Pak's Brigadier Amanullah:We need to Nuclear war

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Please browse this extraordinary URL:

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/03/landesman.htm

>(If link doesn't work, article has been pasted below)

>Hey Ram, what a chilling reading it makes! This is a literary masterpiece

>and the sentiments brought out with such tremendous force are just

>stunning. I think the report is true and genuine and not a piece of fiction

>or a short story. Brigadier Amanullah was sincere in everything he said and

>I have no doubt that he meant every word that he uttered.

>

>I wish President Bush and Secry. of State Powell read Brigadier Amanullah's

>statements and what it means for USA to have Pakistan as an ally with such

>thinkers in the armed forces of Pakistan, with such strategies that

>Pakistan should fire the nuclear missiles pre-emptively, resulting in the

>destruction of major cities of Bha_rata and Pakistan.

>"We should fire at them and take out a few of their cities—Delhi, Bombay,

>Calcutta," he said. "They should fire back and take Karachi and Lahore.

>Kill off a hundred or two hundred million people. They should fire at us

>and it would all be over. They have acted so badly toward us; they have

>been so mean. We should teach them a lesson. It would teach all of us a

>lesson. There is no future here, and we need to start over. So many people

>think this. Have you been to the villages of Pakistan, the interior? There

>is nothing but dire poverty and pain. The children have no education; there

>is nothing to look forward to. Go into the villages, see the poverty. There

>is no drinking water. Small children without shoes walk miles for a drink

>of water. I go to the villages and I want to cry. My children have no

>future. None of the children of Pakistan have a future. We are surrounded

>by nothing but war and suffering. Millions should die away."

>Is it conceivable that a human being can talk with such cold-blooded

>clarity with total unconcern for humanity? Is it part of the psyche of a

>muslim's hatred against the kufr-s of Bha_rata and a result of total

>despondency thinking about a failed state of Pakistan?

>

>

Islamabad

 

A Modest Proposal From the Brigadier

 

What one prominent Pakistani thinks his country should do with its atomic

weapons

 

by Peter Landesman

 

......

 

 

n the center of the biggest traffic circle of every major city in Pakistan

sits a craggy, Gibraltarish replica of a nameless peak in the Chagai range.

This mountain is the home of Pakistan's nuclear test site. The development,

in 1998, of the "Islamic Bomb," intended as a counter to India's nuclear

capability, is Pakistan's only celebrated achievement since its formation,

in 1947. The mountain replicas, about three stories tall, are surrounded by

flower beds that are lovingly weeded, watered, and manicured. At dusk, when

the streetlights come on, so do the mountains, glowing a weird molten

yellow.

 

Islamabad's monument to the atomic bomb occupies a rotary between the

airport and the city center. Nearby stand models of Pakistan's two classes

of missile: Shaheen and Ghauri. The Islamabad nuclear shrine stands at a

place where the city is dissolving into an incoherent edge town of shabby

strip malls and empty boulevards and rows of desolate government buildings.

A little farther in one comes to the gridded blocks of gated homes. The

neighborhoods are called sectors. The streets are numbered, not named.

 

Late last year, after nearly two months in Pakistan, I paid the last of many

visits to house No. 8 on street 19, sector F-8/2, a modern white mansion

known as Zardari House. The house has been used by Asif Ali Zardari, the

imprisoned husband of Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan's exiled former Prime

Minister. Neither Zardari nor Bhutto has been there for a long time. Zardari

has been confined for five years, most recently in Attock Fort, a medieval

fortress perched over the Indus River between Islamabad and Peshawar. He is

charged with a slew of crimes: large-scale corruption; conspiracy in the

murder of Bhutto's brother Mir Murtaza; conspiracy to smuggle narcotics.

Bhutto, who also faces corruption charges in Pakistan, lives in Dubai with

their three children. Pakistan's leader, General Pervez Musharraf, has

promised to have her arrested and tried if she ever returns to Pakistan.

Outside the gate to the empty Zardari House sits a man with his back to the

wall, a sawed-off shotgun across his knees.

 

I had been going there to consult with Brigadier Amanullah, known to his

friends as Aman. Aman, in his early fifties and now retired, is lithe and

gentle-natured and seemed to me slightly depressed. He works in a small

office behind Zardari House, where, as the secretary to Benazir Bhutto in

Islamabad, he coordinates Bhutto's efforts to return to Pakistan and regain

its prime ministership. He also keeps in close touch with old colleagues,

who include many powerful people in Pakistan. Aman was once the chief of

Pakistan's military intelligence in Sind Province, which borders India.

