Balochistan: Crossroads of Proxy War
Eric Draitser
StopImperialism.com
May 30, 2012
The goals of the Western imperialists vis-à-vis
Balochistan have been, and remain, very simple: destabilize the region
in order to block the Chinese from using it to assert their regional
dominance and continue on the path to economic development. Using the
same, tired tactics of terrorism and political subversion, they hope to
achieve these aims. However, unlike the case of the British imperialist
ruling class of a century ago, the United States must contend with a
Pakistan that maintains a strong current of nationalism, one that
rejects the hegemony of the United States in the region, and one that
has friends internationally. Unfortunately for the Baloch people, the
US ruling class has learned nothing from history and continues to use
them as pawns against their perceived enemy in Beijing. Without a
strong, nationalist government in Islamabad, one that is willing to do
more than just protest US actions, there will be no peace in
Balochistan. Instead, the situation will only deteriorate as the US
elites continue their drive for dominance in the 21st Century, whatever the human and financial cost may be.
Eric Draister is an independent geopolitical analyst that maintains StopImperialism.com which hosts his weekly podcast. He has been a guest on Dr. Webster Tarpley's World Crisis Radio and has provided analysis on Russia Today.
Eric Draitser
StopImperialism.com
May 30, 2012
The current unrest in Balochistan centers around
forced disappearances, kidnappings, targeted killings, assassinations
and terrorism. However, these are merely the tactics of a much broader,
more geopolitically complex war in which the United States and its
Western allies are engaged. Though seemingly insignificant against the
backdrop of all the regional and international crises affecting our
world, Balochistan is, in fact, a nexus: the point at which
diametrically opposing strategic interests converge.
The United States views Balochistan, an area that
encompasses western Pakistan, eastern Iran, and a piece of southern
Afghanistan, as critical to the maintenance of US hegemony in the Middle
East and Central and South Asia. Conversely, China regards the region
as necessary for its own economic and political evolution into a world
superpower. Seen in this way, Balochistan becomes central to the
development of geopolitical power in the 21st Century.
Location, Location, Location
Balochistan is located in one of the most
geographically and politically significant places anywhere in the
world. Not only does the region sit astride three countries which have
become central to Western political and military power projection, it is
also central to the development and export of energy from Central Asia,
access to the Indian Ocean, and a host of other geopolitical
imperatives for both the West and the SCO/BRICS countries. Because of
this, the region has grown exponentially in importance to all the major
powers of the world.
Though the land seems, on the surface, to be inhospitable, it also holds great wealth just beneath the soil.
Aside from what is believed to be a large quantity of natural gas
and/or oil, the earth under the feet of the Baloch people holds vast
quantities of minerals necessary for economic development. Because of
this, the conflict raging in the region takes on the added dimension of
being a resource war, on top of a geographical and political one.
Balochistan’s location has another crucial element
that makes it geopolitically necessary: it sits at the crossroads of the
most important trade routes between West and East. Although, in the
public mind, trade crossroads seem to be a thing of the past (one might
imagine the Silk Road being traveled by camel), in fact, they are
essential to development. Land-based trade, something the Chinese
understand to be a linchpin of their economic and political evolution
into a superpower, is impossible without a stable and dependable
Balochistan, and this is precisely what the United States and the West
seeks to prevent.
This focus on land-based access to trade should
always be seen in the context of energy. China’s insatiable thirst for
oil and gas makes the development of pipelines from Central Asia, Iran,
and elsewhere invaluable to them. The Iran-Pakistan pipeline, the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline,
and other projects all serve to increase the importance of Balochistan
in the eyes of the Chinese. Additionally, the Chinese-funded, Pakistani
Gwadar Port is the access point for Chinese commercial shipping to the
Indian Ocean and on to Africa. With all of this as a backdrop, one can
begin to see just why Balochistan is so significant to the Chinese and,
conversely, why the United States and its Western puppets seek to
destabilize it.
