The Enigma of
Allies and
Enemies

by Mumia Abu-Jamal

What a difference a month makes!

As the United States continues to bombard the feudal
state of
Afghanistan, with the gleeful (yet anxious!)
connivance of a bevy of
assorted junior partners, the playlist of who's who
seems to get
rewritten by the hour. Unperturbed by the Churchillian
axiom that a
nation has no permanent friends, nor permanent
enemies, but only
permanent interests, the U.S. has cast a wide,
imperial net, to scoop
up a bucket-full of buddies.

The resultant quasi-"coalition" is a reflection of
the wide and deep
contradictions that emerge, when one considers what
the U.S.
announces is its foreign policy, and what it is in
"realpolitik". If
the U.S. is the target of the "terrorists" because of
'its wonderful
democracy' (as non-majority-elected President Bush
suggests) why is
it bundled up with nations that see democracy as a bad
word?

Pakistan and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are many
things, but
democracies they ain't!

Only one person voted for Gen. P. Musharraf to become
President of
Pakistan -- himself! Because he was General, his was
the only vote
that counted. In clear, unalloyed terms, Pakistan is a
military
dictatorship. Worse, it is an unstable state where
upwards of 80% of
its population support the Taliban of Afghanistan --
which exists, in
part, because of the machinations of Pakistani
military intelligence!

The Saudi Kingdom is, in essence, a theocracy, where
the Royal Family
rules with an iron hand, and where women aren't even
allowed to
drive! The Bin-Laden clan is one of the First Families
of the
kingdom, builders of many of the structures in the
Islamic holy
places of Mecca.

The Wahabbi sect of Islam promoted by the Royal House
is but a
variant of that practiced by the Taliban.

The madrassas in Pakistan (of which there are over
10,000) were, for
the better part of two decades, training schools for
the Taliban,
and, in fact, educated perhaps 75% of it's leadership.
Pakistan,
being a desperately poor, post- colonial nation,
cannot afford public
education for its teeming young population. The
madrassas therefore,
being the only free schools in the region, are plush
with students,
who learn a thorough Koranic education, with history
from an Islamic
perspective.

The backers of the madrassas? Saudi Arabia.

"OK, Jamal - - - What's the point?", the thoughtful
readers ask.

The point is that the two best buds of the USA -- Ally
No. 1 -
Pakistan; and Ally No. 2 -- Saudi Arabia, -- are the
prime movers,
backers, supporters, and sustainers of the so-called
'enemy': the
Taliban.

If "80%" of Pakistanis support the Taliban (in a
region where one's
ethnicity or tribal allegiances may go deeper than
religion!) what
can any government -- even a military dictatorship --
do to suppress
that statement?

The American bombing campaign is sowing the pregnant
seeds of civil
war in Pakistan, and rolling instability in the whole
region.

For the closer the US nestles to Pakistan, the more
nervous the
(democratic!) Republic of India gets. The two nations
are already
involved in an on-again, off-again, shooting war over
the northern
Indian (or is it western Pakistani?) province of
Kashmir.

Kashmir, with its overwhelmingly Muslim population has
been agitating
for homerule, and national independence for decades.
To the Indians,
Kashmiri militants are "terrorists." To the
Pakistanis, they look a
lot like "freedom fighters." (Isn't that the same
thing that was said
about the Taliban when they were "mujahadeen" fighting
the Soviets?).

The US charges into a thicket, knowing neither its
enemies, nor its
real friends.

It is a time of danger, that holds dangers not just
for the US, nor
even the region: but the world.

Copyright '01 Mumia Abu-Jamal