Maybe Rohrabacher should be sent to ‘Balookistan’ with his wits. One way ticket.

@Jim White:

tx.

i had missed that.

In fact, Balochistan should be independent, but the demagogic intervention of the Americans is not aimed at independence, but leveraging legitimate national aspirations for their own political-military purposes. One would hope that, unlike, say, the Kurds, the Balochi independence leaders will not fall for overtures from the CIA, DoD, State, etc. Unfortunately, that does not appear to be happening, as this article explains. (The president of the Balochistan National Party is asking for UN intervention; other leaders have met with Secty of State Clinton.)

Re how the Balochistan issue is perceived by some groups within Pakistan, see this article about calls by the Womens’ Action Forum in Pakistan for the independence of Balochistan:

The WAF demanded the government to solve the issues of the Balochistan in accordance with their aspirations and rights. The WAF also said being the champions of the rights 90 million women across the country would also disseminate messages of awareness among women about the critical situation of Balochistan. WAF also reiterated its earlier stance for keeping on struggle for secular state in Pakistan besides highlighting the biased outlook of religious clerics towards women on the name of Islam.

Two social workers hailing from Balochistan lamented the stone-heartedness of Punjabi and media as a whole for ignoring the incidents of killings, maiming of innocent citizens, detention, disappearance and ethnic targeting of Balochi people at the hands of security forces and outlawed groups.

Kawish Mehboob, a social worker hailing from Khuzdar Balochistan, said Balochi women always played a positive role to restore peace in the province but now after seeing the dead bodies of their beloved ones they also stood against the atrocities committed by the security forces and outlawed religious parties. She said women did not like to see weapons at the hands of their sons or husbands but when they were being disappeared or killed how could then women stop them from raising weapons against the state. She said the Punjab and media were ignoring Balochistan and she feared if steps would not be taken to redress the complaints of Balochistan’s people, it would be very difficult for them to stick with the federation of the country.

Let’s not forget that the Baloch region spills over into southeastern Iran and Helmland province of Afghanistan. Independence movements and fighting for Balochistan goes back to the creation of the Pakistani state.

The different tribes in Balochistan got caught up in both the US actions against Iran and the anti-Soviet CIA-supported jihad in Afghanistan. The tribes split between support for the USSR and the US (see this history). So the region has been a matter of contention and great power maneuvering, not to mention Iran-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India politics for decades now.

Balochistan has considerable strategic importance for the US for various reasons: Most of Pakistan’s oil and gas resources are located in Balochistan and about 30 percent of these are controlled by American oil companies, many of them from President George W Bush’s home state of Texas. It is an important window on Iran. If the US decides to overthrow the Iranian regime after getting rid of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, the pro-US Balochi tribes, particularly the Jamalis, could be as useful to Washington DC as the Kurds are expected to be against Saddam Hussein. Balochistan is an escape route for the dregs of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda and the International Islamic Front (IIF) trying to get away by sea to Yemen.

For the same reasons, Balochistan has become an important operational area for al-Qaeda and IIF remnants in their attempts to hurt US economic interests in Pakistan in retaliation for the US war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and its campaign against the Saddam regime. They have been receiving assistance in their endeavors from the pro-Iraqi and anti-US segments of the Balochi tribals on both sides of the Pakistan-Iran border.

As I said, Rohrabacher’s posturing is not actually for the good of the people in that region, but to position the US to possibly make clandestine or military moves in the region, especially given the conflict with Pakistan. This has of course already occurred (see this article). However, we should remember this does not mean the complaints of the Balochis are not without validity.

The “sense of Congress” bill is meant to tweak the Pakistani government. But not only them, but perhaps even more (since US military intervention in Iran is at issue these days) is the rationale for movement against Iran. From the bill’s language: “… Whereas a popular insurgency is also under way in Sistan-Baluchistan and being met by brutal repression by the dictatorship in Iran which has added religious bigotry to tyranny…”

The US and its allies uses humanitarian language as a cover for military intervention and imperialist goals.

Perhaps Donna will now start to support the aspirations of the Palestinians to a national home and the Serbs in Bosnia and Kosovo to be recognized as part of Serbia.