AT her press conference in London yesterday the US Secretary of State, Clinton, volunteered that the Taleban attack on the headquarters of the Pakistani army showed that ‘extremists are increasingly threatening the authority of the state.’
She had to hastily add: ‘But we see no evidence that they are going to take over the state.’
She continued: ‘We have confidence in the Pakistani government and military’s control over nuclear weapons.’
The Pakistani generals are under siege in their own headquarters, in the middle of a huge city, and she has confidence that the Pakistani stockpile of nuclear bombs is under the full control of the same military, who do not even control their own headquarters!
The British Foreign Secretary Miliband added to her words of cheerful idiocy by agreeing that ‘There’s no evidence that’s been shown publicly or privately of any threat to the Pakistani nuclear facilities.’
What a display of an amazingly cavalier attitude concerning Pakistan’s nuclear bombs.
The same attitude is being displayed by the US and the UK over the over 200 nuclear bombs, and the means of delivery that is in the hands of the Israeli government.
It is a fact that President Obama, a Nobel Prize winner for his alleged work in pursuit of nuclear disarmament, is in favour of Pakistan and Israel remaining in full control of their nuclear stockpiles, both illegally acquired, and is opposed to a nuclear free bomb zone being declared in the Middle East and South Asia.
Israel and the Pakistan military leadership are strategic allies of the US and therefore can have as many nuclear bombs as they want.
A completely different attitude was shown by Clinton and Miliband to the Iranian government.
Clinton said of Iran that the international community ‘will not wait indefinitely’ for the Islamic republic to meet its obligations. She added: ‘Words are not enough. We are speaking with a single voice and delivering a clear message to Iran: the international community will not wait indefinitely for evidence that Iran is prepared to live up to its international obligations.’
Iran is not to be allowed to have control over the production of nuclear energy, even for peaceful means.
The United States must have control over Iranian nuclear energy, either through the supply of nuclear fuel, or through a strict regime of inspectors.
The alternative to this is the establishment of the most severe economic sanctions, leading up to a US-UK military assault on Iran.
The current strategic review of the war in Afghanistan, currently being carried out by Obama, is in fact a strategic review of the US’s drive to dominate the entire South Asia region with its colossal oil and gas resources.
The Obama regime now recognises that the Taleban and Al-Qaeda are different movements.
Al-Qaeda is not in fact in Afghanistan, but in Pakistan and other regional states. The entire notion that the Taleban is threatening to bomb Washington and London is nonsense.
The political direction of the war is therefore to be shifted to splitting the Taleban and establishing a coalition government, including the Taleban to run Afghanistan, while the centre of the conflict is to be shifted into Pakistan, with US and UK troops engaging in joint operations with the Pakistani army in the north west of the country to begin with.
Such an expansion of the war will need many more troops including British troops, and the costs of the war, in terms of the lives of Afghans and Pakistanis and the finances to wage it, will rapidly escalate, as the area for operations expands.
The UK trade unions must move into action to give support to the Afghan and Pakistani people.
There must be industrial and political action to demand that all US and UK troops are with- drawn from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
