ISLAMABAD/Lahore - Donald Trump, who is quite infamous for his reckless remarks, yesterday had a heated exchange with Prime Minister Imran Khan on Twitter over US president’s accusations against Pakistan.
Trump sparked the fire when he, in an interview to Fox News on Sunday, said he had cancelled assistance to Pakistan earlier this year because "they don't do anything for us, they don't do a damn thing for us".
Khan responded by a series of tweets on Monday, ridiculing miniscule $20 billion ‘aid’ from the US in the face of debilitating cost paid by Pakistan in the terror war and telling Trump to put his record straight.
Khan in his biting rejoinder called on Trump to name an ally which has sacrificed against militancy more than Pakistan and he urged Washington against trying to make Islamabad “a scapegoat” for its Afghanistan failures.
The US president hit again on Monday through his Twitter handle with another round of allegations, once again provoking a strong response from Khan who said: “Now, we [Pakistan] will do what is best for our people and our interests!"
Trump in his Monday tweets alleged Pakistan of inaction against Osama bin Laden and Afghan Taliban as well as their allied groups like Haqqani Network.
He claimed he had pointed out bin Laden in his book and that his country should have captured the Al Qaeda leader long before.
“Of course we should have captured Osama Bin Laden long before we did. I pointed him out in my book just BEFORE the attack on the World Trade Center. President Clinton famously missed his shot. We paid Pakistan Billions of Dollars & they never told us he was living there. Fools!” he tweeted.
Reiterating his earlier comment, Trump said the US no longer pays billions of dollars in aid to Pakistan "because they would take our money and do nothing for us".
"They [Pakistan] were just one of many countries that take from the United States without giving anything in return. That’s ENDING!" Trump said.
This second bout of allegations was shortly followed by a Twitter post by Prime Minister Khan, who said Trump "needs to be informed abt [about] historical facts".
"Trump’s false assertions add insult to the injury [that] Pak has suffered in US WoT [war on terror] in terms of lives lost & destabilised & economic costs," the premier wrote. "Pak has suffered enough fighting US's war. Now we will do what is best for our people & our interests," he concluded.
In his earlier tweets on Monday, made in response to Trump’s Sunday interview, Khan said the United States should do some soul-searching to get to the reasons for its failures in Afghanistan despite the presence of tens of thousands of Nato and Afghan troops in the strife-torn country.
“Instead of making Pakistan a scapegoat for their failures, the US should do a serious assessment of why, despite 140,000 Nato troops plus 250,000 Afghan troops & reportedly $1 trillion spent on war in Afghanistan, the Taliban today are stronger than before,” he wrote on the popular microblogging site.
According to a BBC study, the Taliban, whom US has now approached for talks after spending billions of dollars trying to defeat them, are now openly active in 70 percent of Afghanistan.
It study further shows that the Taliban now control or threaten much more territory than when foreign combat troops left in 2014.
In his interview to Fox News, President Trump alleged Pakistan had sheltered Osama bin Laden – who was killed in a covert raid by US special forces at a compound in the garrison city of Abbottabad in 2016.
“[Osama Bin Laden] lived in Pakistan, we’re supporting Pakistan, we’re giving them USD 1.3 billion a year - which we don’t give them anymore, by the way, I ended it because they don’t do anything for us, they don’t do a damn thing for us,” the president said.
Though Prime Minister Imran did not directly respond to Trump's bin Laden accusation in his first response, he reminded him that no Pakistani was involved in September 11, 2001 attacks on World Trade Centre and Pentagon.
Contrary to Trump's insinuations, former US president Barack Obama, under whose tenure the bin Laden raid was carried out, while speaking at a summit last year had said: "We had no evidence that Pakistan was aware of his presence — that is something that we looked at."
As for the US aid, Pakistan has already clarified that the Coalition Support Fund is no alms or civilian assistance; rather, it is reimbursement of money spent on military operations in support of the US-led coalition for regional peace.
PM Khan told Trump that Pakistan had suffered immensely due to the US-imposed war and what it was given in name of military aid was peanuts in comparison.
“Pakistan suffered 75,000 casualties in this war and over $123 billion was lost to the economy,” Khan said, adding that compared to Pakistan’s losses, the “US ‘aid’ was a miniscule $20 billion”.
Trump administration in September had cancelled $300 million in military aid to Islamabad for allegedly not doing enough against terror groups like the Haqqani Network and the Afghan Taliban.
