The American threat

The growing American threat posed to Pakistan's territorial integrity and sovereignty by more than 20 US missile attacks on the tribal areas killing and wounding hundreds of tribesmen besides destroying their houses, from across the Pak-Afghan border seems to have receded into the limbo of forgetfulness in the tumult and turmoil following the suicide bombings of high profile targets by the Islamic militants.

What is really more pathetic and alarming, according to the latest interview of the President of Pakistan is that he has claimed that all these attacks were carried out with the permission of the Pakistan government. The question therefore arises whether the security, integrity and sovereignty of Pakistan can be entrusted to the incumbent government?

Not only President George W Bush in his meeting with President Asif Ali Zardari in New York skirted around the question of Pakistan's sovereignty but what is more, in the press briefing given to the journalists by the information minister soon after Zardari-Bush meeting there was no indication whatsoever of the Pakistani president seeking any assurance from the US president against the missile attacks in the tribal belt.

Round about the same time Defence Secretary Robert Gates put Pakistan on notice that the US would continue to take direct military action inside Pakistan. Elaborating upon US military strategy towards Pakistan in two separate statements and during a hearing at a Senate panel on September 29, 2008 Gates made it clear that the US considered insurgency in FATA the greatest danger confronting the West.

He was willing to send American troops to root out extremism if it felt the need to do so. At the Senate panel hearing Gates agreed with Senator Jim Webbs who had told him that the United Nations Charter under which the US operated in Afghanistan gave it the right of self-defence where a foreign government was unable or unwilling to take care of international terrorist's activities insides its territory.

The US defence chief told the National Defence University in Washington that "the United States had to act against terrorists hiding in Afghanistan and Pakistan. To be blunt to fail or to be seen to fail would be a disastrous blow to our credibility both among our friends and allies and among potential adversaries."

He also noted that USA depended on the logistic support from Pakistan and that it was looking for alternative channels. From these very crucial statements of the defence secretary at the Senate and the Defence University it becomes all too clear that the ongoing War On Terror is America's war and by no means that of Pakistan.