The U.S.-Pakistan “strategic dialogue” has restarted yet again. I would be remiss if I did not point that it has never been strategic and it has certainly not been a dialogue. No doubt the Pakistanis are worried that wary American taxpayers and their congressional representatives may close the checkbook for good when the last U.S. soldier departs from Afghanistan. In the spirit of perpetual rent-seeking, Pakistani defense officials have recently alighted upon Washington to offer the same tired and hackneyed narratives that are tailored to guilt the Americans into keeping the gravy train chugging along.
Here are the top ten ossified fictions that Pakistani defense officials are pedaling and what you need to know to call the “Bakvas Flag” on each of them.
1. “Our relationship should be strategic rather than transactional.”
Nonsense and here’s why. For the U.S.-Pakistan relationship to be “strategic,” there should be a modicum of convergence of interests in the region if not beyond. Yet, there is no evidence that this is the case. In fact, Pakistan seems most vested in undermining U.S. interests in the region. In the name of the conflict formerly known as the Global War on Terror (GWOT), the United States has given Pakistan some $27 billion in military and financial aid as well as lucrative reimbursements. However, during these same years, Pakistan has continued to aid and abet the Afghan Taliban and allied militant groups such as the Haqqani Network. These organizations are the very organizations that have killed American military and civilian personnel in Afghanistan along with those of our allies in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and countless more Afghans, in and out of uniform. This is in addition to the flotilla of Islamist militant groups that Pakistan uses as tools of foreign policy in India. Foremost among them is the Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is proscribed by the United States and which is responsible for the most lethal terror operations in India and, since 2006, has openly operated against Americans in Afghanistan.
2. “The United States has been an unreliable ally.”
Rubbish. Pakistani officials enjoy invoking the two treaties, the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) and the Southeast Treaty Organization (SEATO) through which the United States and Pakistan ostensibly were allies. They lament that despite these partnerships and commitments, the United States did not help Pakistan in its wars with India (1965 and 1971) and even aided non-aligned India in its 1962 war with Communist China. It should be noted that Americans were never party to CENTO; rather, they maintained an observer status, and Americans were leery of letting the Pakistanis join SEATO, fearing that it was a ruse to suck the alliance into the intractable Indo-Pakistan dispute. In point of fact, Pakistani officials beginning with Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Liaquat Ali Khan, and General Ayub Khan repeatedly sought to join American military alliances in exchange for money and war materiel.
While Pakistan professed a commitment to America’s anti-Communist agenda, it sought these partnerships to build its military capabilities to continue challenging India. Until the 1950s, the United States had no such interest in Pakistan.
When the United States finally embraced such partnerships, the treaties were specifically designed to combat Communist aggression ensuring that the United States had no obligation to support Pakistan in its wars with India. The United States certainly had no obligation to support Pakistan in the 1965 war with India, which it started. Pakistan’s grouses about the American position during the 1971 war is particularly disingenuous. As Gary Bass has detailed, President Nixon violated numerous American laws to continue providing military support to the abusive West Pakistani regime as it prosecuted a genocidal campaign against the Bengalis in East Pakistan.
3. “The United States used Pakistan for its anti-Soviet jihad.”
More fiction. Pakistan and Afghanistan came into conflict immediately after Pakistan’s independence because Afghanistan rejected Pakistan’s membership in the United Nations and laid claim to large swaths of Pakistani territory in Balochistan, the tribal areas, and in the then-Northwest Frontier Province. As such, Pakistan began instrumentalizing Islamists in Afghanistan as early as the 1950s. Following the ouster of King Zahir Shah by Mohammed Daoud Khan in 1973, Daoud began prosecuting Afghanistan’s Islamists who opposed his modernizing policies. Shia Islamists fled to Iran and Sunni Islamists generally fled to Pakistan. In 1974, then-civilian Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto established a cell within Pakistan’s Interservices Intelligence Directorate (ISI) to mobilize these exiled dissidents for anti-regime operations in Afghanistan. Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq continued the nascent “Afghan jihad” after seizing power from Bhutto in 1977.
