soldiers of their respective country are reported. What we and the governments, if they are willing to listen to people who have a clue, need are analysis that dissect the problem and give possible starting points to improve. Even if they are „audacious, naive, or impossible“ – but as Barnett Rubin and Rashid Ahmed rightly point out, „without such audacity, there is little hope“ . And thats what we hang on to in the end.

Where asking the wrong questions matters

In a recent edition of the Economist (16th of July 2009), one article was dedicated to a survey carried out in the US evaluating the views of the American people on the war in Afghanistan. The major question was whether „the US is winning the war in Afghanistan“. People are quick to answer this question – many have a firm opinion on it. But if you would keep asking and let each person define his idea of victory, most wouldn’t have a clue what to answer. Again borrowing from Rubin and Rashid, we need to let go of „“victory“ as the solution to all problems“ and first be clear about the objectives of the intervention and who exactly the enemy is . People in Europe (and I believe similarly in the US) are not aware of who Taliban and al-Qaeda inside Afghanistan and Pakistan really are and that people who are strongly opposing Karzai/Zardari and Americans may at the same time be strong opponents of the Taliban (even the major part of the population in both countries belongs to this group).

As long as the media and writers on this area are not able to give as the whol,e true picture, and decision makers are not prepared to draw knowledge from people who are based in the area and know ist people (to send just Richard Holebrooke there as an envoy on and off and excpect that one thinker and dealer will do is crazy) we will keep making wrong decisions and the ultimate chaos Rashid is picturing in his book will hardly be inevitable.

Further Reading:

Rashid, Ahmed; Descent into Chaos – The United States and the failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia; Allan Lane 2009

Tetlock, Philip; Reading Tarot on K Street; The National Interest, September/October 2009 ( accessed 19th September 2009)

Rubin, Barnett R.; Rashid, Ahmed; From Great Game to Grand Bargain; Foreign Affairs, November/December 2008

Rubin, Barnett R.; Afghan Dilemmas: Defining Commitments, The American Interest, May-June 2008 (accessed 19th September 2009)

Because the pakistani government has lost ground in flood hit provinces KP and Balochistan, and the international relief response has not yet met minimum requirements, it is likely that extremism will increase rapidly in the area. That will not only affect the war in Afghanistan, as the Pakistan Army is not capable of defending the borders while all hands are bound to relief work, and therefore extremist will find the border region a new save haven and see an inflow of newly recruited fighters. Pakistan will also struggle to keep the Taliban at bay in Pakistan itself. So far the fatal possibilities of the flood have been neglected by western nations and India.

Article in the Daily Telegraph

Article in the New York Review of Books

But I fail to see, why this conclusion allows us to immediately jump to the assumption, that US presence (and probably the whole NATO presence as well, since when the US would leave, countries like Germany and Britain will hardly be made to stay) should be stopped in the region. Is our only target to make sure we are not attacked from a make-shift camp by bearded men? Are we only worried about having blood in our own streets? What about the countries of the region? Afghanistan is economically and educationally speaking in a dire situation, major areas in Pakistan are not doing any better and countries like Turkmenistan and Kirgizstan are neither sporting promising records. While other nations like Japan and Norway have long understood, that making a difference in this region takes patience, time and skilled labour we are only discussing money, arms and our own casualties.

As Ahmed Rashid recently pointed out to one of the few Americans who were venturing Pakistan outside their Islamabad embassy recently “You want to win over the people? Show me one school the Americans have built. Show me a road, a hospital, a railway.” . Other European countries (with a few exceptions) have an equally poor record. Some NGOs pull in after major disasters but leave soon after. There is seldom a long term commitment. As Rashid has pointed out in his recent book , the opportunity for Nation Building may have already passed, and other writers have argued that the US should not linger around anymore with this argument, since its record was poor enough in this respect . But an effort to bring a lasting peace to the region and aim for an economic development including surrounding regions (Iran, Xinjiang, Balochistan, Ferghana) should be made and attempted now. This does at the moment still include army presence, the Afghan army and police are far away from managing the situation themselves and the Pakistanis can in this regard unfortunately still not be trusted (especially the ISI). But while dismembering al-Qaeda should still be a good reason to stay and even enlarge CIA presence , there are other issues apart from our homeland security, that should make us aware of our responsibilities abroad.

Further Reading

Who’s Afraid of A Terrorist Haven?; Washington Post, 16th of September 2009

Rashid, Ahmed; Descent into Chaos – The United States and the failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia; Allan Lane 2009

http://www.realisticforeignpolicy.org/archives/2009/09/coalition_issue.php

http://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2009-09/afghanistan-cia-ausbau

[originally posted on 20/09/2009 on here-ware]

Of course the extreme adverse side of critics also does exist – Pakistani writers who continuously blame their own country (often including themselves as it’s citizens) for it’s current situation. Ahmed Rashid often does so, Pervez Hoodbhoy and Nadeem Paracha as well. I respect their assessments and find them constructive, in case of the latter they sometimes do tend to go into the all-destructive though.

Manan Ahmed on chapatimystery showed that coming up with conspiracy theories or offended negations is not necessary to counter the US push into Pakistan. He offers a straight confutation of a NYTimes OpEd by “one of the brains behind President Obama’s Afghanistan policy”, Seth Jones.

He also links to a hottly debated post at Registan which not only bashes Jones but also Michael Semple on the article I recently referred to. It sounds a bit harsh, I would have seen Semple in less critical light but Foust may be more informed (although some commenters disagree). His bashing of Kilcullen I would agree with though.

The presentation of the report was recorded on video and included a discussion by Rubin, Paddy Ashdown, Francesc Vendrell and Steve Coll.

A document he refers to extensively is the Afghanistan National Development Strategy by the Afghan government, a document I haven’t read yet (it includes 234 pages) but which has been acclaimed by international experts as outstanding for the standards of developing countries.

The outcome from the conference, including all projected targets is also available at CFR.

Also PBS covered the Bonn conference, albeit without video material as far as I could grasp.