-Dr. Abdul Ruff Colachal
Too late and too little and not enough- that is what Pakistan has been to the USA for years of their secret capitalist ties based on crimes. While Pakistan seeks more money and military goods, USA wants Pakistan to kill more and more Muslims.
Islamic Pakistan has been a post-paid and willing ally of US led NATO in their anti-Islamic war to reduce Islamic populations globally and loot their resources. Many third world countries, including India, pay regular “royalties” to Washington for its “services” and from those collections of money USA pays its junior allies, like Pakistan, in terror related operations to kill Muslims and bring shame to Islam.
Pakistan has been a loyal partner of terrorism even before Bush Jr. asked and used Islamabad to serve the imperialist cause to destabilize a fast Islamizing Afghanistan, among other services. Refusal to obey the big boss the Uncle Sam would entail punitive measures against Pakistan would be disastrous to Pakistani rulers themselves. Islamabad did not want India to benefit from any clash between USA and Pakistan though the USA openly attacks Islamabad for “deficit” of services. American strategists have profitably used Indo-Pakistani conflict over Kashmir that both occupy along with China, and India drove Pakistani mindset to bully Islamabad to do whatever Washington wants illegally and take all blame and insults as its cruel fate.
For everything, money does matter, and the USA as well as Pakistan knows that. India is looking for “opportunities” to laugh at Islamabad and Islam, quickly uses all available spaces to make fanatic Hindus happy.
Even though Pakistan goes all out to make its western boss USA happy, US president has made it a point to criticize Pakistan for “not doing enough” in murdering Muslims inland and shamelessly threatens to withhold the “aids” in military terror goods.
For the USA, terrorism and counterterrorism are the inter-playable drama as it promotes both in real intent so that terrorism stays forever to deny Russia any opportunity to demand the dismantling of NATO. USA reiterates its will to sustain NATO to face any future “threats” like terrorism, and thus terrorism is allowed to say forever.
Western media enjoy repeating the joke that Pakistan takes US money but doesn’t kill Muslims as it is insincere to the US cause of anti-Islamism.
Islam and anti-Islamism cannot coexist. Even Pakistan which possible exists only on money from the west as service charges are not sure of this.
At times, Pakistan resents the US attitude towards it south Asian ally that has sacrificed so much for protecting US interests in the region.
Trumpish claim
Trump says those countries like Pakistan that sustain themselves thanks to US coins must serve the cause of US supremacy. His logic is Pakistan must do exactly what Washington asks it without questions as they have no full sovereignty to make policies independently.
President Trump’s claim of “paying Pakistan billions and billions of dollars” was said to be “misleading.” The statement said the money given to Pakistan was reimbursement of the “part of the cost of ground facilities and air corridors used by the United States for its operations in Afghanistan” and not any “any financial aid or assistance.”
The NSC called for recognition of the sacrifices made by Pakistan in the fight against terrorism regarding tens of thousands of civilian and security personnel martyred and $120 billion in economic losses suffered by the country’s economy. It warned that scapegoating Pakistan for failures in the Afghan war would not help in achieving the objective of stabilizing war-ravaged Afghanistan.
Recently, Pakistan’s top civilian and military leadership strongly rejected US President Donald Trump’s allegations of insincerity and duplicity in the fight against “terrorism” and set conditions for future counterterrorism cooperation with USA and Kabul, specifically the removal of “hideouts” in eastern Afghanistan. These sanctuaries were created by the USA for its purposes.
Can’t USA and India do that? Why do Americans need Pakistani help in what it can do much better in Afghanistan which is under its military control? Already USA and India have collaborated to destabilize Pakistan which is supposed to develop a genuinely Islamic state and promote the genuine interests of Muslims now Pakistan promotes the interests of the USA and wealthy Pakistanis.
Anti-Islamism and Pakistan
Is not Pakistan betraying Islamic faith and tenets by serving the anti-Islamic west in killing a Muslims? Taking bribes from the USA for attacking Muslims does not augur well for the Islamic faith.
The USA forced Pakistani military regime to engineer a terror attack on mosques in the capital- Lal Mosque attack would tell the story of how badly degraded Islamic Pakistan!
