Yesterday US State Department's spokesman P.J. Crowley told the reporters: "We have made no secret of the fact that we've told Pakistan clearly that we believe that the existential threat to Pakistan is not India; the existential threat to Pakistan involves extremism within its own borders".   This is not the very first time America has tried to "teach" Pakistan what its security paradigm should be.  US has found Pakistan's ‘India-centric' military training and defence paradigm counter-productive to her "war on terror".  Sincere elements within the Pakistan army have always resisted increase in troop deployment in the Tribal region and Pak-Afghan border, sighting Indian threat on the eastern borders.  America wants Pakistani officers fully concentrating on capturing and killing Muslim "extremists" and "terrorists" rather than thinking about India.  Also, US wants to eliminate any feeling of threat and animosity within the Muslims of Pakistan as she wants to achieve a long term strategic objective in the region whereby Pakistan and India as a block will be used against China.  Actually, State Department's statement shows its naivety as they believe that people of Pakistan are going to buy it!  The Ummah sees US as the biggest threat to their existence followed by India.  This type of childish statement is not going to change Ummah's deep rooted feelings towards US and India which are based on pure hard facts.

P.J. Crowley's issued the above statement on the backdrop of a high-level delegation visiting US for the next round of "strategic dialogue" between Pakistan and America.  This delegation includes Pakistan's Army Chief Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani and Foreign Minister Shah Memood Qureshi.  The most important agenda point in this dialogue is operations in Tribal region including North Waziristan.  Pakistan has already quietly restarted operations in all major areas including, Swat, Orakzai, Khyber, Kurram Agency etc. which were halted during flood relief activities.  The government was successful in doing it without attracting attention and criticism of the masses as they used the issue of termination of NATO supply-line as a smoke screen.  But they have still not been able to start a new operation in North Waziristan due to huge internal pressure within the Army and patriotic factions of the intelligentia.  US have been pushing Pakistan for a new operation in North Waziristan against the Haqqani network for quite some time now.  Spokesman of Pakistan's foreign office said yesterday that "If we need to launch an operation in NWA then we may launch it tooth and nail".  He further added that some 34,000 troops are already stationed in Waziristan.

One views is that US and Pakistani leadership may not be really interested in a large scale military operation rather they are only using this threat as a ‘stick' against the Haqqani network so that they may provide help in negotiation with Afghan Taliban.  Recently, there have been media reports that members of Haqqani network has already  started to play an important role in establishing US contacts with Taliban for negotiations.

As the whole government is sucked into "dialogue" with US, Pakistan remains plunged into darkness and chaos.  The electricity outages continue even though the weather is no longer hot.  Karachi bleeds on a daily basis; tens of people are gunned down every day in what is known as "target killings".  Sui Southern Gas and Petroleum Limited (SSGPL) have already announced Gas load-shedding for this winter - another fake crisis which will engulf the masses for the next four months.  The US's strategy for Pakistan has not change i.e. keep the masses entangled with their day-to-day problems while US consolidates its hegemony of the region.  And the Pakistani rulers are fully cooperating with America in fulfilling this plan.  People are fed-up and the call for ‘Change' is gaining strength with the passage of each day. Hizb ut- Tahrir has launched a full-fledged campaign to seize the moment.  To educate the Ummah that ‘Change' means uprooting these agent rulers and establishing the Khilafah "Caliphate", Hizb ut-Tahrir has announced country-wide Khilafah "Caliphate" rallies on 5^th of November 2010.  We are confident that this campaign will put us a step closer to our destination - the establishment of the Khilafah "Caliphate".  May Allah put Barakah and Khair in this endeavour.  Ameen!

Naveed Butt

The Official Spokesman of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Pakistan