Pakistan, Declaration of War (UPDATE)
By Larry Johnson on September 26, 2011 at 12:15 PM in Current Affairs
* Bumped Up *
A state of war should exist between the United States and the intelligence service of Pakistan. The curtain is pulled back and we now see the malevolent wizard of Oz that sits in Islamabad and feeds and fuels Islamic extremism.
The nation’s top military official said Thursday that Pakistan’s spy agency played a direct role in supporting the insurgents who carried out the deadly attack on the American Embassy in Kabul last week. It was the most serious charge that the United States has leveled against Pakistan in the decade that America has been at war in Afghanistan.
In comments that were the first to directly link the spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, with an assault on the United States, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, went further than any other American official in blaming the ISI for undermining the American effort in Afghanistan. His remarks were certain to further fray America’s shaky relationship with Pakistan, a nominal ally.
The United States has long said that Pakistan’s intelligence agency supports the Haqqani network, based in Pakistan’s tribal areas, as a way to extend Pakistani influence in Afghanistan. But Admiral Mullen made clear that he believed that the support extended to increasingly high-profile attacks in Afghanistan aimed directly at the United States.
These included a truck bombing at a NATO outpost south of Kabul on Sept. 10, which killed at least five people and wounded 77 coalition soldiers — one of the worst tolls for foreign troops in a single attack in the war — as well as the embassy assault that killed 16 Afghan police officers and civilians.
“With ISI support, Haqqani operatives planned and conducted that truck bomb attack, as well as the assault on our embassy,” Admiral Mullen said in a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “We also have credible evidence that they were behind the June 28th attack against the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul and a host of other smaller but effective operations.” In short, he said, “the Haqqani network acts as a veritable arm of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency.” His remarks were part of a deliberate effort by American officials to ratchet up pressure on Pakistan and perhaps pave the way for more American drone strikes or even cross-border raids into Pakistan to root out insurgents from their havens. American military officials refused to discuss what steps they were prepared to take, although Admiral Mullen’s statement made clear that taking on the Haqqanis had become an urgent priority.
The same culprits were behind the Mumbai terrorist attack in December 2008. Pakistan, as I have written before, is the the most virulent, deadly sponsor of terrorism and has been for more than twenty years. And this is not just a problem attributable to the Obama Administration. In fact, Ronald Reagan, George HW Bush and George W. Bush refused to deal with this reality because they wanted to pursue other foreign policy objectives. So on this count it is foolish to charge Democrats with being soft of terrorism. I remember back in 1990 trying to make the case that both Pakistan and Greece should have been on the list of state sponsors of terrorism but, because of other “priorities” that position was a non-starter.
If we want to be serious about fighting terrorism then it is time to stop enabling the terrorist sponsors.
UPDATE–Several of you have asked why I included Greece. Back in 1990 (and this continued thru 1999) Greece actively supported the PKK, a terrorist group carrying out attacks in Europe and Turkey. The leader of the PKK, Abdullah Ocalan, was captured in East Africa. He was in the limo of the Greek Ambassador. Greece was more than willing to support a terrorist group that was killing and maiming Turks. And what did the United States do about it? NOTHING! We averted our eyes and pretended it did not matter.
Someone also asked why we suspected Pakistan suppporting terrorists “twenty years ago.” We did not suspect. We knew. They were funding and assisting groups like the Harakat ul-Mujahadin and the Lashkar Tayyiba. Pakistan has been an aggressive supporter of radical Islamic groups and its intelligence service has assisted directly these groups in planning and carrying out terrorist attacks. That damn horse is now out of the barn. Thank God!
by Ronald Scott
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