It is not just President Obama’s top counterterrorism advisor John Brennan, who threatens that the US would not restrict the use of force to Afghanistan only, in its fight against Al-Qaeda and “we reserve the right to take unilateral action if and when other governments are unwilling or unable to take necessary action themselves”, but the entire American administration is using similar terminology to browbeat Pakistan into launching a military campaign against “the Haqqani network”.
Though the international law and national sovereignty are being cited as hindering factors, the so-called ‘Osama raid doctrine’ is being propounded in justification of pre-emptive strikes to protect the US. This is going too far and it is time for the Pakistan government to be bold and to tell the US that any repeat of the Abbottabad raid would be taken as an act of war. Such rhetoric should be enough ground for Islamabad to stop extending all cooperation to the US and NATO forces in the war on terror.
There should be no hesitation on the part of Pakistan to expose before the world the real reason behind this kind of outburst. This is an attempt at hiding the humiliating defeat of the 150,000-odd strong ISAF force, backed by a most sophisticated war machine, suffered at the hands of poorly equipped, ragtag units of the Afghan resistance. It is worth recalling that President Obama had proudly declared that the Taliban stood weakened and put on the back foot. But, the successful attacks by the resistance on the occupation forces have negated this view time and again.
The 24-hour-long siege of the American embassy and NATO headquarters in Kabul and the earlier attacks at a sensitive military installation that injured 77 American soldiers are just two examples of the Taliban power. The world should not lose sight of the fact that the Taliban continue to control 80 percent of Afghanistan and they can operate from their secure bases within the country.
For the US to lay the blame for these attacks at the door of ‘Haqqani militants’ living in North Waziristan, is also to ignore the fact that the Pashtun tribes, including the Haqqanis, straddle the Pak-Afghan border. The announcement of their leader Sirajuddin Haqqani that they do not have any hideout in Pakistan and operate from Afghanistan should make the world wiser about the US propaganda and the truth behind Ambassador Munter’s claim that he has proof of the Haqqani group’s contact with the Pakistan government.
The reality is that the Haqqanis in North Waziristan are not militants and there is absolutely no justification for Pakistan to move against them militarily. Behind all this hue and cry lies the American propaganda machinery, which has its outposts in the US and Western media and think-tanks and which spends billions of dollars every year to misinform the world to achieve Washington’s policy objectives; it has been charged with diverting attention fro the US defeat in Afghanistan and finding a scapegoat for it.
OSAMA AHMED
Karachi
