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Saturday, June 17, 2017

America's loss is China's gain

Media Desk: The message was delivered during Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Gilani's recent four-day visit to Beijing, which celebrated no less than six decades of strategic relations --involving, among other issues, nuclear collaboration and support over the ultra-sensitive Kashmir question.

The Times of India reconstructed the message as a stark warning that: “any attack on Pakistan would be construed as an attack on China.”

Chinese diplomacy dwells on too much sophistication for such a crude outburst; but even enveloped in red velvet, the message -- in view of the non-stop U.S. drone war over Pakistan's tribal areas, not to mention the “get Osama” raid in Abbottabad -- was indeed a bombshell.

Whatever the merit of charges that Islamabad helps some Taliban factions -- such as the Haqqani network in North Waziristan -- the Pakistani politico-security-military establishment has had enough of being treated by Washington as a mere satrapy, or worse, a bunch of punks.

Pakistani popular opinion, from urban centers to tribal areas, roundly abhors Washington's drone war. And even before the Navy SEALS raid to get Osama bin Laden the sordid Raymond Davis case was configured as the ultimate humiliation.

Davis, a CIA asset, shot two Pakistanis dead in broad daylight in Lahore; an American “extraction team” killed another one who was trying to save Davis from arrest; and then the CIA paid blood money to finally extract Davis out of the country. Sovereignty? What sovereignty?

There's frantic spin in the U.S. especially among the right that Pakistan must be taught a lesson because it “harbors terrorists”. The mighty conceptual leap would be for these righteous, misinformed, armchair warriors to advocate teaching China a lesson.

Gwadar is an ultra-strategic deepwater port in the Arabian Sea, in Pakistani Balochistan, not far from the Iranian border and only 520 km away from the hyper-strategic Strait of Hormuz. Beijing financed close to 80 percent of the construction of the port via the China Harbor Engineering Company Group. The port is currently managed by Singapore. The lease will end soon -- and it will go to China.

Islamabad now wants the Chinese to build a naval base at Gwadar. That will be a monster geopolitical earthquake in a crucial node of “Pipelineistan” as well as the New Great Game in Eurasia.

Sleepy (for now) Gwadar has been building up for years as the key node of the IP (Iran-Pakistan) pipeline, which used to be the IPI (Iran-Pakistan-India) or “peace” pipeline, before New Delhi got cold feet. For Washington, the prospect of a steel umbilical cord linking Iran and Pakistan has always been anathema.

What Washington wants -- and has wanted badly since the Bill Clinton years -- is the TAP (Trans-Afghan) pipeline, which then became TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India). Even millennial rocks in the Hindu Kush know TAP or TAPI will only be built when the war is over in Afghanistan, with the Taliban an inevitable part of the government.

In this ongoing, epic IP (or IPI) versus TAP (or TAPI) battle, what is never mentioned is that the winner after all may be... China.

New Delhi knows a pipeline crossing Afghanistan is, well, a pipe dream. But still it has not committed itself to IPI -- in part because of relentless Washington pressure, in part because it does not trust Pakistan.

China, on the other hand, has already proposed itself for an IP expansion. This means that starting at Gwadar, another pipeline would be built, by the Chinese of course, crossing Balochistan and then following the Karakoram highway northwards all the way to Xinjiang, China's Far West.

Those who have already traveled the spectacular, 1,400 km-long Karakoram highway from Kashgar in Xinjiang, Western China, via the Khunjerab pass to, of all places, Abbottabad in Pakistan, know it for what it is -- a graphic example of strategic Sino-Pak collaboration. Further on down the road, Beijing engineering will connect the Karakoram highway with a railway across Balochistan towards Gwadar.

Pakistanis involved with the development of Gwadar love to bill it as the new Dubai. Well, it might as well become Western Hong Kong.

No wonder Beijing's strategic analysts are tasting what could be the geopolitical equivalent of the finest shark-fin soup; the Chinese Navy positioned at the heart of the Arabian Sea, a stone's throw from the Persian Gulf; a great deal of its Middle East oil imports shipped to nearby Gwadar -- and then by pipeline or railway all the way to Kashgar; and the Chinese economy profiting from extra gas supplied by Iran and, in a near future, Qatar.

It's not only China possibly winning a crucial “Pipelineistan” chapter plus an Arabian Sea base to add to its “string of pearls” network. In terms of its AfPak vulnerability, Washington may be contemplating a triple X defeat.

For obvious reasons the Pentagon cannot use Chinese or Iranian seaports to supply no less than 100,000 U.S. troops, 50,000 NATO troops and over 100,000 private contractors in Afghanistan -- legions of mercenaries included -- which dabble in over 400 military bases all across the country. Nearly 80 percent of this monstrous quantity of supplies transit through Pakistan. And that means, essentially, Karachi.

So one cannot imagine the “kinetic military action” (White House copyright) in AfPak without a non-stop serpent of trucks leaving Karachi and entering Pakistan via Torkham or Chaman every single day.

All the stuff Kabul -- and the immense Bagram Air Base close by -- needs goes through Torkham, at the end of the fabled Khyber Pass. All the stuff Kandahar needs goes through Chaman, in Pakistani Balochistan, not far from Quetta, where Mullah Omar theoretically lives when he's not being pronounced dead by the Pentagon.

The Pentagon of course could rely on alternative routes such as the interminable Northern Distribution Network (NDN) from Riga in Latvia to Termez in Uzbekistan, which connects via a bridge over the Oxus to Afghanistan. But NDN is not only long but also impractical; it does not allow too much cargo; and the Uzbeks forbid the transport of lethal weapons.

