Karim Khan is a very lucky man. Most if not all people who are captured by the ISI under the pretext of some sort of need for information never see the light of day again.
So when a request to produce Khan was filed last week, his lucky number came up. The mediatic pressure, combined with the judiciary's action, ensured that Khan was produced.
The truth is, Khan, like any other who campaigns against US drone strikes, would usually be silenced by the ISI, which for decades has played a double game of both abetting and contrasting US action in the hopes of keeping the US money flowing.
Khan was 'extracted' by 20 ISI agents, in a warrantless arrest at his home, which terrified his family and sent Khan supporters rushing for action, before he could be potentially silenced forever.
The US drone strikes, essential for US policy on the pursuit of terrorist rebels in the semiautonomous Pakistani areas and elsewhere, has become increasingly erratic and imprecise, so that too many innocent civilians are being killed.
Enter Karim Khan. When he started campaigning against US drone attacks, he was profiled in a now celebrated documentary, in which he detailed how his family had been victimized by US drone attacks. After the movie, Khan became a figurehead for the Pakistani antidrone protest, and he had been vested with the mission of speaking in European countries on US drone strike attacks.
And that is when Khan ran into trouble. His disappearance, disguised as an arrest for some sort of sedition and need for information, was feared to become a pretext for the elimination of Khan. In Balochistan, a mass grave discovered very recently is suspected of being the ISI's dumping ground for dissidents of any kind. The bodies in the mass grave have been in part been identified as 'missing' people from other arrests conducted on people who had become too vociferous or had gained prominence as activists of some kind or another.
His body, furthermore is witness to the kind of 'information gathering' the ISI conducts. Bruises cover his body, even as he rests at his home.
But is Khan truly safe?
The drone campaign, which is the most sustained activity in the US fight against terrorism, has caused a large number of civilian deaths. However, that number has been manipulated from all sides to minimize the impact of the drone damage. In most cases the figure is said to be around 300, but some sources put the number closer to 1,000.
But where do the drones come from? Most people think that drones begin their flight in some far away airspace and that they fly thousands of miles until they reach their targets. The truth is, instead, that they begin in air bases in the Pakistani mainland or in the semi-autonomous provinces. At least until 2009.
The drone campaign, which has been ongoing for seemingly forever, has not raised any eyebrows in Europe or any other major country, leading the world to believe that it is an acceptable alternative to all out occupation and ground war against rebels or terrorist entities.
For these reasons, the case filed by Karim Khan against US drone strikes in Pakistani courts must have alarmed the forces in Pakistan that participate in the drone campaign, overtly or covertly. Even though Khan's court filing was for restitution, its message was clear. Victims of drone strikes were no longer willing to keep quiet. What is worse, the lawyer who aided Khan in filing his case, was also helping other families who had been victimized by drone strikes.
A recent interview in the BBC detailed how non state violence, i.e., violence by terrorists or other entities, and state violence, the actions of state agencies against citizens, just like the kidnapping of Khan are seemingly intertwined, or at least are believed to be. As Madiha Tahir explained in an interview by Amy Goodman, "The suicide attacks have increased in the last decade as Pakistan has been attacked by drones and has participated in the war on terror." For many Pakistanis, the violence they witness, sectarian or not, Taliban or not, in the form or bombings or other terrorist activity is the direct product of the drone strikes by the US. In turn, Tahir also points to the Pakistani government role, since it partipates in the so called war on terror.
In addition, US drone strikes have come under increased criticism because they target people who are suspected terrorists and who are believed to be conspirators or co conspirators in future terrorist attacks. But the evidence used to construct these future scenario is built on phone intercepts and the interpretation of analysts who decide who could potentially take part in a future terrorist attack. This kind of preemptive work is fraught with errors, as analysts rely on data that is not always reliable. In many instances, as Madiha Tahir explains in the interview, "signature strikes, which ar strikes that aren't actually targeting a specific, named, high value target or anything of that nature, but rather people whose behavioral patterns, for one reason or another, appear to trigger a suspicion in the US intelligence apparatus that they may or may not be militants."
In addition, the targeted killings are actions that precede a terrorist act, which may or may not materialize so that the justification for the drone attack itself is basically unethical, because it would be akin to arresting or executing a criminal in the US who is deemed a potential repeat offender or just a future offender.
The Hindu newspaper related on the February 14th, that Khan was released in Rawalpindi after being tortured and interrogated to extract information on his knowledge of drone strikes. He was thrown out of a moving van, and told to remain silent about his kidnapping. He was also told to stay away from the media.
Khan for his part, is undeterred, and plans to travel to the UK and the Netherlands to speak about his experience this week. Although Khan is under no illusion that he has narrowly escaped death, and has thanked all of those people who campaigned for his release, he knows that his continued activism will forever make him a target for elimination.
Pressure is mounting in Pakistan to end drone strikes. Imran Khan, the aging kricketeer, has filed a complaint against the local CIA chief in Islamabad after a drone strike in November killed a number of children in a targeted strike of a madrassa. The Peshawar High Court, furthermore, has decreed that drone strikes are illegal and in violation of International Law. In particular, Imran Khan accused the CIA chief of conducting the operational work that led to the strike, a clear violation of diplomatic regulations which state that a diplomatic mission cannot be used for criminal activity in a foreign state.
But at the basis of the drone strikes dilemma is the fact that Pakistan is still willingly allowing them to be carried out, and in so doing, deflecting its own responsibility for dealing with the radical extremists. And of course, the intensified terrorist activity has been seen as a direct result of the drone strikes.
But this approach is just too convenient. The radicalization of Pakistani youth had begun long before the heavy drone strike campaign that we see today. In addition, the terrorist activity is increasingly sectarian, which can not in itself be directly attributable to drone strikes.
This duplicity of the military, intelligence forces and the government of Pakistan itself, is in net contrast with the grass roots movement of which Khan is a member. The agitation of someone like candidate Imran Khan or even the Prime Minister, on the subject of drone attacks, not to mention the attempted inclusion of the Taliban in Pakistani government, is futile and in some cases a cloak for the activities of the military/intelligence complex, who are complicit in the drone strikes. Whether the judiciary decides that drone strikes are in violation of sovereignty, and the sentiment is echoed by politicians, makes little difference to those on the ground and the population at large.
But this game or passing the buck, as it may, prolongs the inevitable action Pakistan must take to address its own terrorism problems. As long as it lets a foreign entity do its dirty work, Pakistani citizens will continue to die under drone bombings or in state terrorist attacks from Islamists or the Taliban. The anti-American sentiment generated by the strikes, and the fomenting by interested political parties who remain inactive on the home front, is an all too easy scapegoat. What Pakistanis need is action stateside by honest, and determined political administrations who put an end to the military/Intelligence duplicity and address the growing sectarian nature of terrorism and its agents.
Op-Ed
Partial Sources: The Indipendent/BBC/DemocracyNow/the HIndu/
2.17.14
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