How they see us: Blaming Pakistan for hiding al Qaida

President Bush has fingered Pakistan as the biggest threat to America, said the Peshawar Frontier Post in an editorial. He said that the next attack on the United States was likely to come from al Qaida terrorists in Pakistan. His administration is laying

President Bush has fingered Pakistan as the biggest threat to America, said the Peshawar Frontier Post in an editorial. In an interview with ABC News last week, the U.S. president said that the next attack on the United States was likely to come from al Qaida terrorists based not in Afghanistan or Iraq, where the U.S. has troops and bases, but in Pakistan. Apparently he was trying to pre-emptively dump the blame for any attack onto our shoulders. Nice try. If our tribal regions have really become a “safe haven” for al Qaida, then “who else is responsible if not he himself?” Bush is the one who failed to send enough troops to seal off the Afghan border and prevent militants from coming into Pakistan. He is the one who fully three years ago told the CIA to pull out its “special unit assigned to capture Osama bin Laden.”

Bush isn’t merely trying to shift blame, said the Islamabad Post. His administration is laying the groundwork for an invasion of Pakistan, “training its gun toward the tribal areas” in particular. NATO forces have already bombed buildings suspected of being militant hideouts, “resulting in deaths of scores of innocent people, including children.” Such violations of Pakistani sovereignty are unacceptable, especially given that “Pakistan has unconditionally sided with the U.S. in the war on terror.” The new Pakistani government will have to make it very clear to the Bush administration that Pakistani territory is sacrosanct.

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