Despite Zia’s numerous pleas for support, the Carter administration had no interest in supporting Pakistan’s jihad in Afghanistan prior to the Soviet invasion. In fact, in April of 1979, the administration sanctioned Pakistan for violating U.S. law with respect to progress on its nuclear weapons program. The United States did not begin overtly funding Zia’s “Afghan jihad” until 1982, only after the pro-Zia Reagan government was able to secure waivers for such aid due to the 1979 sanctions. Needless to say, the Reagan administration fully supported the “jihad” in Afghanistan. However, it is important to note that Pakistan funded its own Afghan policy out of its own resources well before the first American dollar entered the fray.
4. “The United States is responsible for the development of al Qaeda and Islamist militancy.”
Not entirely a pack of lies. It was not the United States that conceived of the struggle against the Soviets in Afghanistan as a “jihad.” That was Pakistan’s own invention. Pakistan was very distrustful of Pashtun nationalism and feared that an ethnic mobilization in Afghanistan would give a fillip to Pakistan’s own restless Pashtuns. Pakistan insisted upon a jihad and the Reagan Administration vigorously supported the operation, with Saudi assistance. The ISI insisted that it receive the funds from the CIA and run the jihadi groups. The ISI sought to limit the CIA’s access to the jihadi organizations and to the ISI. These fire walls remained intact, despite the CIA’s efforts to subvert them.
Owing to the ISI cell established by Z.A. Bhutto and subsequently maintained by Zia, the main militant groups were established and in place before the Soviets crossed the Amu Darya on Christmas Day 1979. That anti-Soviet jihad surely was the crucible that gave birth to the global Islamist militancy that mobilized under the banner of al-Qaeda. It is difficult to imagine the existence of al-Qaeda had the United States supported the insurgency in Afghanistan on ethnic rather than jihadist terms.
5. “The United States created the Taliban.”
Nonsense. This assertion deliberately conflates the so-called Afghan jihadi organizations from the 1970s and 1980s with the Taliban movement that emerged after 1994. Curiously, the former tended to be associated with the Jamaat-e-Islami variety of South Asian Islam while the latter are nearly exclusively Deobandi in orientation.
While the United States, along with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, heavily funded the Islamist militants fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, the United States left the region in 1989. Pakistan remained engaged. General Zia was nonplussed that the Geneva Accords were signed to end the conflict in Afghanistan without an explicit statement that an Islamist government would be ensconced in Kabul. Pakistan continued to support the various Islamist militants, hoping that one would be able to stabilize Afghanistan and would act on Pakistan’s interests. First, the Pakistanis supported the Pashtun Islamist Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. When he failed to bring a pro-Pakistan, stable government, Pakistan switched support to the Taliban under the watch of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. The Taliban emerged from an archipelago of Deobandi madrassahs in Pakistan who coalesced to challenge the predations of the jihad-era warlords who were ravaging Afghanistan. While the ISI did not create the Taliban, it did provide all the necessary support that enabled the organization to control most of Afghanistan by 1998. The United States at times flirted with recognizing the Taliban, but it did not create—much less facilitate—its rise.
6. “Pakistan has lost more due to its participation in the Global War on Terrorism than it has gained in U.S. assistance.”
Depends upon who is counting and what is counted. This claim has two components: economic and human.
With respect to the first, American and Pakistani interlocutors disagree on the actual amount of funding Pakistan has received and where that money went once it arrived in Pakistan. Much ($10.7 billion) of the American cash flowing to Pakistan has been in the form of Coalition Support Funds, which were intended to reimburse Pakistan’s military for the marginal costs associated with supporting the GWOT. Americans note that the terms of reimbursement were lucrative and lament there was little oversight of the program. That is the fault of the United States for poor scrutiny as much as it is Pakistan’s for submitting bogus or inflated claims. Pakistan’s military has complained that it has seen only a portion of this amount as the Pakistan government took a share first. The army grouses that it has become an “army for rent” in the eyes of Pakistanis and has suffered considerable losses while being deprived its economic dues.