Alternatively, why can’t the Pakistani regime tell the Americans straight in their faces that it won’t anymore serve the causes of anti-Islamism or kill Muslims as that goes against the goals set by the founder Mr. Jinnah?
So, the USA and its new strategic ally India are forcing Islamabad to kill Muslims indoors as they all are terrorists.
The USA does let Pakistan chart its Islamic policies that benefit common folks and help improve the nation’s prestige. The government’s formal and comprehensive response to the Trumps policy on Afghanistan and South Asia came after a meeting of the Pakistani National Security Committee (NSC), which was chaired by the new incumbent PM Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and attended by ministers for defense, foreign affairs, finance, and interior, the national security adviser, services chiefs and heads of intelligence agencies and military operations.
NSC statement
The statement issued after the NSC meeting was a detailed rejoinder to all elements of concern in the new US policy and President Trump’s arrogant speech as the big boss — the allegations about sanctuaries, claims about taking billions and billions of dollars in aid from Washington, fears about nuclear security, and the formalization of India’s role in Afghanistan.
In fact, the NSC was specially convened for deliberations on the US policy and formulating the ‘comprehensive response.’ The government had earlier given a preliminary response to the plan after a meeting of the federal cabinet. The army too had expressed its views through a statement after a meeting between Chief of the Army Staff Gen Qamar Bajwa and US Ambassador David Hale.
The bottom line of the response is that Pakistan remains committed to international efforts for peace and stability in Afghanistan, but it also wants its concerns to be addressed, including the central issue of sanctuaries on Afghan soil.
The demand for elimination of “sanctuaries,” created by the occupation forces of Pentagon-CIA duo under NATO was thrice mentioned in the unusually long statement. Counterterrorism cooperation with the US and Afghanistan, the NSC said, was contingent upon: “focusing on core issues of eliminating safe havens inside Afghanistan, border management, the return of refugees and reinvigorating the peace process for a political settlement in Afghanistan.”
At another point, the NSC underscored that it would “more specifically” want “effective and immediate US military efforts to eliminate sanctuaries harboring terrorists and miscreants on the Afghan soil, including those responsible for fomenting terror in Pakistan.” Separately, it said: “Pakistan is committed to not allowing its soil to be used for violence against any other country. We expect the same from our neighbors.”
In his speech, President Trump renewed the fears of nuclear security when he identified as a major US interest in Afghanistan and Pakistan the effort to “prevent nuclear weapons and materials from coming into the hands of terrorists.” The NSC dismissed those apprehensions as baseless and reminded that Pakistan has an internationally-recognized “robust and credible command and control system, ” and it is “a responsible nuclear weapon state.”
US false accusation
The committee went to lengths to reject the US charge of terrorist sanctuaries on Pakistani soil that was also rebuffed in the preliminary statement as “false narrative.” It was said that Pakistan’s indiscriminate action against all terrorist groups was proven by the improved security environment in the country. Pakistan’s commitment to fighting terrorism, it maintained, was also demonstrated by its counterterrorism cooperation with the US in the past, something which was also acknowledged by Trump. “We consider the lives of the citizens of other countries as sacrosanct as those of our own,” the statement said.
President Trump’s claim of “paying Pakistan billions and billions of dollars” was said to be “misleading.” The statement said the money given to Pakistan was reimbursement of the “part of the cost of ground facilities and air corridors used by the USA for its operations in Afghanistan” and not any “any financial aid or assistance.”
The NSC called for recognition of the sacrifices made by Pakistan in the fight against terrorism regarding tens of thousands of civilian and security personnel martyred and $120 billion in economic losses suffered by the country’s economy. It warned that scapegoating Pakistan for failures in the Afghan war would not help in achieving the objective of stabilizing war-ravaged Afghanistan.
US terror sanctuaries
While announcing the new Afghan policy ─ which calls for greater troop deployment and Indian involvement in Afghanistan ─ Trump had dramatically “lambasted” Pakistan for offering for providing safe havens to “agents of chaos.”
Terrorists from their sanctuaries in Afghanistan carry out attacks on Pakistani border posts and, according to the ISPR, multiple attacks attempted on the night of Aug 13 were foiled because of improved security arrangements.
