Source:
Washington PostLet us be frank. Pakistan has paid an enormous price for its stand against terrorism. More of our soldiers have died than all of NATO’s casualties combined. Two thousand police officers, as many as 30,000 innocent civilians and a generation of social progress for our people have been lost. And for me, justice against bin Laden was not just political; it was also personal, as the terrorists murdered our greatest leader, the mother of my children. Twice he tried to assassinate my wife. In 1989 he poured $50 million into a no-confidence vote to topple her first government. She said that she was bin Laden’s worst nightmare — a democratically elected, progressive, moderate, pluralistic female leader. She was right, and she paid for it with her life.
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My government endorses the words of President Obama and appreciates the credit he gave us Sunday night for the successful operation in Khyber Pakhtunkhawa. We also applaud and endorse the words of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that we must “press forward, bolstering our partnerships, strengthening our networks, investing in a positive vision of peace and progress, and relentlessly pursuing the murderers who target innocent people.” We have not yet won this war, but we now clearly can see the beginning of the end, and the kind of South and Central Asia that lies in our future.* * *
Radical religious parties have never received more than 11 percent of the vote. Recent polls showed that 85 percent of our people are strongly opposed to al-Qaeda. In 2009, when the Taliban briefly took over the Swat Valley, it demonstrated to the people of Pakistan what our future would look like under its rule — repressive politics, religious fanaticism, bigotry and discrimination against girls and women, closing of schools and burning of books. Those few months did more to unite the people of Pakistan around our moderate vision of the future than anything else possibly could.
A freely elected democratic government, with the support and mandate of the people, working with democracies all over the world, is determined to build a viable, economic prosperous Pakistan that is a model to the entire Islamic world on what can be accomplished in giving hope to our people and opportunity to our children. We can become everything that al-Qaeda and the Taliban most fear — a vision of a modern Islamic future. Our people, our government, our military, our intelligence agencies are very much united. Some abroad insist that this is not the case, but they are wrong. Pakistanis are united.
Read more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/pakistan-did-its-part/2011/05/02/AFHxmybF_story.html?hpid=z4
What is the official position of Pakistan? Well, here is an article that was published today, which was written by the current President of Pakistan, whose wife was gunned down by Al Queda terrorists.
My take is that Pakistan has often tried to hedge its bets by going through the motions in cooperating with the U.S. while turning a blind eye to the operations of extremists within its borders. However, rather than using the death of Bin Ladin to criticize Pakistan, President Obama shared some of the credit for his capture with Pakistan without giving too much credit lest it weaken the Pakistani government. Sure, President Obama could have used this to discredit Bush and his references to Pakistan as a steadfast ally, and highlight how Hillary Clinton was very aggressive in criticizing Pakistan in President Obama's first year. Instead, President Obama is trying to lend credibility to the elected Pakistani government.
Will this work? Who knows, but it is welcome change from the chest thumping, us against the world antics of the prior President.
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