So Pakistan is right to question the degree of American generosity and it is right to question whether payments for “services rendered” is even generosity. However, Pakistan is one of the biggest reasons why we are fighting the GWOT in the first place. The Pakistanis made the Taliban the effective force that they were on September 10, 2001, and Pakistan continues to undermine U.S. efforts to retard the Taliban’s efforts to retake power in Afghanistan. Osama Bin Laden was safely ensconced in Abbottabad despite ten years of Pakistan assurances that he was not in Pakistan. And apart from the Taliban, Pakistan is responsible for much of the Islamist terrorism in India.
With respect to the second consideration, Pakistan asserts that it has been a victim of terror since 2001. Pakistanis claim that this is due to militant anger with Pakistan’s support of the United States and its various war efforts. There is some truth to this claim. However, the very militants savaging Pakistan are offshoots of the same militants that the state has long nurtured. Whose fault is this?
In fact, there is a strong case to be made that Pakistan owes India and the West generally, and the United States in particular, because of the enormous human and financial costs these states have had to undertake to manage a terrorism problem, much of which has a Pakistani “return address.”
7. “We care about Usama Bin Laden as much as you.”
Prove it. Pakistan’s government undertook a “comprehensive” examination of how it is that the world’s most wanted terrorist was found a stone’s throw from Pakistan’s premier military academy. The leaked report from the so-called Abbottabad Commission details Herculean incompetence and ineptitude. However, no one has been arrested for harboring Bin Laden. In fact, the only person that Pakistan has arrested was the doctor, Shakil Afridi, who cooperated with the CIA‘s efforts to locate him. If Pakistan’s military and intelligence agency seriously understood the gravity of the problem associated with Mr. Bin Laden’s lengthy sanctuary in an important cantonment town, someone should have been sacked (for example, the Intelligence Chief, the Army Chief, police and/or ministry of interior officials). And, if Pakistan was as serious about the “UBL” problem as it claims, it certainly should have identified and arrested collaborators who facilitated Bin Laden’s peri-urban redoubt.
8. “Pakistan has an enduring interest with peace with India.”
Really? Tell me more. Pakistan has started every war with India over Kashmir and then failed to win any of them. Pakistan continues to sustain a flotilla of militant groups whose stated objectives are to coerce India to make some concession to Pakistan on Kashmir and generally to foment communal violence between India’s Hindu and Muslim communities. These groups now operate throughout India. Under Pakistan’s expanding nuclear umbrella, these groups have been able to undertake attacks far beyond Kashmir including the 2001 attack on India’s parliament, the 2006 attack on Mumbai’s commuter rail system and the 2008 multi-day siege of Mumbai among numerous other lesser known rampages. While it is true that Pakistan must implement a defense policy based on India’s defense capabilities rather than assumptions about India’s most magnanimous intentions, it is also true that India would have no interest in Pakistan if it were not for the numerous terrorist groups that Pakistan supports.
9. “Pakistan wants a stable Afghanistan.”
Maybe. Pakistan does want a stable Afghanistan provided that it is hostile to India and amenable to Pakistan. Pakistan has never accepted Afghanistan as a neighbor and insists upon it being a client state. If Pakistan cannot create an Islamist, pro-Pakistan regime in Kabul that is inhospitable to India, it would prefer chaos that it can manage.
Pakistan is seeking to calibrate many different developments in Afghanistan. First, it wants the United States to retain some presence such that it can continue marketing its relevance to Washington. Second, it wants some degree of Taliban representation in the Afghan government. However, it is not in Pakistan’s interests that the Taliban reconquer Afghanistan. After all, some Talibs hate Pakistan as much if not more than they hate the United States. An anti-Pakistan Taliban government could even offer reverse sanctuary to the Pakistani Taliban who fight the Pakistani state. This means that the Pakistanis prefer that the United States prop up a weak regime in Kabul. This will ensure permanent Pakistani relevance to Washington (and a concomitant stream of revenue) and it will encourage the Afghan Taliban to remain focused on Afghanistan—not Pakistan. As the U.S. security umbrella retracts, Pakistan can be sure that India will make a hasty retreat from the areas most important to Pakistan in the south and east of Afghanistan.
10. “The biggest hindrance to U.S.-Pakistan relations is a ‘trust deficit.’”
