Is
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence still playing a double game and
helping Taliban insurgents
- or is the U.S. using false charges against
the ISI
to set Pakistan up as the fall guy for losing Afghanistan?
The Frontier Post,
Pakistan
Facing Defeat in Afghanistan, U.S. 'Lies' About Pakistan's ISI
Is the United States so desperate about
impending defeat in Afghanistan that it is setting up Pakistan as a scapegoat? Recent
charges that Pakistan Intelligence has been aiding Taliban militants appear to
have triggered this angry retort from the editorial board of Pakistan's Quetta
and Peshawar-based Frontier Post.
Make no mistake about it - Western
news networks, arguably at the behest of certain sections of their bureaucracies
and intelligence apparatus, have mounted a calculated, well-orchestrated media
offensive to vilify and demonize the Pakistani military, the ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence] and our
incumbent political leadership. It will be unpardonable if Islamabad doesn’t
finally break its reticence and speak out proactively.
Barring this, the nation will
pay a heavy price for the ruling establishment's lackadaisicalness. This
offensive is obviously vile, sinister and mischievous in intent. The recent
report from the London-based Amnesty International on human rights in FATA
alone leaves one stunned over its contents and its intents. Quite
astonishingly, the world-renowned human rights watchdog based its report on
completely outdated information to give credit to the notion that Pakistan's
government and military has abandoned the region to live under the thumbs of
brutal, oppressive militants.
Since Amnesty’s information
was factually wrong, its inference is also wrong. Aside from driving the
militants out of the Swat
and Malakand, Pakistan's
military has decisively dismantled terrorist infrastructure in the tribal
agencies of Bajaur and
South Waziristan.
In addition, the militants are on the run in various parts of other districts,
despite sporadic resistance here and there. This is well known, and it is intriguing
that Amnesty so spectacularly failed to take note of such a globally known fact
in its report.
Furthermore, this unusual
intelligence report has been backed up by an institution of higher learning.
The London School of Economics report on the alleged funding, training and
harboring of Afghan Taliban in its “sanctuaries” by the ISI is unmistakably a
grand plant. The report’s author, a man that goes by the name of Matt Waldman [video
below], has collated the feeds from news agencies to produce a piece
of shoddy work that is so replete with holes that it may pass the scrutiny of
the gullible, but not the clever. He has richly embellished it with
superlatives and hyperbole. He claims, implausibly, to have met and interviewed
nine Taliban field commanders in Afghanistan, whom he asserts revealed to him
how the ISI “orchestrates, sustains and strongly influences the (Taliban)
movement.”
“They say it (ISI) gives
sanctuary to both Taliban and Haqqani groups, and provides huge support in
terms of training, funding, munitions, and supplies,” he notes. And then, in
his naiveté, this Matt Waldman gives away the whole game with an unconscious
slip. He says, “In their words (the nine Taliban field commanders), "this
is as clear as the sun in the sky.”
This is the
language of a prosecutor, not a commander. The prosecutor argues and draws
inferences - the commander does not. He doesn’t argue, he asserts. He makes
categorical statements - and doesn't draw inferences. But where in the world would
commanders confide in someone like this Matt Waldman about their sources of
funding, arms supplies or sanctuaries, as these nine are supposed to have done?
By every reckoning, his story is extremely shallow and weak. Yet Western trans-national
news agencies have bitten into it hook, line and sinker, splashing it
worldwide. This should provide the Islamabad establishment a glimpse of what's coming.
Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US
This report is the opening
shot. In all probability, more are in the pipeline because Afghanistan's U.S.-led
occupiers sense defeat. The-once zestful talk on their tongues of creating a
democratic Afghanistan has long vanished. They now talk of giving Afghanistan a
trained army and effective police force for its security and then leaving.
President Barack Obama’s military-civilian surge strategy has too run into deep
trouble and is failing to deliver. Meanwhile, the patience of the public in
nations supplying the occupying troops is running out fast. Public opinion in
Europe is fast turning against the Afghanistan war. Even in the United States, public
opposition to the war is sharply ascendant. According to some opinion polls, as
many as 70 percent Americans want their troops to come home.
Given this, Pakistan is sure
to be nailed for the failure of the U.S.-led occupiers, and yarn like that woven
by this Matt Waldman is sure to multiply in the days ahead. This will be to
defame Pakistan and hurt the image of its military, the ISI and its ruling
leadership. That necessarily requires Islamabad to nip this vile campaign in
the bud, which cannot be accomplished with lifeless denials. Islamabad must proactively
speak out about the two-faced game the occupiers and their spy agencies have
played on Pakistan, in collusion with the Afghan intelligence apparatus [KHAD] and India’s RAW [Research and
Analysis Wing].