Talking further about Pakistan’s sacrifices in the so-called war against terrorism, Premier Khan said, “Our tribal areas were devastated and millions of people uprooted from their homes.”
He was referring to the Operation Zarb-e-Azb which was launched by Paksitan armed forced against the so-called Pakistani Taliban and their foreign cohorts in North Waziristan.
Tens of thousands of tribesmen had been uprooted from their homes as a result of this massive military offensive which was later extended to the entire country to hunt for sympathisers and financers of terrorists and their sleeper cells in the country’s urban centres.
“The war drastically impacted the lives of ordinary Pakistanis,” Premier Imran said. “Pakistan continues to provide free lines of ground and air communications (GLOCs/ALOCs) [for the US mission in Afghanistan], he added. “Can Mr Trump name another ally that gave such sacrifices?”
Pak-US ties have been frosty for several months. In January, the US suspended security assistance to Pakistan targeting the Coalition Support Fund. State Department said the US was suspending ‘security assistance’ as the trust level between the two countries drastically declined.
The US cancelled $300 million aid to Pakistan. Another $500 million in Coalition Support Fund was stripped by Congress from Pakistan earlier this year, to bring the total withheld to $800 million.
In August, the US created another controversy as it backed the Indian allegation of Pakistan’s alleged role in the war on terror. Pakistan rejected the US-India joint statement issued in New Delhi after a dialogue.
The two countries however had recently started to come closer to work together for Afghanistan peace. Islamabad released several Taliban leaders under the new peace plan.
US Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Alice Wells just concluded her visit to Pakistan where she discussed the bilateral and regional issues with the Pakistan officials.
But mistrust keeps hounding the peace efforts and now Trump’s acidic remarks have made the things more difficult for the diplomats.
Afghanistan’s government, jointly headed by President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, has already been prickly about direct talks between Washington and the Taliban.
Foreign Office spokesperson Dr Mohammed Faisal said there had been some visits to Pakistan by the US officials which was a positive development.
He said the US should acknowledge Pakistan’s anti-war efforts as Pakistan had sacrificed thousands of lives in the campaign.
Senior officials at the foreign ministry told The Nation that Pakistan will brief the US soon about its achievements in the war on terror.
One official said: “We have been telling the world what we have been doing (achieving). We will again share the details with the US. We are the worst victims and the most successful country also who defeated terrorism.”
Another official said contacts with the US were ongoing. “One-off statement cannot affect the whole relationship but it does have an impact. We are trying to clarify our position,” he added.
Mazari’s response
Minister for Human Rights Dr Shireen Mazari also took to Twitter to remind the US president of the losses incurred by Pakistan over the years.
"The loss of Pakistani lives in US War on Terror, the free space for Raymond Davis and other operatives, the illegal killings by drone attacks — the list is endless," said Mazari on Monday, adding, "once again history shows appeasement does not work".
Mazari called "Trump's tirade against Pakistan" a lesson for those Pakistani leaders "who kept appeasing the US esp after 9/11!".
The minister added: "Whether China or Iran, US policies of containment and isolation do not coincide with Pakistan's strategic interests."
In reply to another tweet calling out Trump over his remarks, Mazari said: "@realDonaldTrump suffers conveniently from perpetual historic amnesia!"
Senate chairman’s take
Former Senate chairman Raza Rabbani termed Trump's remarks "contrary to the facts" and reminded the US president that "Pakistan is not a client state of the US."
"The US president's language regarding a sovereign state was aggressive," he said. "He should be careful; Pakistan is not a state or colony of the US," the veteran PPP leader added.
He reminded Trump of all that Pakistan did for the US over the years. "The US killed Pakistanis in unauthorised drone attacks, the US sponsored terrorism in Kabul, and a drug industry was created on the Pak-Afghan border for the financial assistance of the US," Rabbani said.
"The Pakistani nation is paying the price of political and economic instability due to its alliance with the US," the senate chairman maintained.
Khwaja Asif’s reply
Former foreign and defence minister Khawaja Mohammed Asif also took note of Trump's remarks and said Pakistan had fought US’ war but received no acknowledgment from Washington.
“We continue to pay in blood for what we did for US from Beda Ber to fighting wars which weren't ours. [We even] reinvented our religion to suit US interests, destroyed our tolerant ethos, replaced it with bigotry and intolerance. [And what we’ve got is] a relationship of betrayals and sanctions,” he tweeted.