Pakistan in Afghanistan: Friend or Foe?

[Med911]

Re: Pakistan in Afghanistan: Friend or Foe?

@BindazChakkar

@Med911 & captain1:

There is a night & day difference between terms & conditions vs blackmail. taking the same example you took, in Kashmir India openly states it is India and stations our military there in response to attacks. but Pakistan instead of openly dealing with it, were training terrorists and were denying their involvement until they were proven otherwise. We had to literally capture regular military before pakistan would admit (example Kargil were Pakistan kept claiming 'mujahideen until army regulars were caught!).

In the current discussion about Afghanistan, Afghanistan want cooperation with India and sign a deal. Why should Pakistan make that difficult? What moral rights does Pakistan have to make everything so much more expensive and scarcer for people of Pakistan? India is as poor, if not poorer than Pakistan, but still leveraging the size, if we want to help Afghanistan people, why should that be objectionable?

We disagree. We believe India positions its troops to avert and suppress any movement towards freedom amongst the populous, unless you can prove otherwise.
Pakistan is in an odd position you see. Just as India has its interests, which owing to its size, it can take by force, as it has done in the past, Pakistan’s interests are not so easily defended. In such a situation, Pakistan has taken clandestine means to achieve those objectives. Whether its right or wrong is debatable. However, to single out Pakistan as the sole nation to use such tactics is misleading and ignores the fact that many countries have used such methods in the past, including the US, USSR, Saudis, Iran, Iraq, Israel etc etc. . Black mail as you call it is not unique to Pakistan. India is also not above it, and has employed policies many in Pak would also consider blackmail.

Pakistan see’s things, rightly or wrongly, through the prism of security vis a vis India. You have to understand the situation Pak is in. To have two potentially hostile neighbors in an invitation to disaster in the minds of those in power in Pak. Both Afghanistan and India have been hostile towards Pakistan from the day of its birth. So you can understand why Pakistan would have such reservations towards seeing two hostile neighbors on either side. India would be just as cautious. One of the main reason why India attacked in East Pakistan, beyond the obvious pretext, was that it did not want to be surrounded on either side by Pakistan. Having two wings of a hostile Pakistan one on the east side and one on the west had the potential to make things very difficult.

Pakistan see’s “helping” Afghanistan as a way of India gaining influence and surrounding Pakistan. Its called a flanking maneuver. And ofcourse, although India doesnt say so specifically, but that is part of the intention. Do you think India is SOOOOO alturistic that it would just dole out cash? If it is so generous, why not dole out cash and “help” to Somalia, or any number of other countries that could use the help? India is obviously not stupid, so they see the advantage of having influence in Afghanistan, as have many empires before. To believe otherwise, is being naive.
Hope that makes it clear.