NATO attack was not an "Accident"

Why are we deluding ourselves? This lethal NATO helicopters’ attack on two Pakistani border posts couldn’t be an “accident”, as the command of coalition forces in Afghanistan would have it believed.

A spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said he believed aircraft that had been called in to provide air support for ground troops was responsible for the Pakistani casualties, guardian.co.uk reports.

This was a naked aggression, plain and simple, deliberate and planned. The posts couldn’t be unknown to the US-led NATO forces. These must be very much in their knowledge and also on their field maps. The posts were indeed set up for their intriguing inaction to hobble fugitive Pakistani militants, safely ensconced in hundreds under their very noses in Afghanistan’s Kunar and Nuristan provinces from where they freely plan and launch deadly attacks on our security posts and civilian villages and return to their bases unchecked. Not just that. They have curiously constantly turned a deaf ear to Pakistan’s every plea to dismantle that terrorist network. But for this NATO adventurism’s escalation against Pakistan, our establishment is to blame its own quizzical pussyfooting. It has shown only kid gloves where it should have necessarily displayed an iron hand. This is not the first time the US-led armies have aggressed on Pakistan.

 In June 2008, at least 11 of our soldiers lost their precious lives in a thuggish US air strike. The establishment just kept confined to lodging a protest with the US ambassador in Islamabad. Again, the NATO adventurists killed three soldiers in a strike in September last year. After a bit of huffing and puffing, the establishment lifted the NATO supplies’ suspension from Torkham in about 11 days. The May 2 Abbottabad audacious US commando raid drew no protest from the establishment, while the CIA murder contractor Davis Raymond was mysteriously left off the hook for killing two Pakistani nationals in broad daylight in Lahore and allowed to return home to roam free on American streets. What else could you then expect if not that the Americans and their NATO allies would get emboldened and feel free to go arrogantly for aggressive actions against this country?  Even now, while the two NATO supply routes with Afghanistan have been blocked, news networks are quoting unidentified Pakistani official sources saying that the step has been taken “for security reasons”.

Keeping watch: Pakistani security officials stand guard near trucks carrying logistics supplies destined for NATO's forces in Afghanistan Saturday night

What security reasons? The security of containers loaded with food supplies and provisions and military hardware for the American and NATO forces so that fatten their muscles and use the supplied weapons and munitions to murder our soldiers in aggressions on our territory? Do we really have to stoop so low as to be so apologetic even when no less than 26 of our valiant officers and jawans have been brutally mowed down by thuggish NATO aggressors and some 15 others have been wounded, many critically? We are also hearing brave words from the establishment’s quarters that Pakistan would tolerate no such incursion again. But this we have heard even in the past. But the thuggish aggressions of US and NATO forces continue. Exasperatingly, why no air force fighters scrambled and took on the NATO murderous intruders playing havoc with the precious lives of our valiant officers and jawans? Even when fugitive Swati thug Fazlullah’s battalions of brigands had once crossed over from their Afghan safe havens and attacked security posts and civilian villages in Chitral for hours, eyewitnesses reportedly said the NATO planes and helicopters were throughout flying over the territory under assault. Then too the air force had not come into action. What then is the point of bold words if bold talk is not to be walked?  

The Pakistani establishment must understand the US-led occupiers are in a tight corner in Afghanistan. They have virtually lost the Afghan war and have no face to show to their own peoples who they have fed on tales of victories that exist not. The insurgency in Afghanistan is in a swirling resurgence, swiftly extending its sway even to areas once deemed relatively calm. And the occupiers are in utter despair and desperation. To show a bit presentable face to their peoples, they need a whipping boy who they could hold up as their imaginary Afghan triumphs’ spoiler. To this end, they have latched on to Pakistan. Predictably, there will be more of such aggressions in times ahead.

After all, what else could it be when coalition forces’ commander in Afghanistan US General John Allen meets Pakistan army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and discusses measures for coordination, communication and procedures between their armies to enhance border control on both sides and then the very next day comes this murderous aggression on our border posts? Let all and sundry note it is we alone, not the UN or anybody else, who are to defend our territorial sovereignty and sanctity. For this, we have to put a strong face and show a strong hand. Let the historians say, when it came to a crunch, the Pakistanis fought, fought hard, fought bravely and went down fighting, not like cowards with the tail between the legs.