Pakistan: Now or Never?
Perspectives on Pakistan
U.S. military a threat to Pakistan -poll
U.S. government and military leaders worry that the next attack on the homeland will emanate from western Pakistan, believing al Qaeda to have reconstituted there.
But Pakistanis worry too for their security and their fear is the U.S. military itself.
A couple of polls on what ordinary Pakistanis think of the U.S. campaign against al Qaeda makes for interesting reading, coming as it does ahead of the second U.S. presidential debate between candidates Barack Obama and John McCain where Pakistan will likely figure high on the foreign policy agenda, as it did in the previous round.
More than four in 10 (45 percent) of those polled by Gallup said the U.S. military presence in neighbouring Afghanistan was a threat to Pakistan. Only 17 percent said the United States did not imperil their country while a sizeable 38 percent did not have an opinion
Pakistanis appear to be worried about a U.S. military presence in Asia itself, suggesting the distrust that has crept into the relationship between the two allies runs deep and is not just about the war along the Afghan-Pakistan border.
Forty-three percent of residents said a U.S. military presence in Asia threatens Pakistan and again only 17 percent said it did not.
Gallup carried out the poll in June, much before the United States intensified cross-border attacks on militants inside Pakistan including the first known ground assault in September. So, for a significant proportion of Pakistanis some of those fears are coming true.
A decisive moment : India, Pakistan on different paths
The irony is hard to miss. Just as Pakistan is struggling with the fallout of the first known breach of its territorial sovereignty by U.S. ground troops and all the odium associated with it in a proud nation, India has been welcomed into the nuclear high table, almost entirely at America’s behest.
Two unrelated events but coming days apart seemed to underline the divergent paths the two nations are embarked upon. One has a gun pointed to it; the other is being wooed.
On Saturday, America railroaded whatever opposition there was from smaller countries in the Nuclear Suppliers Group to civilian nuclear trade with India, despite its refusal to give up nuclear weapons and sign the NPT. As far as New Delhi is concerned the approval is a momentous decision as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said, because it ends 34 years of sanctions and isolation following the first nuclear test in 1974.
I remember an Indian defence scientist telling me way back that the sanctions were so pervasive that some institutions blacklisted by the United States on suspicion they were involved in the nuclear weapons programme couldn’t even import a toothbrush from there.
In one stroke, and in line with the way in which the Bush administration has gone about remaking the world in its own image, all that has changed. India’s nuclear weapons aren’t a problem any more as America builds a new strategic partnership that many see as aimed at balancing China.
And what of Pakistan ? A seat at the nuclear table is probably the farthest thing on anyone’s mind including perhaps Islamabad’s as it struggles with more fundamental issues of territorial integrity at this point. The raid this week by U.S. forces may signal an even more intense attacks as this report says.
Pakistanis:
Ask yourself. India and you became independent at the same time. While India decided to bite the bullet and remain independent, you decided to be a beggar for ever and a cronie of the Brits and the USA. When I say “you” , I mean you, the power mongers of Pakistan who continually screwed your own people in a million ways: destroying any semblance of democracy; killing your own in the hundreds of thousand as you did in Bangladesh; becoming and remaining a beggar for over 60 years living off the alms thrown at you by the US for being a mercenary; becoming a terrorist state with no control over your own military and covert groups.
So, rather than crying at being treated differently by the world, be happy you are being treated the way you should. In fact, you need to be ostracized by the entire International community and thrown to the stone ages as is Burma. May be that will wake you up as a nation.
You want to be treated as others. Then emulate them. Become responsible to your own people and to the rest of the world. Live by norms that responsible sovereigns are expected to live by. Put your poor citizenry before your unscrupulous, dishonest power elite. Learn some self respect and a well deserved sense of shame at the shameful plight you guys are in due to your own making.
Change !!!!!!
Every pakis talking about This thing manytimes .
“Pakistan has survived three wars against India ” ,Come on Folks it is very funny .
Pakistan has not survived three wars against India , pakistan has lost three wars with india and we libarated Bangaldesis and even ocupied 15000 kilometers of pakis land in 2 nd war . but indira gandhi , thum logonko Bhik me dediay. Now u pakis have N weapons that means u cannot threat us, if we strike back , ur pakistan will
be wiped out in half a day. Just remember if we Hindus really hate muslims in india then cannot survive in india for one day.
Do u know how many pakis in North america says that they are from India .
90 % hindus india think that Muslims should have left india while partition .
why they did not leave india?
U guys are asking independent Kashmir yes we will give it on one conditions , all muslims should leave india after independent kashmir , it that ok.
What diffrence it made after we gave independent pakistan, you guys still hate us . Muslims india we call them GADDARS , they live india and eat inidia support pakis because u r muslims .