by Tony Cartalucci
April 13, 2012 - Carving up Pakistan by fomenting separatist movements along Pakistan's western border has been on the US geopolitical drawing board for years. As reported in December 2011's, "The Coming War With Pakistan:"
"In a 2006 report by the corporate-financier funded think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace titled, “Pakistan: The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalism,” violence starting as early as 2004-2005 is described. According to the report, 20% of Pakistan’s mineral and energy resources reside in the sparsely populated province. On page 4 of the report, the prospect of using the Baluchi rebels against both Islamabad and Tehran is proposed. In Seymour Hersh’s 2008 article, “Preparing the Battlefield,” US support of Baluchi groups operating against Tehran is reported as already a reality. As already mentioned, in Brookings Institution’s “Which Path to Persia?” the subject of arming and sending Baluchi insurgents against Tehran is also discussed at great depth.
The 2006 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace report makes special note of the fact that above all, the Baluchistan province serves as a transit zone for a potential Iranian-India-Turkmenistan natural gas pipeline as well as a port, Gwadar, that serves as a logistical hub for Afghanistan, Central Asia’s landlocked nations as well as a port for the Chinese. The report notes that the port was primarily constructed with Chinese capital and labor with the intention of it serving as a Chinese naval station “to protect Beijing’s oil supply from the Middle East and to counter the US presence in Central Asia.” This point in particular, regarding China, was described in extricating detail in the 2006 Strategic Studies Institute’s report “String of Pearls: Meeting the Challenge of China’s Rising Power across the Asian Littoral.” Throughout the report means to co-opt and contain China’s influence throughout the region are discussed.The Carnegie Endowment report goes on to describe how the Baluchi rebels have fortuitously begun attacking the development of their province over concerns of “marginalization” and “dispossession.” In particular attacks were launched against the Pakistani military and Chinese facilities. The question of foreign intervention is brought up in this 2006 report, based on accusations by the Pakistani government that the rebels are armed with overly sophisticated weaponry. India, Iran, and the United States are accused as potential culprits.
The report concludes that virtually none of Pakistan’s neighbors would benefit from the insurgency and that the insurgency itself has no possibility of succeeding without “foreign support.” The conflict is described as a potential weapon that could be used against Pakistan and that it is “ultimately Islamabad that must decide whether Baluchistan will become its Achilles’ heel.” This somewhat cryptic conclusion, in the light of recent reports and developments can be deciphered as a veiled threat now being openly played."
Quite obviously, tensions between the US and Pakistan have only further deteriorated, with the West playing victim accusing Pakistan of "double dealing" them during America's decade-long occupation of neighboring Afghanistan and frequent cross-border murder-sprees in Pakistani territory. Pakistan has more recently passed a resolution calling for the cessation of all US drone attacks on Pakistani soil. Additionally, as noted by geopolitical analyst Eric Draitser of Stop Imperialism, Pakistan has also prepared provisions to ban foreign bases on Pakistani soil and stem US covert terrorist activities inside Pakistan operating under the guise of "security contractors."
US Prepares Armed Uprising
The US had frequently answered the reassertion of Pakistani national sovereignty with random drone attacks on civilian populations, but seems now to be shifting into gear for a full-blown destabilization of Pakistan's Baluchistan province. Violence has notably increased in tandem with calls from Western politicians to support the "Free Baluchistan" movement and the establishment of an independent "Baluchistan" carved out of sovereign Pakistani territory.
The most astounding of these most recent calls is US Representative Dana Rohrabacher's "Why I support Baluchistan" op-ed in the Washington Post. Rohrabacher cites the US State Department and Amnesty International - which in reality are one in the same - while accusing the Pakistani government of "violations of human rights." He then, point-for-point, repeats the above mentioned corporate-financier funded US think-tanks regarding Baluchistan's rich natural resources and the strategic location the province's Gwadar seaport serves for the Chinese before admitting that Baluchistan's brief period of autonomy resulted from the British Empire and the Persians carving it up as a buffer state.