Western Subversion and Destabilization
The Western imperialist powers have an obvious
interest in preventing a stable Balochistan from emerging. Not only is
the region essential to the Chinese, it is also a major part of the
covert war being waged against both Iran and Pakistan. Terrorist groups
with direct and indirect links to Western intelligence agencies operate
with impunity in Balochistan, a vast area that is nearly impossible to
police. The Pakistani government is not oblivious to the fact that foreign intelligence agencies are behind much of the violence in Balochistan, a fact that was even stated publicly by former President Musharraf.
In fact, Islamabad, though they cannot state it publicly, is aware
that its survival rests on the ability to quell the unrest in
Balochistan, which in turn means they must effectively combat the
foreign-controlled separatism.
In an article published by the Qatari
English-language newspaper The Peninsula, the author cited credible
sources as saying that “the CIA is indulging in heavy recruitment of local people as agents (each being paid $500 a month)”. Additionally we know that the CIA, under the leadership of Gen. Petraeus, has been using Afghan refugees to destabilize Balochistan.
The significance of these revelations should not be understated. The
fact that the CIA is recruiting agents and informants throughout
Balochistan indicates that the US strategy of subversion is
multi-faceted. On the one hand, a network of agents allows for
intelligence and information manipulation while, on the other hand, the
United States engages in terrorism through a variety of terrorist groups
it controls or manipulates either directly or indirectly. As was
reported in Foreign Policy magazine, the CIA and Mossad compete to control Jundallah,
an important fact because it shows the way in which the Western
imperialists use Balochistan, the base of Jundallah, to wage covert war
on Iran, including the assassination of scientists, terrorist bombings
aimed at critical infrastructure, and targeted killings of ethnic
minorities.
Aside from Jundallah, the CIA and its counterparts
(MI6, Mossad, and India’s RAW) are actively engaged in the handling and
manipulation of a variety of other terror groups operating in
Balochistan. The Baloch Liberation Army, headed by Brahamdagh Bugti and
others, has long-standing ties with British MI6 going all the way back
to the early days of Pakistan’s independence. This group is responsible
for countless terrorist actions
in the region, all of which have been aimed at innocent civilians.
This, and other groups like it, illustrates the way in which the United
States and its allies use the weapon of terrorism to create chaos for
the purpose of destabilizing Balochistan, thereby preventing economic
development both for the Balochi people and, by extension, China.
Photo:
In the 1980's US Congressman 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 in Pakistan is
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.
....
Political Sabotage
The tactics of subversion are not limited to
terrorism and espionage in Balochistan. One of the most critical
dimensions of this issue is the use of political destabilization through
the US Congress. Lawmakers such as Representative Dana Rohrbacher
(R-CA), who himself has led the anti-Pakistan charge, have argued vigorously for the “right of self-determination of the people of Balochistan”.
Of course, what he means by this is that he, and others who have a
vested interest in the issue, support separatism and the destruction of
modern Pakistan. In so doing, Rohrbacher and other members of the
Congress act, as they always do, as apologists and facilitators of the
US imperial strategy of dividing nations in order to control them.
Rohrbacher, who himself has long-standing ties to Al-Qaeda (former
mujahideen) fighters, is a vociferous proponent of a fiercely
anti-Pakistan agenda, one which treats that nation as a threat to the
United States. Naturally, the only threat Pakistan truly poses is that,
in the course of the development of China, Pakistan has chosen to be on
the side of economic development, rather than allow itself to be
perpetually subjugated to the will of the United States.
The resolution introduced by Rohrbacher, who is the
chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and
Investigations, called for the US to support Baloch separatism and end
relations with the democratically elected government in Islamabad. He
has repeatedly issued threats and other provocations which have been
correctly interpreted by the Pakistani government as meddling in their
internal affairs. The goal of these resolutions and provocations has
been to make the case, both politically and in the court of public
opinion, that Pakistan is a terrorist state which, because of the
twisted logic of the American people, means that the US should be able
to do whatever it wants to them.
....
Eric Draister is an independent geopolitical analyst that maintains StopImperialism.com which hosts his weekly podcast. He has been a guest on Dr. Webster Tarpley's World Crisis Radio and has provided analysis on Russia Today.
