America's
'Criminal Violations' of Pakistan Must Stop … or Else
"Islamabad's
leaders must tell the Americans to either stop their criminal violations of Pakistan
territory or face the closure of transit routes through our territory to
Afghanistan."
From the public discourse of visiting
U.S. senators, it's more than evident - if more evidence were needed - that
Islamabad can protest and demand all it likes, but American drone incursions in
Pakistan will continue. "Nothing doing," was their curt reply to whatever
Pakistani raised the issue. For the calculated and ambiguous statements of our
own rulers, the public impression with the most currency is that CIA drone
incursions have the tacit acquiescence of Islamabad's leaders. It's an
impression substantially backed up by the leaks of U.S. officials in American
media and the authoritative outpourings of the U.S. Congress. But even if this weren't
the case, Pakistan's leaders are living a pipedream if they think Americans
will ever listen to them - unless and until they aggressively assert Pakistan's
sovereignty and put some punch into their statements and actions.
The reason is simple: As in Vietnam,
when their war in that nation went terribly awry, the Americans are miserably caught
up in Afghanistan. And as they did decades ago to Cambodia, they are inching up
on Pakistan as part of their war on Afghanistan, which like Vietnam has similarly
flown out of American control. Then, too, they were insistent that the problem
isn't Vietnam but Cambodia. Even as Viet Cong fighters enjoyed enormous support
in South Vietnam and an experienced North Vietnamese military inflicted
crippling losses on the U.S. expeditionary force, the U.S. kept its guns
targeted on Cambodia, accusing it of being a conduit for weapons and
infiltrators for the Vietnamese resistance. At first covertly and then overtly,
they pulverized Cambodia with a massive aerial bombardment. Just as they are
now doing to Pakistan. The problem, they contend, isn't so much Afghanistan as it
is Pakistan. By their own grudging admission, Afghanistan is for the most part out
of the hands of their Kabul-backed government and under the sway of the Taliban.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
From
right to left, Pakistan Prime Minister YousufRazaGilanimeets
visiting Senator John McCain, Ambassador to Pakistan
Anne
Patterson
and Senator Joseph Lieberman, Jan. 8.
Yet they insist al-Qaeda, an ally
of the Afghan Taliban, is based in Pakistan’s tribal region, from where it
operates as the Afghan Taliban themselves do. Let is set
aside for a moment, the obvious falseness of their assertions. What confidence
can one give the U.S. stance, based as it is on an American intelligence
apparatus that has won fame over recent years for its Himalayan mistakes. It
failed to avert or preempt the September 11 attack. It came a cropper in predicting
the sullen public reaction in Iraq to the unlawful U.S.-led invasion. It
couldn’t prevent a Nigerian youth’s failed terrorist assault on an American
airliner. And a Jordanian double-agent wiped out the CIA's entire station staff
in Khost, Afghanistan.
Given all this, one must take
the information provided by the American intelligence behemoth with not with a grain
but with bagful of salt. Indeed, even NATO's intelligence chief in Afghanistan,
himself an American general, has publicly cried out about the incompetence of
America's spy agencies, saying that it has been an incredible failure in providing
credible and actionable information to coalition forces. Yet America's military
leadership and their political masters are adamant that the fighting in Afghanistan
comes not from within, but largely from Pakistan’s tribal areas. And since the advent
of the Obama Administration, drone attacks on this region of our nation have
been stepped up, particularly in the North Waziristan Agency, where the U.S.
insists that the Haqqani
network of the Afghan Taliban is entrenched. And ironically, while they
themselves say some 100 or so al-Qaeda fighters remain in Afghanistan, one
never hears of them targeting them with drone attacks. One hears them always
claiming killing only Afghan Taliban in air actions and ground battles. Yet
more intriguingly, one fails to understand why they don’t take on the Afghan
Taliban inside Afghanistan. After all, they claim that the Taliban have
sanctuaries on our side from where they crisscross the border to launch attacks
on Afghan and coalition forces.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
An
American attack drone at Bagram Air Base in
Afghanistan, 2009.
There is indeed much to
question about their behavior. And as their Afghan predicament gets tighter and
more desperate, they'll not only intensify their drone attacks and extend them
to more of our territory, they will also resort to ground attacks and hot
pursuit. Harbor no illusions on this count. Their special forces have already reportedly
conducted four ground raids, though only one has came to public attention. More
can be expected in the days ahead.
If the hierarchy in Islamabad
is at all truthful and really means business, it must powerfully reassert its
demand for respect of our sovereignty and the sanctity of our territory. It
must tell the Americans to either stop their criminal violations or face the closure
of transit routes through our territory to Afghanistan.
