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Pakistan military cut off ties for two days
[Dawn] The Pak military cut off its communication with US and NATO...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the style of the American pants... forces in Afghanistan for two days after a US raid killed Al Qaeda leader the late Osama bin Laden ... who is now among the dear departed, though not among the dearest... in Abbottabad, an American general said on Tuesday. In the US Congress, officials told news hounds that Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee John I was in Vietnam, you knowKerry Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, the Senate's current foreign policy expert, filling the vacated wingtips of Joe Biden... might visit Pakistain soon to reduce tensions between Washington and Islamabad. "For two whole days after the raid, we didn`t have very good contact" with the Pak military, said Maj-Gen John Campbell, the commander of US troops in eastern Afghanistan. This forced his soldiers to safeguard some 450 miles of border with Pakistain, a suspected transit point for myrmidons, without support from the Pak side, the general said. The general`s statement, given at a briefing with journalists at the Pentagon, appeared on a day when a string of US politicians urged the B.O. regime to reconsider its relations with Pakistain. In the US capital, Senator Kerry is seen as a strong supporter of America`s relations with Pakistain who also opposes proposals to suspend about $1.5 billion of annual assistance to Islamabad over the Bin Laden dispute. Other politicians, however, have suggested stopping all military and economic assistance to Pakistain until Islamabad proves that it was not aware of Bin Laden`s presence in Abbottabad and will punish those who helped him settle there. House Speaker John It is not pronounced 'Boner!'Boehner ... the occasionally weepy leader of House Republicans... , who has supported Pakistain after the US raid on Bin Laden`s compound, also warned on Tuesday that relations between the two countries now faced a make-or-break moment. "It`s a moment to look each other in the eye." Mr Boehner told NBC "Today" show that "if we`re really going to be allies, if we`re going to fight this war together, we need to be in it together all the time". He said he still trusted the Pak government but conceded that questions lingered over "what they knew or didn`t know about Bin Laden being in their country — their willingness to pursue some gunnies but not others". Mr Boehner said he thought that Pakistain on balance "has been a real asset" in the war on terror. But Senator Diane Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, disagreed. "Either we`re going to be allies in fighting terror, or the relationship makes less and less sense to me," Senator Feinstein told news hounds, adding, "...to enable him (Bin Laden) to live in Pakistain in a military community for six years, I just don`t believe it was done without some form of complicity". Asked about the support Pakistain was getting from the Kerry and Lugar assistance act, the senator said, "I understand that. I feel a little differently". But Senator Kerry and Richard Lugar, who authored the aid bill, want to give Pakistain the benefit of doubt and have urged the B.O. regime to continue the $ 1.5 billion annual assistance stipulated in the act. "Our lack of clarity has caused Afghanistan, Pakistain and many other players to start hedging their bets and planning for the worst rather than the best," said Senator Kerry while explaining the problems Washington was having with Islamabad. Some other politicians also noted that the US still needed the Pakistain route for supplying its 140,000 troops in Afghanistan. But at least one B.O. regime official indicated that the US had other alternatives too. "We`re confident that we`re not dependent upon any particular single thread, and we can continue to supply the Afghanistan effort," US Under-Secretary of Defence for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Ashton Carter told a wire service. Posted by: Fred 2011-05-12 |
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