Pakistan and US: allies without trust
Posted on 07 June 2012 by waqar shabbir
As Washington fumed over the jailing of a Pakistani doctor who
helped the CIA hunt down Osama bin Laden, an educated Islamabad
businesswoman voiced her own outrage – at the United States.
“All we ever got from the Americans is instability and violence,” she said, echoing what many Pakistanis believe is Washington’s contribution to their country and region over three decades.
“Didn’t you know Osama bin Laden was a CIA agent?”, she asked at a dinner attended by Western diplomats, referring to his role in U.S.-backed resistance to the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan in the 1980s. “Then he was on the same side as Washington.”
In Pakistan, public opinion increasingly views the United States as a fickle, selfish ally despite the billions of dollars in aid that flow to the cash-strapped South Asian nation.
It is a view that has only deepened since U.S. troops killed bin Laden on Pakistani soil in May 2011. The raid, kept secret from Pakistani authorities, was a humiliation for the powerful military and raised searching questions about whether it was harbouring militants.
Relations have soured further after a court last week imprisoned for 33 years the Pakistani doctor who helped the CIA find the al Qaeda chief and mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.
“Most people in Washington are upset with Pakistan. Dr (Shakil) Afridi goes to jail, this guy should be a hero, instead you (Pakistan) are treating him like a crook,” said one U.S. official.
Pakistani officials told the media Afridi was jailed for treason for his ties to the CIA, but a court document released later said he was guilty of aiding a banned militant group.
Rising antipathy towards Washington makes it tougher for the government – already unpopular because of its failure to tackle poverty, power cuts and corruption – to do anything that might be seen as caving in to U.S. demands, especially ahead of general elections expected early next year.
Those constraints are evident in deadlocked talks on re-opening supply routes to Western forces in Afghanistan, which Islamabad shut six months ago to protest against a U.S. cross-border air attack that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
“As the relationship has deteriorated, public opinion in both countries has become a mirror image of the other, seeing each other almost as adversaries,” Maleeha Lodhi, a former Pakistani ambassador to Washington, told Reuters.
When CIA contractor Raymond Davis killed two Pakistanis in the eastern city of Lahore last year, it opened another wound. Washington says he acted in self defence.
For many Pakistanis, it was a Rambo-style act by CIA agents who seem to roam their country freely. Davis was acquitted of murder and allowed to leave Pakistan after a $2.3 million payment was made to the men’s families.
The main point of friction between Washington and Islamabad is the U.S. “war on terror”, a campaign Pakistan joined after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and despite objections from some of its own generals.
But Islamabad has been accused of being less than sincere and of shielding Afghan militant groups to ensure it has a proxy stake in any political settlement once U.S. forces withdraw, an allegation it denies.
Some U.S. senators have pushed for aid cuts to force greater Pakistani cooperation, and the frustrations have spread far beyond the corridors of power in Washington. Pakistan’s leaders “need to be helping us, not fighting against us”, said Lynne McClintock, an office manager in a physical therapy practice in a Seattle suburb.
Pakistan sees such comments as a sign of U.S. ingratitude, pointing out that it has sacrificed more than any other country that joined the U.S. war on militancy, losing tens of thousands of security forces and civilians. All Pakistan gets in return, many officials complain, is criticism and a lack of trust.
Shaking his head in anger, one Pakistani official recalled a visit he made to NATO headquarters in Brussels. When he went to the bathroom, he was escorted by a security guard, making him feel as if he were a threat.
Hardening the resentment of Pakistanis is a firm belief that it was Washington that fuelled militancy by funding Islamist guerrillas to fight the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and then by helping topple the Taliban regime in Kabul in 2001.
“All we ever got from the Americans is instability and violence,” she said, echoing what many Pakistanis believe is Washington’s contribution to their country and region over three decades.
“Didn’t you know Osama bin Laden was a CIA agent?”, she asked at a dinner attended by Western diplomats, referring to his role in U.S.-backed resistance to the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan in the 1980s. “Then he was on the same side as Washington.”
In Pakistan, public opinion increasingly views the United States as a fickle, selfish ally despite the billions of dollars in aid that flow to the cash-strapped South Asian nation.
It is a view that has only deepened since U.S. troops killed bin Laden on Pakistani soil in May 2011. The raid, kept secret from Pakistani authorities, was a humiliation for the powerful military and raised searching questions about whether it was harbouring militants.
Relations have soured further after a court last week imprisoned for 33 years the Pakistani doctor who helped the CIA find the al Qaeda chief and mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.
“Most people in Washington are upset with Pakistan. Dr (Shakil) Afridi goes to jail, this guy should be a hero, instead you (Pakistan) are treating him like a crook,” said one U.S. official.
Pakistani officials told the media Afridi was jailed for treason for his ties to the CIA, but a court document released later said he was guilty of aiding a banned militant group.
Rising antipathy towards Washington makes it tougher for the government – already unpopular because of its failure to tackle poverty, power cuts and corruption – to do anything that might be seen as caving in to U.S. demands, especially ahead of general elections expected early next year.
Those constraints are evident in deadlocked talks on re-opening supply routes to Western forces in Afghanistan, which Islamabad shut six months ago to protest against a U.S. cross-border air attack that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
“As the relationship has deteriorated, public opinion in both countries has become a mirror image of the other, seeing each other almost as adversaries,” Maleeha Lodhi, a former Pakistani ambassador to Washington, told Reuters.
When CIA contractor Raymond Davis killed two Pakistanis in the eastern city of Lahore last year, it opened another wound. Washington says he acted in self defence.
For many Pakistanis, it was a Rambo-style act by CIA agents who seem to roam their country freely. Davis was acquitted of murder and allowed to leave Pakistan after a $2.3 million payment was made to the men’s families.
The main point of friction between Washington and Islamabad is the U.S. “war on terror”, a campaign Pakistan joined after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and despite objections from some of its own generals.
But Islamabad has been accused of being less than sincere and of shielding Afghan militant groups to ensure it has a proxy stake in any political settlement once U.S. forces withdraw, an allegation it denies.
Some U.S. senators have pushed for aid cuts to force greater Pakistani cooperation, and the frustrations have spread far beyond the corridors of power in Washington. Pakistan’s leaders “need to be helping us, not fighting against us”, said Lynne McClintock, an office manager in a physical therapy practice in a Seattle suburb.
Pakistan sees such comments as a sign of U.S. ingratitude, pointing out that it has sacrificed more than any other country that joined the U.S. war on militancy, losing tens of thousands of security forces and civilians. All Pakistan gets in return, many officials complain, is criticism and a lack of trust.
Shaking his head in anger, one Pakistani official recalled a visit he made to NATO headquarters in Brussels. When he went to the bathroom, he was escorted by a security guard, making him feel as if he were a threat.
Hardening the resentment of Pakistanis is a firm belief that it was Washington that fuelled militancy by funding Islamist guerrillas to fight the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and then by helping topple the Taliban regime in Kabul in 2001.
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