Americans use weapons-aid to resume NATO terror goods supply to
Afghanistan!
-DR. ABDUL RUFF COLACHAL
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Clearly, Americans have taken every Pakistani
a beggar who would surrender to American will in order to gain some while
coins. In fact, over years of passive attitude of Islamabad to aggressive NATO
terror attacks and massacres of Muslims inside Pakistan and nearby, has made
the Pentagon and White House to ignore sovereignty of Pakistan and equate
Pakistani rulers as being equivalent to a few terror goods.
Today the US military secretary Chuck Hagel
has tactfully used an aid program that has sent “billions of dollars” worth
weapons to Islamabad to bully Pakistani leaders that if they don't resolve
protests stalling some military shipments across the border with Afghanistan,
it could be difficult to maintain the military - political support in
Washington.
This is the essence of US coercive diplomacy
unleashed from Washington globally for years since the Sept-11 hoax, now making
Pakistan as well as Afghanistan deadly destabilized nations in South Asia. .
Americans have been using Pakistani
territories as their own colony to conduct drone terror attacks on Pakistanis
and ship terror goods to Afghanistan by using Central Asian
republics. Some of the items include advanced communications equipment,
roadside bomb jammers, night vision goggles and surveillance aircraft.
The Pakistani government blocked the supply
crossings for seven months following U.S. airstrikes that accidentally killed
two dozen soldiers on the Afghan border in November 2011. Pakistan finally
reopened the routes after the U.S. apologized. The rift largely led the US to
sever most aid to Pakistan for some time, but relations were restored in July
2012. Since then the U.S. has delivered over $1.15 billion in security
assistance to Pakistan.
Since July 2012, relations between Washington
and Islamabad have been improving. Sharif met with President Barack Obama and
Hagel in late October in Washington.
That more and more Pakistanis hate Americans
is evident from the way people come in large numbers to attend anti-America
rallies conducted by former cricketer Imran Khan’s popular political outfit
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. Just last week, anti-American protests along one of
the primary border crossing routes in Pakistan prompted the USA to stop the
shipments from Torkham Gate through Karachi last week, due to worries about the
safety of the truckers. The protests center on the CIA's drone program that has
targeted and killed many terrorists, but has caused civilian casualties.
Shireen Mazari, the information secretary for
the political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, said in a statement it's time for
the government to speak forcefully to the USA to demand an end to the drone
attacks. The party is leading the protests.
America, frustrated that Pakistan
plays the popularity card and hundreds of military shipments
heading out of Afghanistan have been stopped on the land route through Pakistan
because of anti-American protests, faces the possibility of flying out
equipment at an additional cost of $1 billion.
Reports suggest that upon US threat to end
service charges in arms to Islamabad, Hagel had back-to-back meetings this
morning with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the new army chief, Gen. Raheel
Sharif, in a move to further repair what has been a strained and sputtering
relationship between Washington and Islamabad.
USA claims that its tricks worked
in Islamabad and Hagel has already received assurances from the Pakistan
government that they would take "immediate action" to resolve the
shipment problem in US favor and modality would be worked out in secret, though
the officials did not provide details on how that might be done.
During the hegal-Pakistan meetings some of the
more contentious issues also were raised, including affected and destabilized
Islamabad's opposition to ongoing CIA drone strikes and Washington's
frustration with Pakistan's reluctance to go after the freedom fighters like
Haqqani patriotic network, which, according to CIA story, operates along the
border and conducts attacks on US and coalition troops in Afghanistan.
Though USA has claims its right to kill
Pakistanis by calling them as terrorists. Sharif’s office says the prime
minister and Hagel had "in-depth exchanges on a whole range of issues of
mutual interest" including bilateral defense, security cooperation and
Afghanistan. Sharif conveyed Pakistan's deep concern over continuing US drone
strikes, "stressing that drone strikes were counter-productive to our
efforts to combat terrorism and extremism on an enduring basis," a
statement said. The officials acknowledged that little progress was made
other than to agree to continue talking.
Hagel is first high ranking US official to
meet with the Army chief, who took over at the end of last month. The last
Pentagon chief to visit Pakistan was Robert Gates in January 2010. Following
their meeting in Rawalpindi, Hagel and Sharif echoed each other's desire to
work to strengthen the countries' ties. The top military men discussed the
defense relationship between the two countries and regional stability,
according to the Pakistani army chief's office. Hagel flew to Pakistan from
Afghanistan, where he visited US troops but declined to meet with President
Hamid Karzai, who seems to have rankled the US by refusing to sign a security
agreement before year's end. After leaving Islamabad, he flew to Saudi Arabia
where he is meeting with Crown Prince Salman, and then to Qatar, where he will
speak to US troops tomorrow.
More than a week after Pakistani officials
promised Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel that they would take "immediate
action" to resolve the problem, dozens of protesters are still gathering
on the busy overland route, posing a security threat to convoys carrying US
“military equipment” out of the war zone before combat ends a year from now.
