Congressman urges US to rethink ties with Pakistan

Congressman Gary Ackerman, a top democrat in the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on South Asia said Its high time to completely rethink the United States relationship with Pakistan because of Islamabads continuing perfidy of sponsoring terror groups like the Haqqani network and Lashkar-e-Tayiba that targets American troops and kills innocent civilians like the LeT did during the 26/11 attacks.Theres an old saying, well known to all of us, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Unfortunately, this is nonsense, he said at a Congressional hearing convened by the subcommittee on Afghanistan and Pakistan. And argued, the enemy of my enemy is my enemys enemy, thats it. There are no implied obligations or warranties. International politics has no freebies.To state what should be obvious, but somehow is not: Pakistan -- meaning both the nominally democratic civilian government and the unelected but ultimately decisive Pakistani military establishment -- is not our friend, said the New York lawmaker, who has served on the Foreign Affairs Committee for more than two decades.They are not our allies; they are not our partners; they are not on our team; they are not on our side. And no matter how much aid we give them, no matter what military capabilities we provide them, and no matter what promises, assurances or pledges we make to them, these facts are not going to change, he added.According to him, Pakistan is on its own side. Notwithstanding the considerable number of Pakistanis whod like to try life in the United States, or the great success story of the many truly loyal Pakistani-Americans who have done so and contribute so much to their new country, 75 per cent of Pakistanis in Pakistan have an unfavorable opinion of the US and believe it is the source of that countrys problems, he said.Thats just a little piece of what $22 billion of our taxpayers money has bought us since 2002 in Pakistan, he added. A considerable part of those funds have also enhanced Pakistans nuclear weapons delivery capability, notwithstanding neither our non-proliferation laws nor the purported limitations weve insisted upon with regard to the F-16 fighter bombers weve sold them.Ackerman, who is one of the most cerebral foreign policy experts in the US Congress said, acknowledged that there was simply no question that Pakistan has been a critical facilitator of Americas campaign to drive the Al Qaeda out of Afghanistan and to dismantle and eliminate its capacity to conduct worldwide terrorist operations.It is not a secret that the Afghan Taliban has been based in Quetta, Pakistan, since Afghan and US forces drove them out of Afghanistan in 2002. Quetta is not an especially big city and the Taliban presence isnt even particularly discrete. From Quetta, the leadership of the Taliban, every day, is orchestrating attacks on the Afghan government and our troops, he said.The Congressman pointed out that it was no a secret that the Haqqani network was responsible for numerous attacks on the Afghan government and the US troops. It is not a secret that the Lashkar e-Tayiba, which was responsible for the horrific November 2006 massacre of civilians in Mumbai, an attack that clearly implicated the Pakistani military, operates openly in Pakistan. The Government of Pakistan has made no effort to interfere, disrupt, arrest, or shut down any of these groups or their activities, he said.It is no secret that Osama bin Laden was living comfortably in Abbottabad. Pakistan insists it had no knowledge or complicity in his presence there. Id like to think that if the most wanted criminal in the history of criminals purchased a sizable parcel of land and built a secure compound less than a mile from the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, just 32 miles from our capital, we would know about it, he said.Thus Ackerman reiterated, Pakistan is not our pal, our buddy or our chum. It is a sovereign state pursuing its own self-defined interests in what it perceives to be a tough neighbourhood, but they help make it tough. And to state yet another obvious fact, Pakistans self-defined national interests have very limited overlap with our own. In that small area where their interests and ours converge, we can and do cooperate.