Pakistani
rage at the United States is at a fever pitch after Mike
Mullen,
U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Pakistan's
intelligence
service has been helping the Haqqani terror network
attack
and kill Americans. Protestors say they fear armed U.S.
intervention
against the networkin the country.
The Nation, Pakistan
All Pakistanis Must Unite Against American 'Declaration of War'
"In
the face of a virtual declaration of war by top U.S. officials, unity and
solidarity among all segments of society is the only thing that can avert the
danger. A joint session of Parliament must urgently meet to formulate a
national response, and both civilian leaders and the armed forces must be on
the same page."
Jalaluddin Haqqani, some time in the 1990s: A Pastun and a fierce leader of the resistance to Soviet occupation, he now leads a pro-Taliban group of fighters have been mounting increasingly effective attacks on U.S. and Afghan forces.
Questioning the American
politics of accusation and without mincing words, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar has
told the U.S. that if it wants to "lose" Pakistan, it is up to them,
but that the loss would be their own. These blunt words, uttered during an
interview with a New York TV station on Thursday [video, right], reflected
Pakistan’s extreme sense of outrage at serious charges leveled by retiring
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen that the, “The Haqqani network ... acts
as a veritable arm of Pakistan's Internal [Inter] Services Intelligence Agency
[ISI].”
Mullen went on to accuse the ISI of aiding and abetting the attack on the U.S.
Embassy in Kabul, the truck bombing of a NATO outpost that injured 77 coalition
troops and the attack on Kabul's Inter-Continental Hotel. All this, the U.S.
says, was the handiwork of Haqqani militants accomplished with the active
assistance of the ISI.
[Editor's Note: The precise comments of Admiral Mullen
before the Senate Armed Services Committee was: "The Haqqani network ... acts
as a veritable arm of Pakistan's internal Services Intelligence Agency. With
ISI support, Haqqani operatives planned and conducted that truck bomb attack, as
well as the attack on our embassy. We also have credible intelligence that they
were behind the June 28 attack on the Inter-Continental Hotel in Kabul as well
as a host of other smaller but effective operations." Watch full video
below].
Perceptive analysts of the
events that have attendant the war on terror have long predicted that if the
superpower failed to turn the tide of its setbacks inAfghanistan, the U.S. eventually would ratchet up its
“do more” mantra to shamelessly transfer the blame for its fate to Pakistan.
It's hard for the Americans to stomach defeat at the hands of a poorly-quipped
army of insurgents. Admiral Mullen's unrestrained onslaught on Pakistan indeed
has ominous implications, particularly when it was preceded by Defense Secretary
Leon Panetta's warning that if Pakistan didn't take military action against the
Haqqani group, the U.S. would do so itself. That could be interpreted to
suggest that the Pentagon intends not only to escalate indiscriminate drone
attacks on the population of North Waziristan, but to also send U.S. ground
forces in pursuit of the Haqqanis.
In response to the outbursts
of Panetta and Mullen, Interior Minister Rehman Malik issued a
timely warning that Pakistan wouldn't tolerate U.S. boots on its soil, and that
should America indulge in a reckless adventure against us, the Pakistani nation
would fully support an effective government response. In that unfortunate
eventuality, our reaction must be commensurate with the interior minister’s
expression of intolerance to American intervention, Foreign Minister Khar's
blunt remarks and the army’s rejection of the charge of waging a proxy
war.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
This is a time when our political
leaders, in power or out, must drop their bickering and unite in opposition to
the insidious designs against Pakistan by the Americans. We are undoubtedly
passing through a difficult phase with massive devastation and dislocation by
the flooding in Sindh and the uncontrolled spread of dengue virus in Punjab,
but in the face of a virtual declaration of war by top U.S. officials, unity
and solidarity among all segments of society is the only thing that can avert
the danger. A joint session of Parliament must urgently meet to formulate a
national response, and both civilian leaders and the armed forces must be on
the same page.