Photo: In the 1980's Rohrbacher (right) would actually travel to Afghanistan and "fight" alongside the Mujaheddin. It is also reported that he met Bin Laden and his foreign fighters - making him, like many others leading the fraudulent "War on Terror," quite the hypocrite. The US use of proxy forces to ravage parts of the world is confirmed, and Rohrbacher's direct role in such ploys is now also confirmed. US State Department-funded propaganda front Radio Free Europe in their article titled, "U.S. Lawmaker Questions Approaches To Pakistan, Afghanistan," memorializes Rohrbacher's role in the US-Soviet proxy war.
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Rohrabacher entirely reveals his hand and the disingenuous concern he hamfistedly feigns in regards to the Baluchi plight when he cites a laundry list of grievances the US has with the Pakistani government and concludes by holding the threat of developing "a closer friendship with India and, perhaps, Baluchistan" over the head of Islamabad. Clearly, just as the British did before them, the US fully plans on carving out a Baluchistan buffer-state to balk Pakistani-Chinese relations, destabilize Pakistan itself, and provide more pressure on Iran's eastern border.
Video: A proposed Iranian-Pakistani-Indian pipeline which would travel through Pakistan's Baluchistan province, would essentially render moot US sanctions on Iran and provide Central, Southwest, and East Asia with Iranian oil. There is now talk of Russia helping to implement the planned project - a project the West is apparently willing to start a war and "Balkanize" Pakistan over to prevent.
One point Rohrabacher fails to mention is the planned Iranian-Pakistani-Indian pipleline which would in effect render moot all US sanctions and whose proposed path just so happens to pass through Baluchistan province. Such a pipeline would also converge with a planned logistical network being built by the Chinese from the province's Gwadar port in the south all the way to the Chinese-Pakistani border in the north.
Just like the US used fighters in the 1980's in Afghanistan to fight a proxy war against the Soviets, the US is now planing to use Baluchi terrorists to wage war against both Pakistan and Iran. Rohrabacher is just the latest peddler of a geopolitical ploy long since predetermined, and echos verbatim of calls by Selig Harrison of the Soros-funded Center for International Policy, in editorials like “Free Baluchistan,” and “The Chinese Cozy Up to the Pakistanis.”
US Already Subverting Pakistani Governance in Baluchistan
As in all neo-imperial 4th generation warfare scenarios, arming militants is only half of the overall strategy for defeating targeted nation-states. Subverting national institutions and replacing them with those interlocking with the neo-imperial unipolar order is the other half. The usual suspects, the US State Department-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and its various subsidiaries, found all across the theater of 4th generation global warfare, are busy at work in Pakistan's Baluchistan province as well.
Images: In addition to the annual Fortune 500-funded “Balochistan International Conference,” the US State Department's National Endowment for Democracy has been busy at work building up Baluchistan's "civil society" network. This includes support for the "Balochistan Institute For Development," which maintains a "BIFD Leadership Academy," claiming to "mobilize, train and encourage youth to play its effective role in promotion of democracy development and rule of law." The goal is to subvert Pakistani governance while simultaneously creating a homogeneous "civil society" that interlocks with the West's "international institutions." This is how modern empire perpetuates itself. NED has been directly funding and supporting the work of the "Balochistan Institute for Development" (BIFD) which claims to be "the leading resource on democracy, development and human rights in Balochistan, Pakistan." In addition to organizing the annual NED-BFID "Workshop on Media, Democracy & Human Rights" BFID reports that USAID had provided funding for a "media-center" for the Baluchistan Assembly to "provide better facilities to reporters who cover the proceedings of the Balochistan Assembly." We must assume BFID meant reporters "trained" at NED-BFID workshops.
Image: A screenshot of "Voice of Balochistan's" special US State Department message. While VOB fails to disclose its funding, it is a sure bet it, like other US-funded propaganda fronts, is nothing more than a US State Department outlet. (click image to enlarge) There is also Voice of Balochistan whose every top-story is US-funded propaganda, including the above mentioned op-ed by Rohrabacher, foundation-funded Reporters Without Borders, Soros-funded Human Rights Watch, and a direct message from the US State Department. Like other US State Department funded propaganda outfits around the world - such as Thailand's Prachatai - funding is generally obfuscated in order to main "credibility" even when the front's constant torrent of obvious propaganda more than exposes them.
