Re: Killing of Doctor Part of Taliban War on Educated
Dear Javedmiandad,
It is our pleasure to be able to reply to you, and other members, in order to clarify some misconceptions that have been formulated and spread throughout the social media network. In addition, we hope to be able to address concerns that have been raised due to these false statements. We believe that the members of forums, such as this one, are intelligent enough to reason and research credible sources for the news that they receive and accept. It is due to this belief that we are responding and contesting some baseless theories. We hope that you have paid attention to our previous post where we have explicitly informed you of our 230(approx.) military personnel’s mission in Pakistan. Also stated in our previous reply was the fact that there are no Blackwater, Xe,dynacorp, QRFs in Pakistan. . We should be clear – we do not use Blackwater/Xe contractors in Pakistan. Moreover, the private security contractors we do employ there serve only support and diplomatic security roles, and certainly do not conduct military operations. We see a daily barrage of allegations involving “Blackwater,” but we never see any evidence offered for these stories. Why, then, are they so readily accepted? It is of interest to us to know the credibility and nature of the sources you have used in your post. The military cooperation between the United States and Pakistan is well known hence the presence of the military personnel. The US does not have any bases or airfields in Pakistan, and any facility we use in Pakistan is done with the permission of your government. We are present there with the knowledge and invitation of the Pakistani government and are training Pakistan military in counterinsurgency. Lastly, are you going to disregard full fledge confessions by the TTP and other terrorist groups when they engage in terror activities and kill innocent people. Are you still going to adhere to conspiracy theories that do nothing better than evoke more hatred? Are you going to deny that both countries want to get rid of terrorists that are targeting sacred places such as mosques and other public facilities so that they could murder the maximum number of civilians? We urge you to stop supporting a lawless group that wants to turn Pakistan into a terror base just like they did in Afghanistan. Death squads and conspiracies could make a good movie plot but in real life it hinders one’s judgment and strays one away from the truth. We could give you thousands of reports on terror acts committed by these terrorists, but it won’t make a difference if you close your mind to the truth and blame problems on outside entities. We urge you to strengthen Pakistan’s relationship with its allies that are constantly trying to put an end to terrorism in the region.
In closing, I would like to remind you of an incident from last year in which these false Blackwater rumors had real consequences. In November, a national daily newspaper published on its front page the photograph of a residence in Islamabad that it alleged is a “suspected Blackwater house,” where “suspicious foreigners” had “manhandled” and created “a wave of fear and insecurity” among residents. The accusations were entirely false. The photographed house had been inhabited until that report by civilian humanitarian staff from the U.S Agency for International Development (USAID) who lived there quietly, without incident. They then had to move from the residence for security reasons. Aside from the aggressive harassment of these aid workers without cause, the newspaper’s false accusations were directed against people working with the Pakistan government to alleviate the plight of Pakistan’s poorest citizens.
LCDR Bill Speaks,
DET – United States Central Command
www.centcom.mil