Pakistan Reaches Out to China, Russia as Anti-American Sentiments Surge

[Omar1984]

ISLAMABAD (EUX.TV) -- With the induction of a civilian president in Pakistan, the United States has intensified its pressure on Pakistan and increased territorial violations in tribal areas of country on Afghan border.

A growing number of raids and the killing of innocent civilians has further fueled anti US sentiment in Pakistan. People are demanding a government response against the intrusions and attacks by US or US-led coalition forces.

Last week, for a first time the United States used its special forces, which were landed at Angoor Adda, in Bajur, and killed several innocent civilians. A ground assault by US Special Forces troops on a Pakistani village last Wednesday threatened to expand the escalating Afghanistan war.

Pakistan is already confronting a virtual civil war in its tribal border regions as the country’s military, under pressure from Washington, and seeks to crush Islamist militias who support the anti-occupation insurgency inside Afghanistan.

Later on they again attacked North Waziristan and used military drones again, killing one civilian.

Meanwhile, the mood in Pakistan further agrivated when chief of US troops and chairman joint chief of staff Admiral Michel Mullan said that the US can go inside Pakistan to nab Al Qaeda militants, particularly Osama bin laden and Amen Al Zawahri.

The US government believes that they are hiding in Pakistan's tribal areas. Due to the growing pressure on newly installed civilian government and on Pakistan's army, Pakistan's army chief had come out with rebuttal and said his country would not allow any foreign intrusion in Pakistan. It is said that US President Bush has given approval to US troops to operate inside Pakistan.


Analysts believed that if United States operate inside Pakistan without the authorization of Islamabad, it would be another blunder committed by United States that could aid Al Qaeda, and force the world to face more terrorism.

After the 9/11 attacks, Pakistan found itself on the front line in the war on terror. The country remained committed without the wishes of general public, particularly tribal people whose jihad against former Soviet Union was funded by United States. For this purpose United States in recent decadeso brought foreign fighters to the area, particularly from Arab world, including separatists fighters from Chechnya and Uzbekistan who fought against Soviet troops.

Tribal people fought jihad and forced Soviet Union to withdraw from Afghanistan.

Soon after the withdrawal of Soviet troops all jihadists were left alone and the United States and western forces withdrew their support. This led to anarchy in Afghanistan and created large numbers of war lords in Afghanistan who started fighting with each others to get control of Kabul.

Warring factions in various parts Afghanistan not only strengthened Islamic extremism in Afghanistan but provided opportunity for the Taliban to get control. At the time of 9/11, the Taliban government had control 90 percent of Afghanistan. Now with the renewed US interest in the area, the Taliban were thrown out of the Kabul and Hamid Karzai was installed as president. Karzai, however, has little control over Afghanistan's fragmented powers.

The US is pushing Pakistan to do more to bring Al Qaeda to task. Pakistan has lost at least 1500 troops. A substantial number of civilians in tribal areas and Pakistani cities have become victims of suicide attacks and terrorist activities. People say that how much more United States could ask for.

Due to the mounting pressure from the US and increasing terrorist attacks, anti-US sentiments are now gaining momentum in Pakistan. Numerous protests are taking place in almost every major city of the country including the capital Islamabad. People believe now it is high time to look for new friends, pointing to China and Russia, instead of standing by with old ally US who always ditched Pakistan in the past.


EUX.TV - Pakistan Reaches Out to China, Russia as Anti-American Sentiment Surges

 

[Spring Onion]

Yes its time to go for joining hands with others instead of relying on unreliable US.

Time to move to another block gradualy not as anti-US sentimental move but keeping in view the long-term planing in the changing world scenario.

 

[T-Rex]

Just like Baitullah Mehsud I won't be surprised if it turns out that Bin Laden and AlQueda are also secretly getting "communication gears" from the CIA. The Pakistani government should seriously consider this and run a thorough investigation to discover the truth. There is an old proverb that when you have a friend in the US you don't need an enemy, it is so true for pakistan today.

 

[Spring Onion]

Just like Baitullah Mehsud I won't be surprised if it turns out that Bin Laden and AlQueda are also secretly getting "communication gears" from the CIA. The Pakistani government should seriously consider this and run a thorough investigation to discover the truth. There is an old proverb that when you have a friend in the US you don't need an enemy, it is so true for pakistan today.