Is it Ground Hog Day? Pakistan has long marshalled a highly stylized history of American perfidy such that it can guilt the Americans into continued support. However, as the above shows, the problem is not a deficit of trust, but rather, a surplus of certitude. Both sides fully understand that America’s allies such as India are Pakistan’s enemies and Pakistan’s allies, such as the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba, are the enemies of the United States. Both sides are certain that they want fundamentally different futures in Afghanistan and in India. Thus the biggest hindrance is the obfuscated reality that, in many ways, the United States and Pakistan are more enemies than they are allies.
C. Christine Fair is an assistant professor at Georgetown University in the School of Foreign Service. Follow her on twitter at @cchristinefair. She is the author of Fighting to the End: the Pakistan Army’s Way of War (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2014).
Jason 
Tim Hoyt 
Pervez Ehsan 
Ahmad 
Jamie 
Barekzai 
Ratnam 
ali 
khalid 
Ed 
Somnath Guharoy 
Starscream 
Zia 
Sindhi 
Syed 
Siddiq 
Tahir Ali 
Amagg 
Kashif 
bennedose 
Smritilekha C 
Naman Singh 
Shahid 
Sultan MUHAMMAD 
Muneeb Kamboh 
All quite true to a degree – these are well-worn saws by Pakistani leaders; however, that doesn’t necessarily suggest that they can be brushed aside quite so easily. Bringing this sort of argumentation to the negotiating table would simply result in going nowhere fast with respect to gaining any ground with Pakistan. Nice academia, and a useful reiteration of a popular American perspective, but ultimately this is bad practice, and it’s a piece that suggests that there’s little convergence of interests and totally downplays any security interests by others in the region — a standpoint that’s neither entirely true nor entirely false, which is why we’ve come to rely upon ‘transactional’ diplomacy (in the face of limited, yet real, convergence of interests). Classification of Pakistan as an ‘enemy’ simply on the basis that the government is weak and the military is rent-seeking is a bit overstated. Pakistan is closer in many ways to a failed state than it is an actual enemy, and lumping Pakistan into the ‘enemy’ category obfuscates a more functional path forward.
The real overlooked point in this piece is that, arguably, Pakistan has been able to get away for decades because the U.S.-based expertise on Pakistan hasn’t been up to snuff.
Unfortunately, this deficiency continues to this day, with none other than Dr. Christine Fair herself muddying the waters.
For example, in an article (title: “Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Pakistani State”) published in Survival over two years ago, she suggested this: “Containing Pakistan per se is not feasible, nor is attempting to do so even desirable.”
Now, she is peddling a very different line in her latest article published in lawfare blog: “[The U.S. should] develop more coercive tools to contain the threat that Pakistan poses to itself and beyond.”
As Amb. Husain Haqqani points out in his new book Pakistan’s strategic outlook has changed little in almost four decades. And yet, our eminent political scientists are yet to figure out what makes Pakistan tick!
With al-Qaeda variety now resurgent, policy-makers in the US and in Europe must be wondering who they can turn to for advice.
I think it is very useful to highlight these problems, because so many Americans (including those who work with the Pakistanis) are captured at various times by these approaches. Combine this with Teresita and Howard Schaffer’s “How Pakistan Negotiates With the U.S.” (USIP book) and it might provide a very useful primer for Americans who have to work with Pakistan in the future. The relationship IS transactional much of the time, and that may not be a bad thing. However, if we are to get the most for our transactions, it would help to know what arguments the Pakistanis will use to gain more sympathy, why they are flawed, and the fact that they have succeeded in the past. Then we might get more for our investment, and the Pakistanis might not feel they have a successful playbook for manipulation of the US and its emissaries.
I don’t disagree with you, Tim, or really quibble with the observation that these are common arguments, particularly from the Pakistani defense establishment. Dr. Fair is correct; these are common arguments that present a public rationale for the way in which Pakistan and the U.S. have engaged in policy exchanges in the past. I do think the argumentation is over broad, overdrawn, and American-centric: for instance, given its donor relationship with Afghanistan, it’s hard to argue that India is not seeking to influence the Afghan regime to its own ends (and, if you draw on the realist tenets purported in WotR, can you really discredit Pakistan’s security establishment’s obsession with Indian power?). That aside, it’s more the conclusion that I’d argue is overdrawn. I would suggest an alternate ending that focuses on interests, rather than friend/enemy, and the various domestic issues of the Pakistani state that underlie the arguments. Although I tend to believe Dr. Fair’s conclusion is more a matter of rhetorical flair than analysis, the problem of strategic engagement with Pakistan is a tougher one than suggested by this piece.
