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"Let there arise out of you a band of people inviting to all that is good enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong; they are the ones to attain felicity".
(surah Al-Imran,ayat-104)
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User Name: abdulruff
Full Name: Dr.Abdul Ruff Colachal
User since: 15/Mar/2008
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Americans try to use weapons-aid to clear Af-Pak NATO terror goods supply route!

-DR. ABDUL RUFF COLACHAL 

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Clearly, Americans have taken every Pakistani a beggar who would surrender to American will in order to gain some while coins. In fact, over years of passive attitude of Islamabad to aggressive NATO terror attacks and massacres of Muslims inside Pakistan and nearby, has made the Pentagon and White House to ignore sovereignty of Pakistan and equate Pakistani rulers as being equivalent to a few terror goods.

Today the US military secretary Chuck Hagel has tactfully used an aid program that has sent “billions of dollars” worth weapons to Islamabad to bully Pakistani leaders that if they don't resolve protests stalling some military shipments across the border with Afghanistan, it could be difficult to maintain the military - political support in Washington.

This is the essence of US coercive diplomacy unleashed from Washington globally for years since the Sept-11 hoax, now making Pakistan as well as Afghanistan deadly destabilized nations in South Asia. .

Americans have been using Pakistani territories as their own colony to conduct drone terror attacks on Pakistanis and ship terror goods to Afghanistan by using Central Asian republics.

The Pakistani government blocked the supply crossings for seven months following U.S. airstrikes that accidentally killed two dozen soldiers on the Afghan border in November 2011. Pakistan finally reopened the routes after the U.S. apologized. The rift largely led the U.S. to sever most aid to Pakistan for some time, but relations were restored in July 2012. Since then the U.S. has delivered over $1.15 billion in security assistance to Pakistan. Some of the items include advanced communications equipment, roadside bomb jammers, night vision goggles and surveillance aircraft. Since July 2012, relations between Washington and Islamabad have been improving. Sharif met with President Barack Obama and Hagel in late October in Washington.

 

That more and more Pakistanis hate Americans is evident from the way people come in large numbers to attend anti-America rallies conducted by former cricketer Imran Khan’s popular political outfit Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. Just last week, anti-American protests along one of the primary border crossing routes in Pakistan prompted the USA to stop the shipments from Torkham Gate through Karachi last week, due to worries about the safety of the truckers. The protests center on the CIA's drone program that has targeted and killed many terrorists, but has caused civilian casualties.

Shireen Mazari, the information secretary for the political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, said in a statement it's time for the government to speak forcefully to the USA to demand an end to the drone attacks. The party is leading the protests.

 America, frustrated that Pakistan  plays the  popularity card and hundreds of military shipments heading out of Afghanistan have been stopped on the land route through Pakistan because of anti-American protests, faces the possibility of flying out equipment at an additional cost of $1 billion.

Reports suggest that upon US threat to end service charges in arms to Islamabad, Hagel had back-to-back meetings this morning with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the new army chief, Gen. Raheel Sharif, in a move to further repair what has been a strained and sputtering relationship between Washington and Islamabad.

USA claims that its  tricks worked  in Islamabad and Hagel has already received assurances from the Pakistan government that they would take "immediate action" to resolve the shipment problem in US favor and modality would be worked out in secret, though the officials did not provide details on how that might be done.

During the hegal-Pakistan meetings some of the more contentious issues also were raised, including affected and destabilized Islamabad's opposition to ongoing CIA drone strikes and Washington's frustration with Pakistan's reluctance to go after the freedom fighters like Haqqani patriotic network, which, according to CIA story, operates along the border and conducts attacks on US and coalition troops in Afghanistan.

 Though USA has claims its right to kill Pakistanis by calling them as terrorists. Sharif’s office says the prime minister and Hagel had "in-depth exchanges on a whole range of issues of mutual interest" including bilateral defense, security cooperation and Afghanistan. Sharif conveyed Pakistan's deep concern over continuing US drone strikes, "stressing that drone strikes were counter-productive to our efforts to combat terrorism and extremism on an enduring basis," a statement said. The officials acknowledged that little progress was made other than to agree to continue talking. 

Hagel is first high ranking US official to meet with the Army chief, who took over at the end of last month. The last Pentagon chief to visit Pakistan was Robert Gates in January 2010. Following their meeting in Rawalpindi, Hagel and Sharif echoed each other's desire to work to strengthen the countries' ties. The top military men discussed the defense relationship between the two countries and regional stability, according to the Pakistani army chief's office. Hagel flew to Pakistan from Afghanistan, where he visited US troops but declined to meet with President Hamid Karzai, who seems to have rankled the US by refusing to sign a security agreement before year's end. After leaving Islamabad, he flew to Saudi Arabia where he is meeting with Crown Prince Salman, and then to Qatar, where he will speak to US troops tomorrow.

