Why Pakistan is going down the tubes

Yes, good piece on Pakistan..

Here is one from March 2007

http://dissidentvoice.org/Mar07/Stanton31.htm

I read somewhere today that much of the aid we are sending to Pak ends up being used to enhance nuclear warmaking capability. Maybe it was a link at antiwar.com.

Pakistan is suffering from self-inflicted wounds. It was Benazir Bhutto’s democratic government of Pakistan that chose to facilitate relocation of Osama bin Laden from Sudan to Afghanistan in 1990s. Sandy Berger, Clinton’s national security advisor had told 9/11 Commission in March 2004: “Pakistani Army was the ‘midwife’ of Taliban”. Ex-CIA official Bruce Riedel said in an interview on 1/29/2009 that ''In Pakistan, the jihadist Frankenstein monster that was created by the Pakistani army and the Pakistani intelligence service, is now increasingly turning on its creators. It's trying to take over the laboratory.'' Pakistani Army and Intelligence chose to create ‘this Frankenstein monster’ with full blessings and financing by Pakistan’s democratic governments in 1990s.

Declassified US Department of State Cable "Pakistan Support for Taliban" from Islamabad dated Sept. 26, 2000 states that "while Pakistani support for the Taliban has been long-standing, the magnitude of recent support is unprecedented." In response Washington orders the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad to immediately confront Pakistani officials on the issue and to advise Islamabad that the U.S. has "seen reports that Pakistan is providing the Taliban with materiel, fuel, funding, technical assistance and military advisors. [The Department] also understand[s] that large numbers of Pakistani nationals have recently moved into Afghanistan to fight for the Taliban, apparently with the tacit acquiescence of the Pakistani government." Additional reports indicate that direct Pakistani involvement in Taliban military operations has increased.

Declassified DIA Washington D.C., "IIR (intelligence Information Report) Pakistan Involvement in Afghanistan," dated November 7, 1996 states how "Pakistan's ISI is heavily involved in Afghanistan," and also details different roles various ISI officers play in Afghanistan. Stating that Pakistan uses sizable numbers of its Pashtun-based Frontier Corps in Taliban-run operations in Afghanistan, the document clarifies that, "these Frontier Corps elements are utilized in command and control; training; and when necessary combat“.

Thomas Rick’s thought on John Schmidt’s article in Survival ‘The unraveling of Pakistan’ i.e. ‘It's even harder to change the political culture of your allies than it is of your enemies’ amply demonstrates why US policy on Pakistan is so naive. It assumes that ‘if only the political culture of your allies can be changed’, then Pakistan will be so much better as an ally! US foreign policy establishment and administrations seem to ignore or justify so many of Pakistan’s ‘crimes’ that Pakistan is guaranteed to remain a headache and may be even cause the ultimate downfall of US as world’s super power.

First and foremost is Pakistan’s alliance with China – it has to be clear to US that China is seeking to replace US as sole super power of the world. And Pakistan is China’s best ally, better than even North Korea in that endeavor. US has to know that any technology – whether it is F-16 jet fighter or whether it is helicopter - that US gives Pakistan is going to wind up in China. Pakistan considers China an ‘all weather’ friend for a reason. US is naïve to ignore that Pakistan would have given any nuclear technology to North Korea without full blessings and even connivance of China.

Then there is Pakistan’s nuclear proliferation to Iran, Libya and Syria besides North Korea. US has just brushed it under the carpet by solely blaming it on one man i.e. A. Q. Khan. Only naïve US wants to propagate a myth that one person can do so much proliferation of nuclear items so closely guarded and watched over by Pakistani Army and governments.

Then there is 9/11 attacks. US has really given a free pass to Pakistan knowing fully well that it was Pakistani government that planned, financed and carried out 9/11 attacks. Pakistani ISI Director General Mahmud Ahmad had asked Omar Sheikh (released by India in Kandahar plane hijacking and the kidnapper of Daniel Pearl) to send $100,000 from a Dubai bank account to Mohammed Atta (the lead 9/11 hijacker) one year before those attacks. Mohammad Atta used that $100,000 for flight training, living expenses and to purchase flight tickets on the day of 9/11 attacks in US and returned unspent $25,000 back to same Dubai account. Musharraf was forced to retire ISI director General Mahmud Ahmad after Wall Street Journal exposed General Ahmad as the chief financier of 9/11 attacks. Pakistani ISI was heavily involved in planning of 9/11 attacks as corroborated by former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham.

Then there is Afghanistan. Pakistan has been playing the game of ‘running with the hares while hunting with the hounds’ for last eight years ignoring all US protestations. Pakistani government controls Afghan Taliban groups based in Quetta, the provincial capital of Baluchistan from where attacks on US/NATO forces in southern Afghanistan are planned and carried out. Afterall Pakistan permits open people traffic across the border to keep Taliban insurgency alive in Afghanistan. Declassified US embassy cable from Pakistan dated March 9, 1998 clearly stated that "Afghanistan's border with Pakistan can be controlled by Pakistan if the Pakistani government chooses to do so, as "Pakistan, in the past, has shown that it can control this border. In fact, there are only just over 40 "jeepable" border crossing points. These points could be monitored if the Pakistani government got serious about the issue of flow of people and materials across the border”.

It has to be clear that US is intentionally letting Pakistan get away with all these actions in the misguided belief that Pakistan is its ally against terrorism or that US has no one else to turn to. What a waste of US resources! What a delusion US is under!