Admiral Mike Mullen said that the Inter Services Intelligence, Pakistan’s intelligence agency, is supporting militant extremists in the Haqqani network in Afghanistan, at a Senate hearing on Thursday.
With rising insurgent violence in Afghanistan – including a deadly 20-hour assault on the US Embassy in Kabul, which the US blamed on the Haqqani network – the US is starting to lose its grip, especially as domestic pressure to bring the troops home increases. Pointing the finger at Pakistan after years of silence on the issue is a sign that the chips are down and so the blame game has become an attractive way to justify more militarism.
Experts have suspected parts of the Pakistani government of having ties to militants for years, but the US has refused to offer any evidence in response to Pakistani requests to do so. What ties there are go back to Reagan administration policy of funneling money and weapons through Pakistan to Islamic fighters in Afghanistan against the Soviets. Some have pointed out that Pakistan’s reluctance to attack is based on a perception of national interest that the Haqqanis pose no threat to them and may in fact be useful to counter Indian influence in Afghanistan after American forces drawdown.
That the US government would begin to express frustration with Pakistani policy is rather ironic. For the past decade, the US has been throwing mountains of economic and military aid to the corrupt regime for cooperation in the fight against anti-American terrorism. During that time, the US has repeatedly violated Pakistani sovereignty without permission, conducting kill/capture operations with special operations forces an undisclosed number of times. Additionally, the drone program has been expanded many-fold, resulting in untold numbers of civilians casualties and increasing instability along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.
Mullen and others have accused the Pakistanis of conducting a proxy war through the Haqqanis in Afghanistan, claiming they’re supporting terrorism. Meanwhile, the US has been training, funding, and equipping a terrorist proxy force of their own in Afghanistan called the Afghan Local Police, recently accused by Human Rights Watch of “serious abuses, such as killings, rape, arbitrary detention, abductions, forcible land grabs, and illegal raids.” When the Pakistanis do it, the US calls it terrorism. When the US does it, it’s counter-terrorism.
“Only a decision to break with this policy can pave the road to a positive future for Pakistan,” Mullen said. The message to the Pakistanis is essentially a demand to obey the United States, or else. It has perhaps not occurred to national security planners that the whole mess could be moot if the US would simply pull out of Afghanistan, cutting their losses in a purposeless fight.
Why do we fund Pakistan, which then funds terrorist proxies? Cut off ALL aid to Pakistan and spend it on America.
Sure because the bloody money the US sends to Pakistan and other countries has one and only one purpose: killing wholesale. If these countries were to make a cost benefit analysis, they would be much better off without the goddamn bribe.
Why do we fund Israel, which then funds terrorist proxies? I dunno. One's as good (or bad as the other), I suppose. Besides, if the US didn't "fund" them, how could they possibly go into Pakistan and blanket bomb their civilian population without any repercussion? See, you get what you pay for.
Amazing how the terrorist military of the United States points fingers at Pakistan. Let's hope that Pakistan stops all cooperation with the US, and gets closer to China.
There was no aid but only compensation of military expenditure. War costs our tresury money. How much america is spending on their troops in afghanistan hundred times more and is no limit and Pakistani forces are economical when they get one billion a year and killing our own citizens.
We don,t need this money and should leave our country.
America should leave and be charged for the illegal raids and drone attacks that kill ten civillians to ever 1 so called terrorist.America and Israel and there friends are the real terrorists.
They shouldn't leave. They should be kicked out à la Saigon.
I can't understand why this would even make the alternative media news. It's not new. It's not the first time. In fact, this is par of the course for the empire. So?
"the whole mess could be moot if the US simply pulled their troops out of Afghanistan, cutting their losses in a purposeless fight"
Simple isen't it?
But no. The Empire must win so the unwinnable war will continue.
stop funding the US Government with your Tax dollars Americans. This way you cut the flow of funds to Al CIAda and Israel. two of the big players in the field of Terror.
stop funding the US Government with your Tax dollars Americans. This way you cut the flow of funds to Al CIAda and Israel.