Yes indeed it could be more than possible


Afghan Variable in Asian Geopolitics

It appears that the USA is in fact supporting
the spread of fundamentalist Islam

Come Carpentier de Gourdon
Convener, Editorial Board
WORLD AFFAIRS JOURNAL


Afghanistan, historic western gateway to the Indian subcontinent and cradle of some of the most ancient Vedic literature, is going through one of its periodic wars of independence, once again struggling to expel from its territory the mostly Anglo-Saxon invaders who are, once more, intent on tightening their control of the Middle East and securing their penetration into Central Asia by occupying this old Indo-Iranian crossroads. Fighting rages as we speak, as the various foreign military contingents are under attack in several provinces of the country and in Kabul itself.


American strategy, camouflaged as a methodology for humanitarian, anti-terrorist intervention, is to control the main urban centres of the country - Kabul in order to lock the Pakistani North West; Kandahar as a door to Iranian and Pakistani Baluchistan, and Herat as base to act against Iran.

Hobbled by its usual lack of understanding of most of the local geographic and human elements, Washington relies on a mixture of brute high-tech force and bribery - the euphemism for the latter is "winning hearts and minds" and according to on-site witnesses has been spectacularly unsuccessful - to secure the support or at least the neutrality of the leading tribes and factions. The CIA and other American agencies have often supported with weapons and money the traditionally rebellious clans of Pakistan?s NWFP in order to gain their sympathy, notwithstanding the fact that much of the military equipment has been used by those Pushtun chieftains against the regular Pakistani army which the US is currently urging to fight them.

Some observers feel that the US-British leadership would not be averse, depending upon the evolution of the conflict, to the secession of the tribal areas from Pakistan if such a new country could be used as a pad for NATO military facilities. An independent, "pro-Western" Baluchistan, stretching across the present territories of Pakistan and Iran is included in the plans for the Greater Middle East.

Northern Afghanistan, dominated by Uzbek and Tajik ethnic elements, is already being used as a base camp for supporting radical guerilla action and political subversion in the adjoining ex-Soviet republics which are regarded either as too closely aligned with their former Russian overlord or too controlled by the new Chinese regional hegemon. . . .

The recent immigration case of Turkish Sufi religious leader Fethullah Gulen in the US has brought to light legally compelling evidence, from American official sources themselves, that Gulen's mammoth organization, Nurcus, was operating as a CIA front, with Turkish, Saudi Arab and American support throughout Central Asia as a network of Madrassas and Islamic foundations. Those court documents have been publicized in her "State Secrets Gallery" by whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds, who has long been pointing to a US Central Asian strategy that connects the arming and training of radical Islamic groups with the destabilization of regimes seen as too close to Russia and China or too friendly to Iran, and to plans for the construction of oil and gas pipelines in support of western energy interests ("Court Documents shed light on CIA illegal Operations in Central Asia using Islam and Madrassas").

It appears that the USA, despite its official position to the contrary, is in fact supporting the spread of fundamentalist Islam, in the belief that it is not a real threat to its interests in the long run as it is too steeped in history and too remote from the modern "knowledge and finance society" to pose a genuine challenge, contrary to China, Russia, India and Iran which truly threaten Anglo-American technological, economic and cultural supremacy, but can be fought through the proxy of Islamic movements. . . .

 

[genmirajborgza786]

Just like Baitullah Mehsud I won't be surprised if it turns out that Bin Laden and AlQueda are also secretly getting "communication gears" from the CIA. The Pakistani government should seriously consider this and run a thorough investigation to discover the truth. There is an old proverb that when you have a friend in the US you don't need an enemy, it is so true for pakistan today.

well-thought of and well said

 

[muse]

Is Pakistan Next on the Neocon Agenda?=?
Aijaz Zaka Syed

18 September 2008 Print E-mail
Back home in the sub-continent, they say you should always stay away from the cops; their friendship as well as adversity is bad for one’s health. I am reminded of the advice as the world’s chief cop, United States, bombs its allies and friends in Pakistan. With friends like these, do you need any more enemies?

When General Pervez Musharraf had promptly and so enthusiastically recruited Pakistan in America’s war after that call from Colin Powell, he had assured his people that this was the only option available to Pakistan. Else, the reasonable General reasoned later, the US would have bombed Pakistan back to the Stone Age.

Fortunately or unfortunately for Pakistan, Musharraf is not around. Otherwise we could have asked the good General why the Coalition of the Willing has suddenly turned on its own. Or is Pakistan no longer part of Bush’s divine mission to promote Democracy and Human Dignity in the Muslim world now that Musharraf is out of power? Or have the new, democratic leaders of Pakistan happily surrendered the total control of the Islamic republic to Uncle Sam?

Last week as Asif Ali Zardari joined ‘brother Hamid Karzai’ in a duet celebrating democracy and the noble War on Terror after his inauguration, the US special forces were going about taking out ‘the terrorists’ in the Northwest, who surprisingly looked like women and children.