Pakistan's biggest city and a cultural center, Karachi, is in Sind. That put

Aman squarely in the middle of things, his finger near many sorts of

buttons. Today Aman is believed to act as Bhutto's liaison with the armed

forces, and he maintains contacts with serving army officers, including

senior generals. When I wanted to speak to someone in the Pakistani

government, I asked Aman. When I wanted to speak to someone in the Taliban,

or in military intelligence, or in the political opposition, I asked Aman.

His replies were mumbled and monosyllabic. He never offered opinions. He

would simply hear me out and, most times, tip his head and say, "Why not?"

Within an hour after Aman and I parted, I would receive a phone call from

his secretary. References would be made to "that man" or "that matter," and

I would be given a phone number and a time to call. Having spoken with Aman,

I was always expected.

 

On the day of my final visit Aman seemed more sullen than usual. He ushered

me into a room adjoining the office. The room was long and spare. There was

an oil painting on the far wall. The other walls were empty and lined with

cushioned chairs. Aman sat across from me. We had tea and spoke about the

latest events.

 

As we were wrapping up our conversation, I looked at the oil painting. It

was a strange picture, a horizontal landscape about four feet across, with

overtones of socialist realism. In the foreground a youthful Benazir Bhutto

stood in heroic pose on an escarpment overlooking the featureless grid of

Islamabad. Beside her stood her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a Prime

Minister who in 1977 was ousted in a coup and two years later hanged. On the

other side of Bhutto was Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the long-dead founding father

of Pakistan. Their postures were exalted, their expressions a combination of

pride and awe. Jinnah's arm pointed to the vast plain beyond the city, where

a rocket was lifting out of billowing clouds of vapor and fire into the sky.

 

Aman noticed me looking at the painting and followed my gaze. I asked him if

Benazir Bhutto had commissioned it, and Aman said no. He told me that one

day when she was still Prime Minister, an unknown man, an ordinary Pakistani

citizen, had come to the gate of Zardari House with the picture and told

Aman that he'd painted it for the Prime Minister and wanted to present it to

her as a gift. Aman said that he was immediately transfixed by the painting.

He called to Bhutto inside the house, but she refused to come down to see

the man. Aman was persistent, and eventually she came down.

 

"I insisted Benazir accept it as a gift," Aman told me.

 

We both looked up at the painting in silence. "A rocket ship heading to the

moon?" I asked.

 

Aman tipped his head to the side. A smirk tugged at the corners of his

mouth. "No," he said. "A nuclear warhead heading to India."

 

I thought he was making a joke. Then I saw he wasn't. I thought of the

shrines to Pakistan's nuclear-weapons site, prominently displayed in every

city. I told Aman that I was disturbed by the ease with which Pakistanis

talk of nuclear war with India.

 

Aman shook his head. "No," he said matter-of-factly. "This should happen. We

should use the bomb."

 

"For what purpose?" He didn't seem to understand my question. "In

retaliation?" I asked.

 

"Why not?"

 

"Or first strike?"

 

"Why not?"

 

I looked for a sign of irony. None was visible. Rocking his head side to

side, his expression becoming more and more withdrawn, Aman launched into a

monologue that neither of us, I am sure, knew was coming:

 

"We should fire at them and take out a few of their cities—Delhi, Bombay,

Calcutta," he said. "They should fire back and take Karachi and Lahore. Kill

off a hundred or two hundred million people. They should fire at us and it

would all be over. They have acted so badly toward us; they have been so

mean. We should teach them a lesson. It would teach all of us a lesson.

There is no future here, and we need to start over. So many people think

this. Have you been to the villages of Pakistan, the interior? There is

nothing but dire poverty and pain. The children have no education; there is

nothing to look forward to. Go into the villages, see the poverty. There is

no drinking water. Small children without shoes walk miles for a drink of

water. I go to the villages and I want to cry. My children have no future.

None of the children of Pakistan have a future. We are surrounded by nothing

but war and suffering. Millions should die away."

 

"Pakistan should fire pre-emptively?" I asked.

 

Aman nodded.

 

"And you are willing to see your children die?"

 

"Tens of thousands of people are dying in Kashmir, and the only superpower

says nothing," Aman said. "America has sided with India because it has

interests there." He told me he was willing to see his children be killed.

He repeated that they didn't have any future—his children or any other

children.

 

I asked him if he thought he was alone in his thoughts, and Aman made it

clear to me that he was not.

 

"Believe me," he went on, "If I were in charge, I would have already done

it."

 

Aman stopped, as though he'd stunned even himself. Then he added, with quiet

forcefulness, "Before I die, I hope I should see it."

 

 

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