Taliban and Pakistan
To get Western aid, Pakistan must stop propping up Afghan Taliban in its proxy war with India.
After the disclosure by the WikiLeaks about Pakistan powerful Inter-Services Intelligent (ISI) providing sanctuary and support to the Afghan Taliban, Lahore's Daily Times editorialised on July 28: "So the real issue is the ISI and its links with the Afghan Taliban. ... Gen. Musharraf played a dual game with the Americans by handing over al Qaeda members while giving protection and rear base areas to the Afghan Taliban. That same policy is continuing under Gen. Kayani, the only difference being that the local Taliban are being hunted down but the Afghan Taliban are being protected for a post-withdrawal Afghanistan. Now that these documents are out in the open for all to see, voices in the US have already started to emerge and will get louder with each passing day about Pakistan biting the hand that feeds it, in fact chewing it off till the elbow."
Pakistan is trying to prop up the Afghan Taliban in the name of gaining what it considers a "strategic depth" in its proxy war with India. As a result, the Afghan Taliban are slaughtering American and Canadian troops, using Pakistan's tribal areas as their staging posts in the same way Pakistan-based Afghan Mujahedin slaughtered the Soviet forces earlier. You cannot expect the United States, Canada and other NATO countries to open up their hearts to Pakistan's suffering when it is involved in a game endangering the lives of their soldiers and civilians. Last week, the Afghan Taliban murdered in cold blood 10 Western health workers affiliated with the International Assistance Mission, a Christian charity.
As Prof. Jorge Heine, chair at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, University of Waterloo, recently wrote in the Toronto Star: "As long as Pakistan backs a movement of this kind, it is unlikely to generate much sympathy." To regain Western sympathy, Pakistan must stop propping up the Afghan Taliban in its proxy war against India. Instead of hurting India, it is hurting U.S. and Canadian troops fighting the Taliban.
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