A total biased anti-Pakistan fabrication.
The US has used Pakistan to implement its “New Silk Road” policy involving a US strategic presence in Central Asia, which requires Pakistan as an entry from the Arabian Sea and Afghanistan as a conduit. Meanwhile the US has conducted a losing fight against the Taliban which it has known to be supported by Pakistan (e.g. see Gen. McChrystal’s 2009 assessment) and the US has also primarily supported Pakistan’s arch-enemy in the region, India.
Thank you Don..We do have a friend.
Are you telling us that Usama Bin Laden was not killed in Pakistan?
And are you telling us that Taliban are not controlled from inside Pakistan?
Was your message paid for by the Pakistani government, Don?
Very well written and to the point. It’s aboiut time American journalists began to call it for what it is.
We’ve noticed many Pakistanis posing under western names to propagate their cause across the internet.
@Don Bacon. It is not clear why you call this article a “fabrication”. It is biased but Ms. Fair does not make any bones about it. And that is her right. In the interests of fairness please enlighten us on the “fabrications” so that all of us may know.
To help you a little, I think she is inaccurate on one point. She mentions that the Taliban were not created by Pakistan. That is actually incorrect. They were begat by Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Hamid Gul, former head of the ISI. The connection between the Pakistani military and the Taliban runs very very deep. Dangerously so, and that is why Pakistan is in a state of perpetual turmoil.
Finally, Pakistan and Pakistanis think that mentioning the foibles and many transgressions of India will have a cleansing and medicinal effect. It will somehow wipe away Pakistani sins. Tragically, such a reflexive strategy is thoughtless and it lacks credibility (it is like Hitler blaming the Jews for all of Germany’s ills).
dear its a nice recapitulation of the perceptions but there are some points which require more reading for instance pt 5 about creation of al qaeda. Steve coll in the book Ghost wars has highlighted the creation about alqaeda which was far prior than afghan war or jihad. While you may see difference in interests of the two states, try to see the same while putting yourself in pakistani shoes, i would also like you to listen to the video of hillary clinton in which she has vividly accepted abetting pakistan once it direly needed some assistance. i am sure the assistance was not more than that of europe’s bail out package after the 2nd world war which had less population affected as compared to pakistan and afghanistan. instead one highlights many differences and controversies which exist between states it is better to focus on a single goal which is achievement of peace and march to prosperity while we put aside the riddles.
Facts should at least be correct. I think buddy you should read history and geography along with British colonial history before hand. Rest is all myths. Ha
The United States supported several mujahideen groups via the ISI through George Bush Sr.’s administration. Peter Tomsen was the U.S. Special representative in Pakistan to coordinate the efforts against Najibullah’s government. The U.S. was so focused on ridding Afghanistan of communism that it did not consider the second and third order effects of continuing to support the mujahideen. So did it ‘start’ the Taliban? No. Did the U.S. ser conditions for an organization like the Taliban to rise to power? Yes – it did.
VERY TRUE ! USA will get more sucked if it continues to trust Pakistan and its obscurantist ideology.
An unusually polemical and superficial article.
I thought scholars are supposed to examine and take apart the structural complexities and nuances of a situation. Instead all Ms. Fair is doing is amplifying one particular rhetorical narrative. This does nothing to advance our understanding of, or interests in, the region. In fact, to deny that Pakistan has grievances (legitimate or otherwise) with the US is delusional, and therefore counterproductive.
I see the Pakistani apologists have caught wind of this objective article. Thereby proving Dr. Fair’s many points
Very well highlighted. We Afghans have been arguing this for months, years and even decades, but I am glad to see this coming from an American professor.
