US support of Pakistan ‘strategic mistake’: Spanta

[trident2010]

US support of Pakistan ‘strategic mistake’: Spanta

WASHINGTON: A senior Afghan official is urging the United States to re-evaluate its friendship with Pakistan, accusing the country of supporting Al-Qaeda and other extremists.

Writing in Monday's Washington Post, Afghanistan's national security adviser Rangin Dadfar Spanta said Pakistani policy has helped maintain a level of violence that is leading to the erosion of western support for the war.

US-led troops are deployed with a mission to fight extremist groups, but the task “has been compounded by another strategic failure: the mistaken embrace of 'strategic partners' who have, in fact, been nurturing terrorism,” he wrote.

“While we are losing dozens of men and women to terrorist attacks every day, the terrorists' main mentor continues to receive billions of dollars in aid and assistance. How is this fundamental contradiction justified?” Spanta wrote.

Pakistan and Afghanistan have long had a fraught relationship. Pakistan was a supporter of the Taliban regime but switched sides after the September 11, 2001 attacks, becoming the frontline US partner.

US officials credit Pakistan with stepping up the fight against home-grown Taliban, including through a blistering assault in its tribal northwest last year, but many believe Pakistani intelligence has maintained links with extremists targeting Afghanistan and India.

Spanta acknowledged bluntly that international support has dropped for the Afghan campaign, writing: “Global opinion has also turned against us.”

While acknowledging western concerns were partially due to Afghanistan's corruption, Spanta also pointed to Pakistan, saying: “We have failed to mobilise people for a cause where the fighting is in one place and the enemy is in another.”

Many experts believe that Pakistan' top goal in Afghanistan is ensuring it can exert influence after the US pullout. US President Barack Obama wants to start removing combat troops in mid-2011.




DAWN.COM | World | US support of Pakistan ?strategic mistake?: Spanta

 

[Patriot]

In other news, A Senior Afghan Official is Desperate ! and this is a hard lesson for those idiots who thinks Afghan Refugees should not be sent back home!What Afghanistan does not realize is that Pakistan US Relations go beyond Afghanistan and there are far more strategic issues between US and Pakistan.These are old relations from the cold war days..Afghanistan came into picture later in 80's.

 

[GentlemanObserver]

It's Mr. Spanta again. How goes the operations in Helmand sir? Exactly, i thought as much, lets distract attention from the key question everyone from Washington to Beijing are asking.

 

[Patriot]

It's Mr. Spanta again. How goes the operations in Helmand sir? Exactly, i thought as much, lets distract attention from the key question everyone from Washington to Beijing are asking.

These people don't realize that Pakistan has very powerful backers.

 

[Spring Onion]

Rangin Dadfar is a known anti-Pakistan person. In the past he had tried alot to damage Pakistani name and position.

even US was pressurised by some lobbies to bring him in as Afghan president but that conspiracy did not work.

 

[muse]

The duplicity of US policy and in fighting among it's amateur policy makers is now paying dividends - on the one hand, it offers Pakistan a "strategic" relationship, on the other hand, fanatical, rogue elements within it's policy making and intelligence circles provide its Afghan clients with themes and venues to attack US policy. Worst still US citizens cannot hold neither the policy nor renegade policy makers accountable, making a mockery of so called "democracy".

With the failure of it's policy of duplicity, as our analysis predicted (correctedly) more than a year ago, the Afghan "mission" is a dud and the US seeks to extricate itself with all haste - the renegade elements of US intelligence (an oxymoron given the Wikileaks) are now desperate and see the continued justification for their existence in the creation of a regional conflict.

 

[BATMAN]

It is Pakistan's mistake to not tell him shutup.

 

[sergente rehan]

Spanta is anti-Pakistani and pro indian so it's normal that he gives f*lthy statements like this. He forget to mention that those terrorists are also sopported by enemies of Pakistan against Pakistan. He's like Karzai always bark against Pakistan and change every time his statement when it's usefull for them. Anyway i don't think that his statements will change anything!