Posted on 09/19/2001 1:06:17 PM PDT by tallhappy
Monday September 17, 2:18 PM
PARIS (Reuters) - Pakistan could erupt in popular protest, and India could be destabilised, if Karachi lets U.S. troops in to attack Afghanistan, the ex-head of Pakistani military intelligence said in remarks published on Monday.
General Hameed Gul, a staunch Muslim deeply involved in helping Afghan Mujahideen fight the Soviet Union in the 1980s, told the newspaper Le Figaro that any plan to use Pakistan to help catch Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden would backfire.
The United States has identified Afghanistan-based bin Laden as prime suspect in last week's terror attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and Pentagon near Washington, in which more than 5,000 people are dead or missing.
Gul also voiced serious doubts about U.S. intentions in the region, saying Washington wanted to exploit the crisis to establish a military presence east of the Gulf to counterbalance China.
"The Pakistani people would never accept an American presence on their soil," he said, reacting to reports that Washington wanted Islamabad to let its troops in to prepare a strike against bin Laden and his network.
"The price to pay would be high for everybody," Gul said of any retaliatory attack from Pakistani soil. "Pakistan would be completely destabilised and that would have grave repercussions, especially for the United States."
"As for India, it would be wrong to welcome this situation, because it would end up being destabilised in turn. All that would end in a vast war of religions. There are 160 million Muslims in India and many minorities struggling for independence."
WIDESPREAD ANTI-AMERICANISM
Gul, who was head of the Pakistani military's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence when Moscow pulled out of Afghanistan in 1989, said anti-American feelings were widespread in Pakistan, "except for some very Westernised pseudo-intellectuals who only represent a handful of people."
"The real Pakistani nation, whether it is religious or not or involved in the jihad (holy war) or not, will be horrified to see Americans land in Pakistan, especially if it is to attack Afghanistan, which is a friendly Islamic state that has never done us any harm."
U.S. military action would also hurt the government of President Pervez Musharraf, Gul predicted.
"The first victim would be Musharraf's government," he said, arguing that Musharraf would have to call on the army to put down popular protests but that his troops would not crack down on fellow Pakistanis.
"If the Americans arrive, the elections will be buried," he said, referring to polls that Musharraf, a general who came to power in a coup d'etat in 1998, has promised next year.
"If Musharraf really wants to continue along the path of democracy, he'd better keep the Americans away," he said.
Gul argued that Washington had far more wide-ranging plans in the region than just going into Afghanistan to nab bin Laden.
"The Americans want to establish a presence in Pakistan and Afghanistan to protect the eastern flank of the Gulf," he said.
"This is part of their new strategy to contain Chinese power," he said, referring to Pakistan's other main military ally. "The United States control the western flank of the Gulf but in the east, Iran is not their ally and the Taliban aren't anymore."
"The United States are asking Pakistan to choose between America and Afghanistan," he said. "What they want to know is whether Pakistan is on their side or China's."
"...But they must know there will be enormous loss of human life, both in their ranks and in ours. It's easy to enter Afghanistan and hard to leave. Nobody has ever succeeded in suppressing the Afghans."
No I don't advocate killing Apache, just seems that your point is somewhat dull.
We are not interested in conquest, we are interested in killing people that want to come to our territory and kill us.
That's just what China wants, slowly pushing the US out of Asia...
>>And in regard to Asia I'll put my money on a capitalist Japan to keep a communist China and her growing global ambitions in check.
I think China will be happy to see that. It is much easier for China to deal with Japan than with the US.
Read up on WWII and Japan's death marches into China and Korea. A militarily strong Japan is China's worst nightmare. The risk to us is that Japan makes the same mistake twice.
How strong can Japan be? No matter how strong a westernized Japan be, it will never match a CCP-ruled China. If the US is out of Asia, the PLA will soon march on Taiwan AND Tokyo.
First of all, unless I am missing something, the US is not in Asia to begin with so I don't understand what you are driving at. Second, while Japan has never had the capacity of taking out China entirely it was strong enough to invade large areas of China's territory during WWII and proved to be a fearsome foe to their army. Moreover, if Japan didn't mess with the USA it would be still controlling much of those territories today. Which is why I believe a stronger Japan is in our best interests given China's growing belligerence. I would not have said this even 5 years ago but since China was able to turn a corrupt U.S. president (read Clinton) into a willing participant of China's highjacking of U.S. military secrets I feel they need some good old Asian competition to keep them off balance.
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