[Dawn] Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said here on Sunday that the Haqqani group that the US was now charging with attacks on the American embassy in Kabul had been CIA's "blue-eyed boy" for many years.Jalaluddin has brown eyes.
In an interview with Al-Jazeera TV, she said: "If we talk about links, I am sure the CIA also has links with many terrorist organizations around the world, by which we mean intelligence links," she said. "And this particular network, which (the United States) continues to talk about, is a network which was the blue-eyed boy of the CIA itself for many years."
Calling Jalaluddin the CIA's pet is referring to events between 1979 and 1992. We were allied with the Japanese in WWI, too, relying on the same kind of logic. Haqqani, if I recall correctly, which I may not, was the most effective of the Pashtun jihadi commanders, though Hekmatyar was the one who got all the money because he was the Paks' fair-haired boy and butt buddies (probably literally) with Qazi (and also with the KGB and KhAD, but we won't go into that). The "blue-eyed" boy who was the best commander in the war was Masood, who was murdered by Jalaluddin's current allies. Next to Masood, I'd place Ismail Khan.
Asked about US Admiral Mike Mullen's statement that the Haqqani group "acts as a veritable arm" of ISI, the foreign minister said: "It is something that goes very, very unappreciated on our side. This is unsubstantiated. No evidence has been shared with us."
"The witnesses are all dead!"
Partners and allies, she said, did not talk to each other through public statements.
Private conversations are much better. They can be denied or "reinterpreted."
Pakistain had taken up the matter with the United States, but the spate of hostile statements coming from senior US officials meant that Washington had taken a policy decision. If that was the case then "We have the right to make our own decision."
"And rest assured it will be a bad one!"
Ms Khar went to say that scapegoating and blame games would be of no help. Pakistain wants to be a US partner. "I just hope that we'll be given a chance to cooperate with each other and the doors will remain open --because statements like this are pretty much close to shutting those doors," she added.
Replying to a question, Ms Khar said the drone attacks not only violated Pakistain's illusory sovereignty, they were also counter-productive, and angered the people of Pakistain. "I think we must not be tested more than we have the ability to bear," she added.