Pakistan Book

This is the third consecutive book on Afghanistan/Pakistan/CIA/bin Laden I've read after a recommendation from my friend Naeem Inayatullah, who taught me international relations at Ithaca College. He is three-for-three.

Journalist Mary Anne Weaver takes you inside Pakistan's ferocious, turbulent politics with access to the most influential people in the country. She interviews everyone: Benazir Bhutto, Pervez Musharraf, and Islamist leaders who were once armed and funded by the CIA to kill communists in Afghanistan, among others.

The book is mostly a compilation of interviews and episodes tied together with historical context. Weaver analyzes the politics of jihad, the affect such policies embraced by Pakistan's ever changing military and civilian governments had on tribal areas like Balochistan and Kashmir, and most importantly how Pakistan's embrace of radical Islamists like bin Laden and groups like the Taliban, and dozens of others, have haunted Islamabad. (You can also see this by picking up today's newspaper as Pakistan wages war on the Taliban; reaping the whirlwind, indeed.)

Pakistan's politics are like no other nation's. Imagine standing in front of a mirror and punching yourself in the face. Slowly a bruise forms. Instead of reaching for the medicine cabinet you punch yourself again and slowly another bruise forms, until the bruises are out of control. This entirely irrational scenario of self-inflicted wounds is meant to demonstrate the irrationality of Pakistan's policies and the irrationality of relgious faith. He who thinks his god directs him to arm his countrymen to kill his enemies is hopelessly irrational.

Pakistan, as much as any country on earth, created the problem of radical Islam which it and the United States are now fighting in the "war on terror." Pakistan is rife with "states within a state." It's intelligence agency, the ISI, and the army are so influential no ruler may govern the country without their support. The ISI basically decides foreign policy for the nation, secretly arming and funding groups like the Taliban and Kashmiri militants.

Weaver is an excellent interviewer; her talks with Benazir Bhutto were revealing. Benazir is the most compelling character here (this book was published before her assassination). Her death seemed to be the logical conclusion to her tumultuous life. My heart broke for Benazir as I read about her many imprisonments and hardships. At the same time she left me utterly frustrated. She seemed to be Pakistan's best hope to create a stable, democratic society. Yet her two prime ministerships were colossal failures.

Benazir simply could not govern, through her own shortcomings but also because no individual could overcome Pakistan's anti-democratic establishment: the army, the ISI, and the mullahs, even in the very country that elected the first female prime minister in the Muslim world! Pakistan... a nation of contradictions.

Chapter Four will leave you laughing out loud and shaking your head in disbelief. Weaver details the hunts of the houbara bustard, a small bird that migrates through central Asia to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pakistan hosted these hunts, welcoming fabulously wealthy Arab sheikhs from across the Middle East. The sheikhs hunt the bustard with trained falcons, following their birds of prey in land cruisers while they swoop down on the bustards.

The sheikhs spend millions!! of dollars on these hunts, setting up enormous hunting villages in the middle of barren deserts where their entourages live in luxury with amenities hauled in by C-130 transport planes. Unfortunately for the hunters, Pakistan had to give up one of the airfields that had been exclusively used for the hunts after 9/11 so the U.S military could bomb the Taliban from Pakistani soil. And why did the sheikhs kill hundreds of bustards year after year in the middle of the desert as war raged just over the border in Afghanistan?? To enhance their sexual prowess! They are convinced the bustard meat acts as an aphrodisiac and is loaded with vitamins.

The most satisfying passages of Weaver's book come at the end, during her overview. She isn't afraid to make judgments.

Page 272: "I am convinced that had there been no jihad, Osama bin Laden would almost certainly be back in Jidda (Saudi Arabia) parlaying a fortune of $80 million, which he inherited at thirteen, into an even greater sum than the $250 million he has today."

Page 281: "... speculation grew about what the war in Iraq would mean for Osama bin Laden and militant Islamist groups around the world. I can only speak of my direct experience during those months (2003) in Egypt and Pakistan. But considering the number of young men who were swelling the ranks of Pakistan's Jamaat-e-Islami and the JUI (radical Islamist parties) and Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, Osama bin Laden could not have dreamed of anything better than this."

We are reaping the whirlwind. God Bless America.