By Anjum Niaz
The Pakistan army may shun a coup; the US army may not. Or if the 17-member bench of the Supreme Court fails to trigger a government change, worry not, climate change can! According to the Pentagon and intelligence agencies, climate change can topple governments; feed terrorist movements and destabilise entire regions. Climate change is therefore the matrix for corruption and terrorism. Pakistan is being warned of the possibility of a US intervention. What’s heat got to do with it? What’s drought got to do with it? What’s an inept ruler got to do with it?
"It gets real complicated real quickly," said Amanda Dory, the deputy assistant secretary of defence for strategy, working with a Pentagon group assigned to incorporate climate change into national security strategy planning. The prospect of famines, drought, floods, mass migration and storms caused by climate change can gun-trigger the American military to enter our territory.
Last August prophets of climate change warned the world that ’shaky’ countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan will become a ‘hotbed of terrorism,’ if not the future headquarters of Al Qaeda, should drought, deluge, earthquakes, pestilence, mass migration (read population explosion) and various other natural disasters occur. The US military has been alerted and Las Vegas (of all the places!) is the epicentre of strategists getting exercised over Pakistan facing the prospects of famine, water crisis and pestilence. The military in America will respond.
Remember what Dick Cheney said: "If there’s a 1 per cent chance that Pakistani scientists are helping Al Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response." The then vice-president spoke of a new type of threat from Pakistan: a ‘low-probability, high-impact event.’
Senator Kerry is paying serious attention to the National Intelligence Council (the source of US security intelligence) warnings that scourges like ‘poverty, environmental degradation and the weakening of national governments,’ are hot button issues screaming for action.
America may have unilaterally given itself the authority for ‘military intervention’ should a natural or man-made catastrophe was to hit Pakistan. In the 2005 earthquake, the then American ambassador Ryan Crocker planned taking charge of relief efforts. He convinced Musharraf that the Americans could do a better job than the Pakistanis. Crocker and his team of army men landed at the Prime Minister’s Secretariat to set up their disaster management headquarters. "Big beefy colonels toting their cell phones and walkie-talkies roamed the corridors barking orders at us," an eyewitness told me. "We were running like scared chickens trying not to get trampled." Fortunately, saner voices prevailed and the Americans were finally told to vacate the premises.
When the army action began in Swat this summer, the American embassy in Islamabad again approached Prime Minister Gilani. Ambassador Anne Patterson offered to help with the logistics. The NWFP government invited the US to help them with the IDPs (internally displaced persons). A junket was organised by the Humanitarian Dialogue for the politicians and non-governmental organisations from NWFP and FATA in Geneva.
The press release from Geneva said: "Participants were able to reach a consensus that effective humanitarian delivery depends on a transparent and structured dialogue with militant actors by humanitarian agencies with the full knowledge, support and agreement of the government."
Pakistan signed away its sovereign rights to the UN agencies, allowing them unhindered access to the militants.
Today the UN conference on climate change is taking place in Copenhagen as is the surge of US troops in Afghanistan. Connect the dots for a complete picture. ‘Af-Pak’ will pop out. That’s target 2010!
(The article first appeared in The News Intl. Views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of PKonweb)