Image: Far from parody, this is the header taken from the "Baloch Society of North America" website.
Perhaps the most absurd operations being run to undermine Pakistan through the "Free Baluchistan" movement are the US and London-based organizations. The "Baloch Society of North America" almost appears to be a parody at first, but nonetheless serves as a useful aggregate and bellwether regarding US meddling in Pakistan's Baluchistan province. The group's founder, Dr. Wahid. Baloch, openly admits he has met with US politicians in regards to Baluchistan independence. This includes Neo-Con warmonger, PNAC signatory, corporate-lobbyist, and National Endowment for Democracy director Zalmay Khalilzad.
Dr. Wahid Baloch considers Baluchistan province "occupied" by both the Iranian and Pakistani governments - he and his movement's humanitarian hand-wringing gives Washington the perfect pretext to create an armed conflagration against either Iran or Pakistan, or both, as planned in detail by various US policy think-tanks.
Should an escalation in violence spiral out of control and the US commit to the complete destabilization of Pakistan, it is a good bet Dr. Wahid Baloch's face will be omnipresent on CNN, BBC, MSNBC, and the likes giving his "expert" opinion on humanitarian violations inside of Pakistan and the need for NATO to intervene. He may even be nominated by his US handlers as "President of Baluchistan" just as long-time US resident and BP, Shell, Total-funded Petroleum Institute chairman Abdurrahim el-Keib was in Libya.
There is also the Baloch Students Organisation-Azad, or BSO. While it maintains a presence in Pakistan, it has coordinators based in London. London-based BSO members include "information secretaries" that propagate their message via social media, just as US and British-funded youth organizations did during the West's operations against other targeted nations during the US-engineered "Arab Spring."
Image: A screenshot of a "Baloch Human rights activist and information secretary of BSO Azad London zone" Twitter account. This user, in tandem with look-alike accounts has been propagating anti-Pakistani, pro-"Free Baluchistan" propaganda incessantly. They also engage in coordinated attacks with prepared rhetoric against anyone revealing US ties to Baluchistan terrorist organizations. While Pakistan lies buried in the news and obfuscated with complexity regarding a myriad of tribes, difficult to pronounce names, confusing geography, and a culture many Westerners do not understand or appreciate, it also lies at the crossroads of China, India, and Iran. It represents a convergence of conflict between East and West with potentially catastrophic implications and even the prospect for a nuclear exchange.
China and Pakistan are more than aware of the West's unfolding geopolitical gambit. China in no uncertain terms has declared that they and Pakistan will "stand with each other `in all circumstances' and vowed to uphold their sovereignty and territorial integrity at all costs." China by now realizes that what can be done to its immediate neighbors will inevitably be done to China itself. The West's recent attack on Russia, meddling it its elections and attempting to trigger a color revolution within Moscow itself, reveals that Wall Street and London's momentum forward is meant to carry them all the way to the end - into both Beijing and Moscow.
The West will continue to whittle away at nation-states around the world by attacking and dismantling indigenous national institutions and replacing them with their homogeneous "civil society" model. They will continue enticing all interested parties to find a comfortable place amongst their global order, while producing unpleasant penalties for all who resist. Such penalties range from economic sanctions to armed militant groups fighting proxy wars on Wall Street and London's behalf.
What has developed, however, is a subtle but ever more apparent pattern of ultimate betrayal - meaning that many around the world are beginning to notice the West's "carrot" is just as bad as the "stick" and regardless of which one that is chosen, the result is the same. A paradigm shift must be made, one from competing parties seeking superiority over one another, to a paradigm of solidarity. And while organizations like BRICS appear to be moving in this direction, at least for the sake of self-preservation, a paradigm shift toward solidarity must begin at the grassroots.
Individuals must make the conscious decision to no longer pay into Fortune 500 corporations and banks, recognize the consolidation of power for what it is and begin seeking human empowerment not through gimmicks like "democracy" and "human rights" but through pragmatic solutions such as technical education, local industry and agriculture, collaborative research and development, and leveraging technology and our human ingenuity to improve our world through inventions and innovations instead of quotas, policies, and legislation.
