Pakistan rebukes US lawmakers who belittled its anti-terror efforts
July 14, 2016
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Special Correspondent
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WASHINGTON - Pakistan told a group of American lawmakers and experts who derided it's counterterrorism efforts at a Congressional hearing on Tuesday that Islamabad's resolve wipe out terrorism was "second to none."
"We need not remind the skeptics that no country has suffered more from terrorism than Pakistan," Nadeem Hotiana, a spokesman of the Pakistani Embassy in Washington said on Thursday while commenting on their testimonies, some of them derogatory to Pakistan, at the hearing, entitled "Pakistan: A Friend of Foe in the Fight Against Terrorism."
The hearing was initiated byRepublican Congressman Ted Poe, a pro-India campaigner at Capitol Hill, who joined the calls for cutting off aid to Pakistan and listing it as a "State sponsoring terrorism."
"Positive counter-terrorism cooperation between the two countries has been widely acknowledged by the leadership of the two countries," Hotiana said, while reminding Pakistan's critics that that US and Pakistan have been partners in the anti-terror campaign.
"In the October 2015 Joint Statement of President Obama and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, President (Barack) Obama, affirmed Pakistan’s role as a key counterterrorism partner and recognised the sacrifices that Pakistani civilians, military, and law-enforcement personnel have made over the years as they confront terrorism and militant groups," he said.
"Both leaders also renewed their common resolve to promote peace and stability throughout the region and to counter all forms of extremism and terrorism.
"Chairman Armed Services Committee, Senator John McCain, after a recent visit to Pakistan and seeing firsthand the results of military operations in North Waziristan, said 'he was impressed by the progress on ground'," the spokesman added.
"Pakistan’s resolve to fight back the menace of terrorism is, therefore, second to none. The extra-ordinary success of operation Zarb-e-Azb is a testimony to Pakistan’s unwavering commitment to eliminate terrorism from the Pakistani soil."
At the hearing, American lawmakers and experts called Pakistan "manipulative" and claimed that it that supports terrorist elements and has been treating the US like chumps.
"They are making chumps out of us. They see us we are being so stupid. It seems like paying the mafia," said Congressman Matt Salmon, Chairman of the Asia and Pacific subcommittee of House Foreign Affairs Committee. "If I may use an undiplomatic term. We have been patsies," former Bush-era top diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad told lawmakers along with others how Pakistani leadership had "gamed" the American system for decades.
"Patsies chumps. Most Americans see out of this and yet our so called leaders do not really get it," Salmon added.
Bill Roggio, senior editor of the Long War Journal Foundation for Defence of Democracies along with Khalilzad called for cutting aid to Pakistan and put them in the list of State Sponsor of terrorism.
"At the end they are treating us like chumps. And we are more than willing to keep on handing out money to Pakistan," Roggio said.
"Pakistanis are very clever in manipulating us. I have to state that," said Khalilzad, while talking about his dealing with the Pakistani leadership when he served in various diplomatic position in the Bush era, including the US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and the Permanent Representative of the US to the UN.
They reach out to distinguished members of the Congress, they invite them for visits, they charm them, they promise once again and they extract statements from us that are "surprising" in the face of facts, he said.
Asked why the US continued with its same policy, Khalilzad said that Pakistani ability to manipulate by their actions in part had been a factor.
"My experience in dealing with Pakistan is that they will only give you something, when they know that they are going to get something," the former top American diplomat said.
Congressman Dana Rohrabacher said that the Pakistani government and Saudi Arabia created the Taliban and the Haqqani network.
Rohrabacher said the US' aid giving to Pakistan was "ridiculous".
"People of Balochistan are being slaughtered by this corrupt oppressive regime, he said.
Salmon said he personally believed that as the first step, the US should completely cut off aid to Pakistan. "That would be the right first step. If we do not any changes, we move some of the other suggestions, state sponsor terrorism, possible economic sanctions. I personally believe we have the worst policy that we have and what we are doing is rewarding these people," Salmon said.
Published in The Nation newspaper on 14-Jul-2016