The US military power had already signaled its willingness to address the issue of removal of “safe havens” in Afghanistan from where terrorists have been launching attacks in Pakistan. In the first statement issued by the State Secretary Rex Tillerson after President Trump’s speech, it had been said that it was “vital to US interests that Afghanistan and Pakistan prevent” terrorist sanctuaries.”
Pakistan has long demanded action against those US “sanctuaries,” but there has been no serious effort so far, except for a brief campaign after the Army Public School tragedy in December 2014. Several “terrorists” wanted by Pakistan reportedly move freely within Afghanistan and, at least according to one statement by former TTP spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan, after he surrendered to security forces earlier this year, the “terrorists” were given unique identification documents by the Afghan authorities to facilitate their movements there.
India’s favorite destabilization role
In very unequivocal terms, the NSC expressed its reservations about the role assigned to India in the new regional policy that extends from economic assistance and development in Afghanistan to peace and security in South Asia and the broader Indo-Pacific region.
Pakistan fears that India with its new role would work to exacerbate Pakistani security concerns, making it weak and vulnerable so that the USA could impose its dictates and threaten to stop military terror aid. Questioning the role given to India, the NSC said: “India cannot be a net security provider in the South Asia region when it has conflictual relationships with all its neighbors and is pursuing a policy of destabilizing Pakistan from the east and the west.”
The committee also pointed towards Indian interference in the internal affairs of neighboring countries and use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy. “The committee condemned state-inflicted repression on the people of Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir and reiterated Pakistan’s continued diplomatic, political and moral support for their struggle for self-determination,” the statement said.
Pakistan’s worries about Indian role would be a major irritant in Pak-US engagement on the new policy. Secretary Tillerson had said the US would engage with Pakistan “in a very serious and thorough way on its expectations and the conditions that go with that.”
Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif was earlier scheduled to travel to the US for bilateral talks with Secretary Tillerson next week, but the trip has been delayed for a later date after his tour of China and other friendly countries.
Observation
The USA as super power always showcases its prowess above all powers. In every word, US leaders signal the US superiority. Trump’s utterances are just a part of that nonsense.
From the NSC response, two key concerns of Pakistan can be gleaned. First, the Trump strategy appears to be an endorsement of perpetual war in Afghanistan, when it has long been clear that only “a politically negotiated outcome,” in the NSC’s words, can work.
Pakistani leadership says US President Trump’s so-called South Asia strategy is a worrying indication of the strategic chasm between Pakistan and the USA. With words and phrases such as “outrightly rejected”, “scapegoat”, “grave challenge”, “Afghan war cannot be fought in Pakistan” and “India cannot be a net provider of security” sprinkled across the statement, the NSC has conveyed its unhappiness, perhaps even alarm, at the Trump strategy.
The so-called South Asia strategy puts the onus on Pakistan to act without offering to address any of this country’s regional security concerns. Specifically, the Trump administration’s silence on anti-Pakistan militant sanctuaries in eastern Afghanistan and its encouragement of India to play a greater role in Afghanistan amount to a puzzling disregard for Pakistan’s concerns.
Why is Pakistan expected to act first to advance other powers’ interests and only then its own?
Pakistan does not want material or financial assistance from the US but needs to be trusted and treated with respect, Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa told US Ambassador David Hale. The two had a meeting at the army’s General Headquarters in Rawalpindi, where Hale briefed Gen Bajwa on the US’s new South Asia policy announced by President Donald Trump a day earlier, according to a statement issued by Inter-Services Public Relations ─ the military’s media wing.
According to the ISPR statement, the COAS highlighted the importance of peace in Afghanistan for Pakistan and highlighted the efforts made by Pakistan to that end. During the meeting, Asif had told the ambassador that Pakistan would continue to work with the international community to eliminate the menace of terrorism.
But the USA is not at all interested in ending terrorism or containing terror networks that it promotes and finances.
The whole Trump idea of a new attack on Pakistan is to force it to drop China and become more trusted terror partner of the USA in killing Muslims on payment basis.
Why should Pakistan continue to sub serve the USA and its fascist allies that target Islam? Pakistan had earlier also criticized the US, but it only wanted more terror goods from USA and Afghanistan. India would not let the US throw its used terror goods from Afghanistan to Pakistan.
India, as well as the US, is eager to see Pakistani Muslims killed by the Pakistani military. India has got the point to prove but what about the USA?