That’s right. The Afghans have every right to accuse Pakistan of being an ungrateful American ally ;)
Our sindhi nationalist & secular leader, G.M Syed had warned of Islamic terrorism threat to the world in early 1970s due to which his books were strictly banned & he was house-arrested for 32 yrs. Now, we sindhi & baloch ethnic people are facing pakistani oppression & aggression against our demands of autonomy and freedom. The Pakistani state is empowering Jihadi terrorist organization in Sindh & Balochistan to counter the demands of autonomy & freedom. Pakistani military establishment sponsored organization are inciting religious & ethnic violence to silence & press the voices of sindh & Baluchistan freedom. Recently, a mass grave was found in Baluchistan and the US is least bothered to question Pakistan on serious human rights violation. The US was silent on genocide in East Pakistan (Bangladesh) and now it is silent in case of Sindh & Baluchistan. Hundreds of freedom activists are abducted & are missing but no one in the world is bothered to question Pakistan. The number of Pakistani military establishment sponsored wahabi-deobandi Madaresahs (religious schools)in Sindh alone has grown to 14000 from a few hundreds before 9/11 according to Sindh interior ministry report. What the world see in Pakistan done by Pakistani state & its sponsered terrorist organizations is tip of the ice berg. The hunderds of thousands of brainwashed-hardcore-madaresha-educated youth are in production phase.
Jamie, so you don’t respect someone’s honest opinion if it conflicts with your aspirations. Based upon you absurd observation, I am compelled to ask if Ms Fair, even you, have been paid by the Indian and the US government?
Totally accurate analysis. The US Administration has paid Billions of Dollar to the rogue state of Pakistan for years in order to buy some influence in the region and in a hope of turning Pakistan into a functional democracy, but unfortunately almost all that money is used by Pakistan in killing Afghans and Americans for so many years by creating several Terrorist organizations. Unfortunately, the US Administration continue to pour money into this problem state thinking that they can’t do anything else.
I strongly believe, before attacking Afghanistan; Bush should have thought of changing regime in Pakistan. This country (Pakistan) has a very bad cancer like neighbor to all its neighbors and it needs dealt with ASAP
This piece is a true manifestation of typical US approach to mess created in pursuit of own national interests.
The author has conveniently forgotten with whose support USA emerged as the SOLE SUPERPOWER.
US has spend hundreds of bns of US$ in Af & failed, but the author is bothered about US$10.7 bn given to Pak.
Either the author is ignorant or purposely did not mention the double-games by CIA-RAW Nexus against Pak. TTP’s Amir is presently enjoying sanctuary in NATO / US controlled Afghanistan.
Reality sucks. If the author wants to know why USA is failing in Afghanistan, she must look inwards. This piece may help http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-13-17988-Anniversary-of-Operation-Enduring-Freedom …
There are indeed many reasons for the US’s failure in Afghanistan. But I would hardly call shoveling in billions of dollars into the government of Pakistan hostile. I would not call the lifting of sanctions on Pakistan and decision to cooperate with Musharraf hostile.
C’mon Ms Fair, do you seriously believe that we were naive enough to misunderstand true US intentions, when she decided to convert Afghanistan in to an outpost to pose check on Chinese trade hegemony and untapped future of energy i.e. Central Asia. Sadly for you and other haters we exactly know our importance as the only viable future route to global Trade and Energy via our corridor in to the Indian Ocean and yes we shall exploit it. No matter how much, you de-stablize us through installing despotic leaders, intelligence ploys, false flag operations or through economic arm twisting, WE SHALL PREVAIL.If you want a fair share in the neo-great game, we are the middlemen. So bare with it, it is worth the cost. Ideal would have been to lessen human miseries by working more suavely and progressively, adopting a mutually beneficial course, where we would have let you accrue max advantage of our strategic position and you would have developed our institutions rather than bribing idiots in our ranks but sadly this did not happen. So why to whine and whimper on thousands of dead, when you called it upon yourself.
Having gone through all the comments, it is interesting to note that all profoundly supportive comments have been given by Indians. That alone is enough to demonstrate the pro-Indian bias in Ms Fair’s article.
