By Rahimullah Yusufzai
PESHAWAR: In their statements and during public appearances, the US government officials and military commanders praise Pakistan and its army for being a steadfast ally in America’s “war on terror.” But privately and in occasional comments published in the American media, they are highly critical of the Pakistani armed forces and even accuse them of siding with the Taliban against them.
A recent article by Ann Scott Tyson in the Washington Post provided glimpses of the distrust by the US military officers for the Pakistan Army and the paramilitary Frontier Corps. It was the latest evidence that the American troops harboured deep suspicions about Pakistan’s role and commitment in fighting the “war on terror.”
At one place in the article, the writer quotes anonymous US military officials telling her that Baitullah Mahsud, a Pakistani Taliban commander in South Waziristan, was reorganizing the Taliban with the help from agents in Pakistan’s intelligence agencies. This is a serious allegation probably made for the first time against Pakistan.
At another place, Ann Scott Tyson quotes US troops saying that they cannot trust their Pakistani counterparts. “The Pakistan military is corrupt and lets people come through,” Captain Chris Hammonds, commander of a US outpost near the Pakistani border in Paktika province told her. He alleged that Pakistani forces told Taliban insurgents the location of his observation post. He claimed the Pakistani military never answer the phone when the US troops call it for help during firefights with Taliban fighters.
A US soldier, who spoke to her on the condition of anonymity for security reasons, alleged: “The Frontier Corps might as well be Taliban. They are active facilitators of infiltration.” She wrote that the Frontier Corps, which manned several border checkpoints, was viewed by US soldiers as nearly an enemy force.
The Washington Post article recalled that Major Larry J. Bauguess Jr. of the 82nd Airborne Division was shot dead last May by a Frontier Corps soldier after he attended a meeting to ease frictions between Afghan and Pakistani forces in the frontier town of Teri Mangal near Parachinar in Pakistan’s Kurram Agency. Despite all this, she noted that the US military was funding a multimillion-dollar programme to train and equip the Frontier Corps.
If the US troops harbour such distrust of Pakistani soldiers, it is inevitable that the latter too would show lack of trust in their American counterparts. In such circumstances, Pakistan and the US would find it hard to sincerely cooperate with each other while fighting the so-called “war on terror.” It was, therefore, hardly surprising to hear statements coming out of the US that it should bomb its closest ally, Pakistan.
Source: The News, 7/4/2008
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