Recently, a crispy article ‘Calling Pakistan’s boycott bluff’ by Jennifer Rowland appeared in the Foreign Policy magazine, a piece holding intruded perceptions. To Jennifer the killings of 24 Pakistani soldiers proved as a ‘face-saving bluff’ on the part of the country’s security establishment.
A ‘bluff’, which allows the military to dictate its terms to the United States, provides a strong stance against Americans by avoiding the Bonn Conference, gives an opportunity for Pakistan’s army to muzzle the chattering mouths accusing them of wilful neglect in missing bin Laden’s presence in the garrison town of Abbottabad and grant a chance for pursuing a double game in fighting some militants in the tribal region of the country while giving others safe haven.
The way Ms Jennifer has analysed the incident, the atrocious attack seems more as an American ‘blunder’ than any other bluff, if it offers Pakistan that much ways to make a move.
Nevertheless it is neither an American blunder nor providing Pakistan a face-saving benefit; it is plainly a calculated move of the US. As it was a deliberate attack, obviously the after-effects will be a result of plan as well. If US would have sought Pakistan to be present at Bonn Conference it must have apologised to Pakistan for killing 24 soldiers. On the contrary, the US’ denial to make an apology cornered Pakistan’s standing in international community while it didn’t affect the ‘money-collection’ purpose of Bonn Conference. Hence the ‘bluff’ was well-designed.
As far as the incident of 2 May is concerned, the facts about the episode are still dubious and after the Memogate issue it’s quite perceptible that the incident was essentially materialised to defame Pakistan Army and its intelligence agency.
Hence, the prior incident itself was a double game and so is the recent one. Pakistan Army is not playing double game in fighting the militants, its sacrifices in this so-called war on terror are well-known to the world and even at the time of Nato attacks, ISI had given specific information to Isaf about reports of 40 or so terrorists planning to mount an attack in the Salala region or trying to slip farther inside Pakistan.
What good Nato attacks did to these militants, puts a big question mark on its own credibility. Slanting statements cannot crack the certainty. Things are greatly messed up and Pakistani nation is in a sheer need to watch and understand scenario carefully before digesting the biased views by western media.
MOMINA ASHIER
Islamabad