As for the Manas base in Kyrgyzstan, that's only for troops coming in and out, and for storage of jet fuel. The bottom line is that Islamabad knows the Pentagon simply cannot conduct the AfPak war without the Karachi-Torkham (300 trucks/tankers a day) and Karachi-Chaman (200 trucks/tankers a day) routes delivering like clockwork.

So if you break the balls of the Islamabad establishment to a tipping point and Taliban networks will have a free hand at attacking U.S./NATO convoys to Kingdom Come. Compare it with Beijing acknowledging Pakistan's “contribution and sacrifices in the war against terrorism”.

Beijing actively helped Islamabad's nuclear weapons program. Next August, China will launch a satellite into orbit for Pakistan. Roughly 75 percent of Pakistan's weapons are made in China. Soon 260 Chinese fighter jets will become the core of the Pakistani Air Force.

Even before Beijing delivered the message that Pakistan's sovereignty shouldn't be messed about, the Pakistani military had already delivered their own message.

It concerned that most photographed rotor of the stealth Black Hawk helicopter that crashed beside Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad. The Pakistanis threatened they would let the Chinese tinker with it -- and that would certainly yield some ace reverse engineering.

It didn't happen. But still they didn't get the message in a Washington whose leeway over Islamabad is a strategic rent that goes basically to Pakistan's military. If the U.S. congress would cut it -- threats abound -- there's no question Beijing would be delighted to make up the difference.

Washington may still have a sterling opportunity to get the message next month, when the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meets in Astana, Kazakhstan. There's a strong possibility that Pakistan may be enthroned as a full member, upgraded from its current status of observer.

This means, in practice, Pakistan as a member of the still embryonic Asian answer to NATO. An attack on any NATO member is an attack on them all, according to its charter. The same would apply to the SCO. Ladies and gentlemen, draw your conclusions -- and start dancing to the sound of the Sino-Pak shuffle.

Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times . His latest book is Obama Does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com

J&K Police contributing one day salary for 16 families of slain cops

Personnel of Jammu and Kashmir Police will donate one day salary for the families of their colleagues who were killed in recent militant attacks, a police spokesman said. Fourteen policemen and two SPO’s were killed in various militancy related incidents during this year.

Almost eight of them were killed in last two days. Six including a young police officer and his five colleagues were killed in south Kashmir.
The spokesman said that the one day salary of this month is aimed at showing solidarity with bereaved families. “The contributed amount will be credited into Range PHQ Welfare Fund under the title AIG Welfare PHQ J&K Account Number 0110010100004910 maintained at J&K Bank extension counter PHQ,” the spokesman said.

Later today, a Duaieya Majlis, a prayer meeting, and Quran Khawani was held this evening in Jamia Masjid Police lines Srinagar for six police personnel who were killed in Achabal by militants on Friday.
“These special prayers were held to pay homage to these martyrs and to show solidarity with the bereaved families,” the spokesman said. “The special prayers will continue for three days in Jamia Masjid Police Lines Srinagar.” He said the objective of the congressional payers was to convey that J&K police as a family stands with the families and they will be taken care of.

Feroz Ahmed Dar


Kashmiris have to decide'



In a chronicle of his death foretold, Feroz Ahmed Dar wrote, 'Just imagine...yourself in your grave. Down there in that dark hole...Alone.'
The 32-year-old Jammu and Kashmir police officer was buried on Friday night in the family's ancestral graveyard in Dogripora village in Pulwama district with many from the village and his department bidding him a tearful adieu.
Dar and five other policemen were killed on Friday in a gruesome ambush in Achabal in Anantnag district by suspected Lashkar-e-Tayyaba terrorists who tried to disfigure their faces before walking away with their weapons.
As his family and friends prepared for his last journey, his words written on January 18, 2013 came back to haunt.
'Did you ever stop for a while and asked yourself, what is going to happen to me the first night in my grave? Think about the moment your body is being washed and prepared to your grave.
'Think about the day people will be carrying you to your grave And your families crying ...think about the moment you are put in your grave,' he had written on his Facebook wall.
As Dogripora mourned its hero, his premonition of death echoed from his 'first night' in the grave.
The village, which shares its border with Budgam as well as Shopian districts, was awash with tears as it were. Villagers queued up outside Dar's home to offer their condolences.
His two daughters -- six-year-old Addah and two-year-old Simran -- watched bewildered, unable to understand the sudden rush of people at their house.
His wife Mubeena Akthar and aged parents wailed and beat their chests, trying to come to terms with the devastating loss.
Nicknamed 'Dabang' (daring) by his friends and a 'one man army', Dar had wished earnestly for the situation in the Kashmir Valley to return to normal.
'Oh God! when will be the day we see normal Kashmir,' he had written on his Facebook page on March 8, 2013.
While family and his colleagues grieved, so did his batchmates.
'Bus itna yaad raheek saathi aur bhi tha...' The refrain of the Bollywood song from the film LoC Kargil recalling the sacrifices of a soldier echoed their grief.
His batchmate Sunil Sharma posted Dar's picture and recalled the lyrics of the song in memory of those martyred in war.
Many of his batchmates and colleagues recalled their association with Dar and said he was a god fearing man and a true Muslim who offered prayers five times a day.
'The officer whom everybody loved and who could get the support and respect of everybody around will always be in our heart. This inhuman act will be punished and punished suitably. Condolences for all the men that we lost today,' Deputy Inspector General of Police (South Kashmir) Swayam Prakash Pani posted on his official Facebook page.
As the memories continue to build, and his family learns to live with the tragedy that has befallen them, Dar's hope for a peaceful Kashmir lives on. PTI