Did the Pakistani Gov't Order its Army to Fire on U.S. Troops?

Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet at 7:12 PM on September 13, 2008.

The sorrows of Empire indeed.

This is called "sovereignty," and it's a huge pain in the ass for
those who believe they have imperial prerogatives anywhere in the
world as part of some amorphous "war on terror":

The Pakistani Army has been given orders to retaliate against any
unilateral strike by the Afghanistan-based U.S. troops inside the
country.

Army Spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas confirmed the orders in a brief
interview with Geo News on late Thursday night.

The decision was made on the first day of the two-day meeting of
Pakistan's top military commanders to discuss the U.S. coalition's
ground and air assault in Waziristan region which killed dozens of
civilians.

Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani chaired the meeting which
began in Rawalpindi on Thursday at the Army General Headquarters.

Pakistan's military commanders expressed their determination to defend
the country's borders without allowing any external forces to conduct
operations inside the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, sources said.

A senior official said the military commanders also discussed the
implications of the American attacks inside Pakistan and took stock of
the public feeling.

"In his statement, Genral Kayani has represented the feeling of the
entire nation, as random attacks inside Pakistan have angered each and
every Pakistani," he said.

Earlier on Wednesday, Kayani rebuffed the American policy of including
Pakistani territory in their operations against the al-Qaeda and
Taliban linked militants hiding in the areas near Afghan border.

Also, Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani noted that Kayani's
remarks on country's defense were true reflection of the government
policy.

Of course he did -- he's been the PM for six months, a new president,
Asif Ali Zardari, was sworn in 4 days ago, and they're trying to
create some stability in a chronically unstable (nuclear) state.

But, according to the Arab News, they may have backed off of the
threat -- it may have been a bit of "muscular diplomacy" designed to
get the Bushies to understand that pissing off a couple of tens of
thousands of heavily armed folks from the boondocks may not be such a
great idea:

Pakistan's Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar yesterday said that
the nation would take a "pragmatic approach" to prevent missile
attacks by the US inside Pakistan's tribal regions. His statement
indicated that Pakistan is backing off suggestions it might confront
US troops making raids into its territory in search of militants. It
also hinted that Islamabad would deal diplomatically with Washington
over the stepped-up tactics.

Although officials are still unhappy over a recent surge in attacks
aimed at Taleban and Al-Qaeda havens in the areas near the Afghan
border, they also seem to realize there is not much they can do other
than try to convince the US that the strategy is counterproductive
because it is generating sympathy for the militants and public anger
against both governments because of civilian casualties.

US President George W. Bush secretly approved more aggressive
cross-border operations in July.

A group of tribal elders representing about a half-million people in
the North Waziristan area near the Afghan border, where most of the
missile attacks have occurred, threatened yesterday to join forces
with Taleban militants in Afghanistan.

"If America doesn't stop attacks in tribal areas, we will prepare a
lashkar (army) to attack US forces in Afghanistan," chief tribal elder
Malik Nasrullah told a news conference in Miranshah.

Wonderful. Just beautiful.

(By the way, isn't it pathetic that this is all coming from the
foreign press -- no word of any of this on CNN while I was at the gym
on that damned treadmill.)

Anyway, this stuff -- bombing anyone whom we deem to be "extremists"
-- is Barack Obama's "good war," the one he talks about expanding
whenever he wants to talk tough to those mean Republicans.

In case you missed the piece I ran on September 11, here are a few nut
graphs -- I think the point bears repeating:

[In] Pakistan, most Americans believe we're allied with the government
and a majority of the Pakistani people against a small group of Al
Qaeda extremists who are undermining the U.S.-led battle against their
terrorist brethren in Afghanistan (where we are allied with that
government and most of that country's people). American politicians
expend much hot air accusing the Pakistani government of "not doing
enough to rein in extremists" in the tribal areas bordering
Afghanistan.

But as Princeton scholar Zia Mian wrote in July, "most damaging of all
for the United States is that people in Pakistan overwhelmingly see
the United States as the problem." Mian cited a poll (PDF) conducted
in May by the Pakistan Institute for Public Opinion, which found that
"60 percent of Pakistanis believe the U.S. 'war on terror' seeks to
weaken the Muslim world, and 15 percent think its goal is to 'ensure
U.S. domination over Pakistan.'" About a third had a positive view of
al Qaeda, twice as many as the number that viewed the United States in
a positive light. Mian touched on what is probably the key finding in
the study -- and one that speaks to our officials' utter lack of
credibility when they say that they're fighting "extremism" or
"terrorists." The poll found that "44 percent of Pakistanis believe
the United States is the greatest threat to their personal safety ...
(while) the Pakistani Taliban, who ... by some estimates have up to
40,000 fighters, are seen as a threat by less than 10 percent. Al
Qaeda barely registers as a threat, slightly surpassing Pakistan's own
military and Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI)."

With almost half of the population saying the United States is the
greatest threat to their own personal safety, any Pakistani government
will be left between a rock and a hard place. In that part of the
planet, the real-world consequence of our government's credibility gap
is that the cooperation Washington seeks from Islamabad