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‘Pakistan rejects sustained US war policy over Afghanistan’
Sun May 13, 2012 8:47AM
An interview with Gareth Porter, investigative journalist, from Washington
The overwhelming motivation of the US military and the Obama administration are generally for continuing to put pressure on the Pakistani military and government, is [because of] the war in Afghanistan and the fact that the Pakistani government refuses to go along with US policy of targeting the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani group for the simple reason that these forces are actually aligned with Pakistani security interests as viewed by the security elite in Pakistan.”
US relations with Pakistan have been strained over the use of assassination drone strikes on civilians under the excuse of targeting militants in the country.
Washington claims its airstrikes target militants, but official reports show that civilians are the main victims of the air raids.
Press TV has conducted an interview with Gareth Porter, investigative journalist from Washington, to further discuss the issue.
The following is a rough transcription of the interview.
Press TV: We know this alternative route that the US is using is more costly and not as beneficial to them. How is it that the US can continue in this situation with NATO being desperate to get the transportation route going for its supplies to Afghanistan?
Porter: There are a couple of things that help to explain this pattern of behavior on the part of the United States. One, of course, is that there was a great deal of overconfidence on the part of the US military and the national security team of President Obama last year when the United States military in Afghanistan carried out this operation into Pakistan and killed some 26 Pakistani soldiers in two border posts.
I wrote about that incident later after the report was filed after the investigation and pointed out that the US military had never apologized for the fact that the attack on those two posts went on for almost an hour despite the fact that the report showed that the United States command in Afghanistan was aware that they were attacking Pakistani border posts.
So, there was plenty of reason to apologize but they didn’t. I think it is now clear that they believe that the Pakistani government and military would cave in and agree to reopen the access routes into Afghanistan after a few weeks. They were sadly mistaken.
I think what they failed to understand was, and this is the second point that really explains the situation , the Pakistani population is so strongly opposed to concessions to the United States -- certainly without the United States basically giving its saying that it apologizes for this incident -- and, therefore, the Pakistani government is not free to make a deal such as the United States would like.
Press TV: With the tense situation that the US and Pakistan has currently, Pakistani authorities say they are not happy with US drone strikes in their country, but US authorities have said that these statements are for domestic consumption. Who is doing what regarding drone attacks and who are these real targets?
Porter: Well, I’m glad you raised that question because the US and other world media have systematically misreported this question of the policy of the Pakistani government and particularly the Pakistani military leadership on question of drone strikes.
It’s true that earlier on, particularly during the [Pervez] Musharraf regime and even after Musharraf, the Pakistani military was willingly going along with and indeed supporting US drone strikes privately while officially going through the motions of protesting.
But at some point, and I would pinpoint this roughly sometime in 2010, the United States really changed the targeting of its drone strikes in Pakistan and began to overwhelmingly target the forces fighting in Afghanistan -- the Afghanistan Taliban and their allies, the Haqqani group, and really deemphasized al-Qaeda and the people who they had been targeting previously.
It was at that point that the Pakistani military decided that this was really not in their interests and, in fact, this was something that was profoundly against the interests in Pakistan.
Since then, they have very strongly opposed the drone strikes and put pressure on the United States to end the present pattern of drone strikes and to adopt a very different policy.
Press TV: There are beliefs that the main headache of US policy makers regarding Pakistan is its nukes; therefore, its engagement in the “War On Terror” is only a cover. How would you explain that situation?
Porter: I would not argue that the United States is engaged in Pakistan primarily because of the desire to get a hold of nuclear weapons, if that’s what you’re referring to. I think the overwhelming motivation of the US military and the Obama administration are generally for continuing to put pressure on the Pakistani military and government, is the war in Afghanistan and the fact that the Pakistani government refuses to go along with US policy of targeting the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani group for the simple reason that these forces are actually aligned with Pakistani security interests as viewed by the security elite in Pakistan.
This is a fundamental disconnect between the interests of these two countries and I think it is now basically too late for the United States to put pressure effectively on Pakistan to get them to change their policy.
GMA/AZ