Americans said flying the military equipment
out of Afghanistan to a port will cost five to seven times as much as it does
to truck it through Pakistan. About a hundred trucks are stacked up at the
border, and hundreds more are loaded and stalled in compounds, waiting to leave
Afghanistan. The shipments consist largely of military equipment that is no
longer needed now that the Afghan war is ending. Sending the cargo out through
the normal Pakistan routes will cost about $5 billion through the end of next
year, including armored vehicles, out of Afghanistan to ports in the Middle
East, where it would be loaded onto ships, would cost about $6 billion if it
continued through next year, said the official.
A northern supply route, which runs through
Uzbekistan and up to Russia, was used for about seven months last year when
Pakistan shut down the southern passages after US airstrikes accidentally
killed 24 Pakistani soldiers at two border posts. That northern route, however,
was used primarily to bring shipments into Afghanistan, and is much longer,
more costly and often requires cargo to be transferred from trucks to rail.
Cargo usually goes through the Torkham
crossing in northern Pakistan or the Chaman crossing in southern Pakistan's
Baluchistan province. As the USA drawdown in Afghanistan continues, the goal
has been to move about 30 shipments per day out of Afghanistan to Karachi.
Shipments through Torkham stopped in late November. U.S. officials say that
just a small percentage is taken out through the Chaman route because it is
more dangerous and crosses through the insurgency-plagued Baluchistan province.
Pentagon says they have seen no effort by the
Pakistanis to stop the protests, which prompted the U.S. three weeks ago to
halt NATO cargo shipments going through the Torkham border crossing and toward
the port city of Karachi. Hagel received assurances from Pakistan leaders
during the meetings that they would resolve the problem but no progress has
been made.
The protesters are demonstrating against the
CIA's drone program, which has targeted and killed many terrorists but has also
caused civilian casualties. The group gathers daily at a toll booth on the
outskirts of the provincial capital of Peshawar, in Pakistan's northern Khyber
Paktunkhwa province. All traffic going into the tribal areas and on to the
Torkham crossing must pass through the toll booth.
The protesters, however, appear to be in this
for the long haul. Khalid had a schedule listing who would be manning the
sit-in each day through mid-January.
Earlier this week, a group of about 40
protesters were at the toll booth, including about 10 who were waving flags as
vehicles and trucks drove past. A makeshift enclosure was set up on the side of
the road, complete with chairs arranged under a tent encircled by barbed wire
to keep the protest from spilling into traffic.
A few police officers stood nearby, with
orders to allow the protests to go on but ensure that no one got unruly or
attacked the drivers. The group has been stopping container trucks going into
Afghanistan and looking at their papers to determine whether they are carrying
cargo bound for NATO troops. If so, the protesters force the trucks to turn
around. PTI leader Khalid said the group got instructions not to stop trucks
coming out of Afghanistan into Pakistan, and added that they've also noticed
there has been little traffic coming from Karachi and heading into Afghanistan.
Companies know, he said, that they will be turned back at the checkpoint. It
has been about a week since the protesters encountered a truck carrying NATO
goods.
Shah Farman, a PTI member who serves as the
provincial information minister, said the national government, controlled by the
Pakistan Muslim League-N, hasn't moved to aggressively reopen the route because
they don't want to be seen as supporting the drone campaign. "Why is the
federal government silent? Because they can't go against the public
pulse," said Farman.
A July 2012 agreement between Pakistan and the
U.S. allows NATO to take supplies out of Afghanistan through Pakistan. But she
said the issue is a sensitive one due to the widespread opposition to the U.S.
drone strikes in Pakistan. Tasnim Aslam, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, said"Obviously the government would be looking for a
peaceful way out to move the protesters from there, to convince them to
move," she said. "Our constitution gives people this right, if
they're not violent. They have the right to protest. So I don't know if they
can be forcibly removed from that place."
A Pakistani official says the government is
looking for a peaceful settlement but notes that citizens have the right to
protest as long as they are not violent.
People are eager
to defend the sovereignty of their nation.
Heavy Notes
Pakistan has called the drone strikes a
violation of the country's sovereignty, but the issue is muddied by the fact
that Islamabad and the military have supported at least some of the strikes in
the past. However, Sharif has not taken any genuine steps to end US drone
teroirsm in Pakistan.
Strangely, Hagel's warning to the Pakistanis
is ridiculous. Washington shamelessly equates US arms with money loss for
Islamabad when the NATO supply route reflects what has been a growing but
unnecessary ”frustration” among US Congressmen with Pakistan in recent years.
Who are the Americans who occupy Pakistan to
warn the Pakistanis?
But is Pakistan duty-bound to shield American
fascist, imperialist interests along the Silk Route? Have Pakistanis voted
Sharif and allies to power only to help the Americans in “performing” massacres
of Pakistani Muslims?
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