By hosting the Mayor of Kabul — oops, the Afghan President -- as the chief guest at his inauguration, Musharraf’s successor left no one in doubt where his priorities lay. But what was rather too much to take even for Zardari’s minders was his endless mollycoddling of ‘brother Karzai.’

Don’t take me wrong. I have nothing against the elegantly dressed Karzai and his ever-ready pearls of wisdom that he proffers from time to time for the benefit of his Western audiences. But he is not exactly the poster boy of democracy in the Muslim world, regardless of what his American friends might think of him. Most Pakistanis love to hate him. General Musharraf might have made a thousand policy blunders but the guy certainly knew how to deal with the likes of Karzai.

But how do Pakistan’s new leaders propose to deal with the increasingly demanding friends and allies like the Americans? Pakistan’s Army Chief General Ashfaq Kayani won the instant gratitude and admiration of his worried people and surprised the world by standing up to the Coalition of the Willing. The reticent General was lustily cheered by the Americans as ‘our man’ when he took over from Musharraf as the Chief of the Army Staff. There was much talk of his ‘Enlightened Moderation’ and his positive outlook on the West.

Which was why the Pakistanis were elated to see the General lash out at the Americans promising ‘retaliation’ if they continued to violate Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Whether the Pakistani Army will really take on America, the leading member of the fabled trinity -- the other two being Allah and Army of course -- is still a hypothetical question.

However, by asserting himself General Kayani articulated the sentiments and aspirations of the nation of 170 million people that has been at the receiving end for some time. More importantly, Kayani has provided the much-needed leadership and sense of direction to his people at one of the most difficult points in the nation’s history.

But where are those who are supposed to lead the nation at all times? Where are the champions of democracy and freedom when they are under threat by the friends who are not so friendly?

While the rejuvenated Pakistani media is constantly debating the growing US attacks inside the Pakistani territory protesting against the mounting civilian casualties, the silence of the country’s leaders on the issue is deafening. Zardari clumsily evaded all questions about the US incursions at his first Press conference that appeared more like the unveiling of Hamid Karzai. It’s been more than a week since he took over as the President. But he has offered no clue as to how the government proposed to deal with the issue. When the same question was raised in London after his meeting with British PM Gordon Brown, he quipped ‘there will be no more (attacks).’

It’s understandable if Benazir Bhutto’s widower finds himself inexorably indebted to Uncle Sam. After all, the US did not play an insignificant role in the turnaround of his fortune. It was the US pressure that persuaded Musharraf to bring in the National Reconciliation Ordinance paving the way for the return of Benazir and Zardari. It was the Bush administration again that pushed Musharraf to shed his uniform and hold elections.

So even though it was the pro-democracy movement pioneered by the lawyers and the media that eventually brought Musharraf down, the man who spent 11 years in the prison on his way to the presidency views Washington as his real benefactor.

Which is why it’s doubtful when and if the neocons in their last desperate bid to make the most out of the Bush presidency hit Pakistan, they’ll face much resistance from the political leadership.

Having totally wrecked Iraq and Afghanistan over the past seven years, the neocons are looking for fresh targets, new enemies and new territory to sustain the interest of the bored American voters. After the disastrous eight years of the Bush presidency, you would think the Republican would be too embarrassed to ask the voters for another shot at power. But if you can get Bush re-elected after what he unleashed on the Americans and the world in his first term, you can surely get another dummy elected all over again. Even if he is too old to run and doesn’t know how to check his e-mail. Even if he is threatening to persist with the mess in Iraq and Afghanistan and open new fronts in Pakistan and Iran.

Right now, the Republicans and neocons are dangerously desperate. They could do anything to keep Barack Hussein Obama out of the White House. And for them, attacking Pakistan is the surest and only way to laugh all the way to the vote bank. Besides, that’s where Osama Bin Laden is supposed to be holed up, right?

But who will tell the Bushies that if they hit Pakistan, the **** will really hit the fan. The world’s first Muslim nuclear state might have been much abused by the men in khaki and the civvies over the past half a century.

However, it’s not the defanged and neutered Iraq of Saddam Hussein. This is a country that has fought three major wars with the giant called India. The US may be the world’s greatest military power. But if it attacks Pakistan, all hell will break loose. It will end up turning the whole of Muslim world, from Morocco to Malaysia, into a large battlefield. So much so Saddam’s Iraq would look like a long picnic.

Aijaz Zaka Syed is Opinion Editor of Khaleej Times. The views expressed here are his own. Write to him at aijaz@khaleejtimes.com