To all the commentators that have tried to highlight Pakistani atrocities, I wonder, don’t they see Indian cruelty on the people of Kashmir? a place that India claims to be an integral part of itself. Thousands killed, thousands of women raped, huge mass graves unearthed to name a few. Not to talk about Indian involvement and support of anti-Pakistan activities within Pakistan and the use of Afghan territory to create havoc on the Pakistani citizens.
@Syed. The level of paranoia, self-deception, projection, and displacement among Pakistanis deserves a whole chapter in DSM-5 (the manual used by psychiatrists). India is similar to the cat that gets kicked over the sofa every time Pakistanis need to vent their frustration.
There is no correlation between your comment and the article under discussion or the comments. But you cannot confront the truth, and so out of frustration you kick the cat across the room. Lashing out at India is reflexive and satisfying.
Ms. Fair may not be entirely accurate in her assessment of Pakistan, but she nails Pakistani lies pretty well. The rest of the world is still wondering why no one, and I repeat “no one”, has been brought to book for missing (or hiding) UBL in Abottabad. What does this say about Pakistan, other than that it is duplicitous and untrustworthy?
Madam. Thank you for saying it like it is. But you forgot to mention thatthe US has actually provided Pakistan with an air force an anti submarine weapons. To fight the Taliban? If the US provided all that to Pakistan and let them up the garden path, why blame Pakistanis?
It is a question to Ms. Fair.. How do you say that, Pakistan hasn’t won a “single war” against India? Did they not usurp half of Kashmir in 1948??
And in Point 2, you mentioned “….and even aided non-aligned India in its 1962 war with Communist China.”
China never aided India. It helped Pakistan in fighting a war against India.
Hello…with respect to your question about point no.2 Chris is referring to America giving aid to India during Sino Indian war of 1962 between India and China. However I would like to add that while the aid came late but it was American pressure which prevented Pak to join China against India.
Pakistan’s big mistake to get involved in the Afghan civil war. It should not have invited others also to join in. It was a war Pakistan could have avoided. That involvement was the begining of the end for Pakostan give rise to the drug and gun culture. Pakistan should not accept aid to fight wars. Now Pakistan have got herself in a deep mess from which it is hard to climb out of. It should have stayed neutral. After getting independence no attention was paid to improving health and education particularly in the Pushtun and Balochi speaking areas. Wars are a luxury only ‘Super Powers’ can afford. All countries follow their interests and Pakistan’s goal should have been to provide health and education to its citizen and improve its ifrastructure. Pakistani people are not the same as the Pakistani government or its Military. They want peace snd prosperity.
An excellent expose, generally fair and factual.
However, let us not forget that it is PAKISTAN that helped and facilitated US to reach Chins; first Henry Kissinger, on whose first trip to Peking (then) from ISLAMABAD, this scribe was directly involved a arrange an escorted Feined Dignitary Kissinger in a proper convoy to Nathiagali–with a view to dupe the Press, that Kissinger was a little unwell and planning to rest in that place of salubrious clime….!
But for Pakistan’s help and cooperation ; US woud not ad become the Sole Superpower….!
Small, weak and poor PAKISTAN, but the US needed it real badly as a shield against USSR in the days of CENTO and SEATO; when Nehru’s India was in the warm lap of USSR and the Non-Aligned Movement was at its peak–much to the distaste of US.
When Francis Gary Power’s U-2 was shot down over Russia, JFK begged President Ayub Khan to help them by doing the same job by RB-57s. I happen to be the Senior Most Navigator from PAF to have been involved in that Programme under code named “Friendship Team”–this is when US was way behind the USSR in Missiles Technology, and the aforesaid activity of U-2 like. Can US deny this stuff of circa 1962..?
These relations are a Two Way Street, except that the bigger one keeps bullying the smaller one.
As to the US $ given by US to PAKISTAN in the last 13 years, PAKISTAN has been cheated thru & thru… In US you pay first and get your Burger later. We fools did it in reverse and got less, for example our Road Network is in tatters due to excessive use by Heavy Vehicles. We shall have to spend huge money to recover them to original shape at horrendous cost. We must calculate accurately and Bill these Damages to the US…!
“..In fact, the only person that Pakistan has arrested was the doctor, Shakil Afridi, who cooperated with the CIA‘s efforts to locate him…” Seriously? I stopped reading right there.