More than a week after Pakistani officials promised Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel that they would take "immediate action" to resolve the problem, dozens of protesters are still gathering on the busy overland route, posing a security threat to convoys carrying US “military equipment” out of the war zone before combat ends a year from now.

Americans said flying the military equipment out of Afghanistan to a port will cost five to seven times as much as it does to truck it through Pakistan. About a hundred trucks are stacked up at the border, and hundreds more are loaded and stalled in compounds, waiting to leave Afghanistan. The shipments consist largely of military equipment that is no longer needed now that the Afghan war is ending. Sending the cargo out through the normal Pakistan routes will cost about $5 billion through the end of next year, including armored vehicles, out of Afghanistan to ports in the Middle East, where it would be loaded onto ships, would cost about $6 billion if it continued through next year, said the official.

A northern supply route, which runs through Uzbekistan and up to Russia, was used for about seven months last year when Pakistan shut down the southern passages after U.S. airstrikes accidentally killed 24 Pakistani soldiers at two border posts. That northern route, however, was used primarily to bring shipments into Afghanistan, and is much longer, more costly and often requires cargo to be transferred from trucks to rail.

Cargo usually goes through the Torkham crossing in northern Pakistan or the Chaman crossing in southern Pakistan's Baluchistan province. As the USA drawdown in Afghanistan continues, the goal has been to move about 30 shipments per day out of Afghanistan to Karachi. Shipments through Torkham stopped in late November. U.S. officials say that just a small percentage is taken out through the Chaman route because it is more dangerous and crosses through the insurgency-plagued Baluchistan province.

Pentagon says they have seen no effort by the Pakistanis to stop the protests, which prompted the U.S. three weeks ago to halt NATO cargo shipments going through the Torkham border crossing and toward the port city of Karachi. Hagel received assurances from Pakistan leaders during the meetings that they would resolve the problem but no progress has been made.

 

A Pakistani official says the government is looking for a peaceful settlement but notes that citizens have the right to protest as long as they are not violent.

The protesters are demonstrating against the CIA's drone program, which has targeted and killed many terrorists but has also caused civilian casualties. The group gathers daily at a toll booth on the outskirts of the provincial capital of Peshawar, in Pakistan's northern Khyber Paktunkhwa province. All traffic going into the tribal areas and on to the Torkham crossing must pass through the toll booth.

The protesters, however, appear to be in this for the long haul. Khalid had a schedule listing who would be manning the sit-in each day through mid-January.

Earlier this week, a group of about 40 protesters were at the toll booth, including about 10 who were waving flags as vehicles and trucks drove past. A makeshift enclosure was set up on the side of the road, complete with chairs arranged under a tent encircled by barbed wire to keep the protest from spilling into traffic.

A few police officers stood nearby, with orders to allow the protests to go on but ensure that no one got unruly or attacked the drivers. The group has been stopping container trucks going into Afghanistan and looking at their papers to determine whether they are carrying cargo bound for NATO troops. If so, the protesters force the trucks to turn around. PTI leader Khalid said the group got instructions not to stop trucks coming out of Afghanistan into Pakistan, and added that they've also noticed there has been little traffic coming from Karachi and heading into Afghanistan. Companies know, he said, that they will be turned back at the checkpoint. It has been about a week since the protesters encountered a truck carrying NATO goods.

Shah Farman, a PTI member who serves as the provincial information minister, said the national government, controlled by the Pakistan Muslim League-N, hasn't moved to aggressively reopen the route because they don't want to be seen as supporting the drone campaign. "Why is the federal government silent? Because they can't go against the public pulse," said Farman.

 

A July 2012 agreement between Pakistan and the U.S. allows NATO to take supplies out of Afghanistan through Pakistan. But she said the issue is a sensitive one due to the widespread opposition to the U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan. Tasnim Aslam, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said"Obviously the government would be looking for a peaceful way out to move the protesters from there, to convince them to move," she said. "Our constitution gives people this right, if they're not violent. They have the right to protest. So I don't know if they can be forcibly removed from that place."

People  are eager to defend the sovereignty of their nation. 

 

Heavy Notes

Pakistan has called the drone strikes a violation of the country's sovereignty, but the issue is muddied by the fact that Islamabad and the military have supported at least some of the strikes in the past. However, Sharif has not taken any genuine steps to end US drone teroirsm in Pakistan.

Strangely, Hagel's warning to the Pakistanis is ridiculous. Washington shamelessly equates US arms with money loss for Islamabad  when the NATO supply route reflects what has been a growing but unnecessary ”frustration” among US Congressmen with Pakistan in recent years.

Who are the Americans who occupy Pakistan to warn the Pakistanis?

But is Pakistan duty-bound to shield American fascist, imperialist interests along the Silk Route? Have Pakistanis voted Sharif and allies to power only to help the Americans in “performing” massacres of Pakistani Muslims?  

 

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