The very blunt comments of outgoing Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen that Pakistan intelligence has been actively assisting the Haqqani terrorist network has triggered another tremendous upwelling of anti-American sentiment in that nation. These three editorials from Pakistan’s The Nation and The Frontier Post well illustrate the skyrocketing passion and anger toward America now felt in that country.
Just to remind the reader, the precise comments of Admiral Mullen before the Senate Armed Services Committee were: “The Haqqani network … acts as a veritable arm of Pakistan’s Inter-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.”]
Let us begin with Saturday’s editorial from The Nation, headlined All Pakistanis Must Unite Against American ‘Declaration of War’. This editorial calls Mullen’s comments a ‘virtual declaration of war’ and says in part:
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 in Afghanistan, 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.
Next up, here are portions of two editorials from the always verbose Frontier Post.
The first, also from Saturday and headlined Pakistan’s Feckless Leaders Must Respond to Mullen’s ‘Wild’ Accusations, excoriates Pakistani leaders for failing to react to Mullen’s comments with the appropriate ferocity, and says in part:
As the U.S. bluster against Pakistan menacingly gains viciousness by the day, Pakistanis are startled and perturbed at the stunning muteness of our elites. Their reticence to respond has confused our people out of their wits, leaving them dumbfounded, troubled and perplexed. Amazingly, across the board, the political leadership behaves as if American bullying, bluster and threats are none of its concern. No less disturbing id the quietude of the military command.
Indeed, the people of Pakistan were looking to hear a response that knocked the bottom out of this deceitful contrivance, which is meant to put a deceptive gloss on the Afghanistan collapse mounted by America’s commanders and their political masters.
The Americans are really in a spot, which is unarguably of their own doing. They have been to Afghanistan for over ten years now, yet they have palpably and spectacularly failed in pacify it – notwithstanding the tall tales and boisterous braggadocio that hardly holds up against ground realities. To build a story of success to deceive their own people and the world at large, they have peddled nothing but outright lies, pretences and hoaxes to their embedded corporate media – albeit unsuccessfully.
Then finally, this editorial from yesterday’s Frontier Post headlined Making Pakistan Pay for the ‘War on Terror’ Hoax, lays out Pakistan’s narrative very clearly, calling America’s war on terror strategy an out and out failure, and charging Washington with trying to blame Pakistan for the embarrassing failure of America’s leaders and armed forces after ten long years of war. The editorial starts out this way:
Prime Minister Gilani’s policy statement spells out succinctly the enormous sacrifice that this country has rendered in fighting the spurious U.S.-led war on terror. But who will speak aloud that right from the outset, this war was fundamentally an enormous hoax? Know this: It was the September 11 terrorist holocaust that ostensibly prompted the United States into launching this fake war. But according to its own investigators, the perpetrators had plotted that thuggish assault in the German city of Hamburg, while the hijackers had been trained in American aviation academies. So should it have been Hamburg and these American aviation schools that were taken out, or Afghanistan, none of who’s national was involved in the assault? All of the attackers were non-Afghans; all were long settled in Western countries; all were educated in Western universities; some were even frequenters of Western night clubs; and none were alumni of a religious school or madrassa.
Yet the United States, manipulating global outrage over the terrible and deadly attack, wangled a decree from the U.N. Security Council to take on Afghanistan and leading a coalition of foreign armies to invade and occupy it. But quite intriguingly, after ousting the ruling Taliban from Kabul in a massive aerial assault, it failed to bring a large enough force to control the invaded land, which is known for its treacherous terrain and independent-minded people who are intolerant of foreign invaders. Rather, they sent a ridiculously puny and inadequately-equipped army.
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