Support for the Baloch Insurgency: Right-wing or Left-wing?

geocurrents.info/geopolitics/support-for-the-baloch-insurgency-right-wing-or-left-wing

By Martin W. Lewis
A recent (May 14) discussion thread in GeoCurrents takes
on the one-dimensional left/right political spectrum. Jim
Wilson perceptively notes that he always like[s] watching
political commentators trying to decide whether those who
want to roll back the reforms of Deng Xiaoping are the right
wing or the left wing of the Chinese Communist Party.
Another instance in which it can be dicult to distinguish left
from right is the debate over the role of the United States in
the Balochistan conict. Several recent articles exemplify the
diculties involved.
The rst case in point is a recent article by Tony Cartalucci,
entitled US Government is Behind the Baluchi Insurrection. Cartalucci blames the United States, along with oil
companies, international nancial rms, and corporate-nancier funded NGOs, for inciting violence in
Baluchistan. The nefarious goals of such intervention, Cartalucci argues, are to partition Pakistan, to hobble the
development of India, Iran, and China, to weaken Asia more generally, and thereby to secure the US-led
international system. His conclusion is extreme:
For those wondering why America is attempting to escalate tensions in Pakistan over the Bin Laden hoax
instead of using it as an excuse to leave the region, the Balkanization of Pakistan and the permanent disruption
of Pakistans, Irans, and Chinas development is your answer. It isnt a matter of if, it is now only a matter of how
big the insurrection can be grown.
On the face of it, Cartaluccis article might seem to be on the far left of the political spectrum. The periodical in
which it is published, Salem-News, carries article with such provocative titles as Military Rape: (SOP) Standard
Operating Proceedure. On further examination, however, the situation is not so simple. Cartalucci, it turns out,
tracs with the far right, working with Liberty News Radio, which features the infamous White-supremacist show,
The Political Cesspool. Just below a recent Cartalucci piece on the LNR website is an article claiming that
Martin Bormann, the man who signed Hitlers paycheck was a Soviet i.e. Illuminati agent. Perhaps, in the end,
Cartalucci is simply an extremist; as the French saying puts it, les extremes se touchent (the extremes meet).
A seemingly more conventional left-wing take on Balochistan is found in a recent Michael Hughes essay in the
Hungton Post. Hughes comes down on the United States almost as hard as Cartalucci does, nding it complicit
in the slaughter of 10,000 Pakistanis. His premises, however, are eectively the opposite of Cartaluccis. In his
perspective, the US has unconscionably sided with the vile Pakistani government against the brave and noble
freedom ghters of Baluchistan. As Hughes puts it:
The Pakistani state has misused billions in U.S. military aid (belied by its harboring of the worlds most wanted
terrorist) and has used U.S. military hardwareincluding F-16s, Cobra helicopters and CIA listening devicesto
oppress the Baloch people on a daily basis, an oppression that features emotionally torturous tactics such as
what the Baloch refer to by the literal euphemism kill and dump along with enforced disappearances at a clip
that rivals Pinochets Chile
Yet Michael Hughes presents his own admixture of left and right; he not only advocates the independence of
Baluchistan, but calls openly for the Balkanization of Pakistan. He would like to see Sindh and Punjab become
independent countries and the Pashtun areas of Pakistan appended to Afghanistan. Proposing such a division of
a sovereign state is by no means common on the left. Most advocates of Pakistani partition are conservative,
and most leftists would probably regard the idea as a divide and rule neo-imperial ploy.

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Hughes begins his article with a nod toward seasoned journalist/scholar/ statesman Selig Harrison, who has
been writing on Balochistan since the 1970s. Harrison is not easy to peg, either. Most of his positions, such as
favoring normalization with North Korea, would be considered left-of-center. He does seek to enhance U.S.
security, however, and one of his recent articles on Balochistan appears in a conservative journal, The National
Interest. Yet even here his arguments begin on the left. In regard to Pakistan, he wants to end drone attacks and
military subsidies while maintaining development support and the ow of IMF funds. Harrison would also like to
increase market access in the US for Pakistani exporters. But in the end, Harrison too calls for the division of the
country. His reasoning here hinges on US national security:
Most important, [the United States] should aid the 6 million Baluch insurgents ghting for independence from
Pakistan in the face of growing ISI repression. Pakistan has given China a base at Gwadar in the heart of Baluch
territory. So an independent Baluchistan would serve U.S. strategic interests in addition to the immediate goal of
countering Islamist forces.
Such a position is dicult to square with Harrisons other recommendations, which focus on calming the
relationship between the Washington and Islamabad. From the Pakistani perspective, drone strikes are minor
irritants compared to the possible secession of Baluchistan.
By advocating the break-up of Pakistan, Harrison and especially Hughes move into the territory of the right-wing
strategist Ralph Peters, whose 2006 article Blood Borders: How a Better Middle East Would Look
contemplates the wholesale rearrangement of the regions geopolitical order. (I have reproduced Peters map
here, adding the outline of Pakistan; see the previous GeoCurrents post for a longer discussion.) The publication
of Blood Borders provoked outrage from Pakistan to Turkey, as many local commentators assumed that it
represented a secret US plan for dismembering their countries to enhance American and Israeli power.
Regardless of Harrison and Hughes ideological proclivities and political bedfellows, their portrayal of the Baloch
insurgency should be taken on its own terms. Both authors nd the rebellion essentially secular, arguing that its
success would help counter radical Islamism. Such a depiction may t the Pakistani side of the border, but not
the Iranian side. And even in Pakistan, some skepticism is warranted. Hughes views the Baloch people
uncritically, claiming that they form a society that believes in a traditional nonviolent version of Islam and that
respect[s] the natural rights of each individual. Such an appraisal may be a tad nave. Baloch culture is usually
described as deeply hierarchical, highly conservative, and suspicious of individual rights, especially where
women are concerned. So-called honor killings are relatively common. In a particularly infamous 2008 case, ve
Baloch womenincluding three teenagerswere tortured and then buried alive for the crime of attempting to
marry men of their own choosing.
The desire to dissect Pakistan, by the way, is not limited to
Baluchi insurgents and American political writers. The view
is probably most widespread in India. The most extreme
partition scheme is the one seen on this map, which also
divides Afghanistan. I have not traced the maps
provenance, but I can only assume that it is Indian. Note that
the authors rump Pakistan would not even include south
Punjab.

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