The Pakistani Prime Minister is correct in pointing out how much his country did for the US in response to Trump’s disrespectful attack against it this weekend.
One of Trump’s pre-recorded interviews aired this weekend where the American President attacked Pakistan for supposedly doing nothing for the US during the nearly two decades that the two Great Powers have been notionally “allied” in the War on Terror. He mocked the country for supposedly knowing about Bin Laden’s alleged whereabouts in Abbottabad, implying that it was only leeching off of American taxpayers this entire time and was never serious about fighting terrorism in exchange for aid. Trump’s insults might have went unanswered under previous administrations, but Prime Minister Khan’s “Naya Pakistan” (“New Pakistan”) made a point to directly reply to him on the President’s favourite medium, Twitter. In a series of hard-hitting tweets, the Pakistani leader protected his country’s reputation by responding with the following clarification:
“Record needs to be put straight on Mr Trump’s tirade against Pakistan: 1. No Pakistani was involved in 9/11 but Pak decided to participate in US War on Terror. 2. Pakistan suffered 75,000 casualties in this war & over $123 bn was lost to economy. US “aid” was a miniscule $20 bn. 3. Our tribal areas were devastated & millions of ppl uprooted from their homes. The war drastically impacted lives of ordinary Pakistanis. 4. Pak continues to provide free lines of ground & air communications (GLOCs/ALOCs).
Can Mr Trump name another ally that gave such sacrifices?
Instead of making Pakistan a scapegoat for their failures, the US should do a serious assessment of why, despite 140000 NATO troops plus 250,000 Afghan troops & reportedly $1 trillion spent on war in Afghanistan, the Taliban today are stronger than before.”
As can plainly be seen, Pakistan has done everything that it could for America while receiving nothing but turmoil and terrorism in return for a paltry amount of so-called “aid”. Even to this very day Pakistan “continues to provide free lines of ground & air communications” for the US to Afghanistan, showing not only a genuine dedication to the cause, but also a loyalty that many in the country are arguing is undeserved after the disrespect that they’ve consistently experienced from the new American administration. Pakistan suffered from terrorism many orders of magnitude more than the US ever did, most of which happened after its post-9/11 anti-terrorist “alliance” with America, but the only “thanks” that it’s getting for its sacrifices is to be scapegoated for Washington’s military failure in Afghanistan.
Originally published in
Eurasia Future
The writer is a political analyst, journalist and a regular contributor to several online journals, as well as a member of the expert council for the Institute of Strategic Studies and Predictions at the People’s Friendship University of Russia.