People in Quetta,
near the Afghan border, burn a U.S. flag to
protest increasingly
deadly drone strikes in Pakistan, Sept. 12.
The Frontier Post, Pakistan
New U.S. Raids on Pakistan Constitute 'Naked Aggression'
"It's
high time that the Pakistani government wake up to the potential costs of its
trickery with its own people. … Even on Sunday, as ISAF officials and their
Afghan puppets were crowing that their gunships had killed 'militants' in two
sorties in North Waziristan, local politicians were in complete denial that any
incursion had occurred."
These attacks are, plain and
simple, a naked aggression against Pakistan by the Afghanistan-based and
NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which is to say,
America. What else could they be? On Sunday, two of their helicopter gunships
intruded into Pakistan and killed over thirty people, claiming they were
militants. A Foreign Office spokesman said that Pakistan had protested to NATO/ISAF
over the incursion, yet the very next day their gunships trespassed into
Pakistani territory again and slaughtered another six people.
ISAF insists that it has a
mandate for hot pursuit into Pakistani territory and targeted “militants” who
attacked coalition forces in Afghanistan from Pakistan and had been fleeing after
the assault. Our foreign spokesman denied such
a mandate for ISAF, but his assertion must be taken with a pinch of salt.
Islamabad has long clamored about how the incessant U.S. drone attacks are
stark violations of our territorial sovereignty, yet it's clear beyond a shadow
of a doubt that these incursions carry the tacit support of the Pakistani State,
if not its explicit acquiescence.
There is a foul air about the
acts of Pakistani officialdom: it keeps too many things secret from its own
people while playing the obedient and loyal slave to Western capitals,
particularly Washington. After every drone incursion, it goes so far as to
instantly endorse American claims of killing militants, while the locals often
wail that innocent civilians, commonly composed of women and children, have
been murdered. Even on Sunday, as ISAF officials and their Afghan puppets were
crowing that their gunships had killed “militants” in two sorties in North
Waziristan, local politicians were in complete denial that any incursion had
occurred. Ultimately, the officials grudgingly bleated that only one assault
had taken place, and that it occurred in Kurram Agency and not North Waziristan,
where Monday’s attacks took place.
As
U.S. drone strikes on militants enrage many Pakistanis, others
plucked
from flood-engulfed regions may have a different view. This
man sits aboard a U.S. helicopter as he's
evacuated from Faridabad,
which has been cut off by flood waters in Sindh Province, Sept. 14.
It's high time that the
Pakistani government wake up to the potential costs of its trickery with its
own people. It must know that, for all intents and purposes, the game is up for
the U.S.-led occupiers in Afghanistan. Their soldiers know it, their commanders
know it, their political bosses know it, and even their embedded journalists
are now talking of the war being unwinnable. This frustration escalated sharply
after the Marja adventure, which coalition forces thought would be a showcase
for President Barack Obama’s troop-surge, but which has turned into a
humiliating fiasco. The occupiers are in despair and growing desperate to cut
and run, particularly as their own domestic publics, even in America, are
becoming increasingly opposed to this war and want their army home at once.
Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US
Even Obama would find it hard
to stay beyond the middle of next year. On top of the war’s snowballing
unpopularity and the growing divisions within his administration, with a
significant segment calling for a pullout, there are compelling political
reasons to do so. A continuing stream of American soldiers in body bags and a
yearly drain of $100 billion on the recession-hit U.S. economy, added to the
economic woes of a skeptical public, could hurt his bid for recapturing the
presidency. He would certainly be loath to risk that for a military adventure
that has obviously gone irreversibly wrong. However, he wouldn't want to leave
with his tail between his legs, but with a show of victory, no matter how
false. Extending the war into Pakistan, in whatever fashion, would thus come
naturally to him and other occupiers as a way to drive home a deceitful
impression to their people that the war had been won in Afghanistan, that only
Pakistan remained to be tackled, and that they had tackled it.
So they've escalated from
drone attacks on our territory to gunship assaults, which in all probability
will intensify in the days ahead. Don't forget that during the campaign, Obama
had spoken of hot pursuit into Pakistan. Prime Minister Gilani must
immediately hold an inter-agency meeting on this new U.S.-led adventurism and
decide on how to respond, which should be tangible and no ruse. Otherwise the
occupiers will go back laughing from Afghanistan while we're left in the lurch with
our tribal compatriots unappeasably angry at Islamabad and the rest of our disdainful
political and military establishment.
