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McCain scolds Pakistan on Haqqani network support
John McCain expresses sorrow at the death of 24 Pakistani soldiers in weekend NATO strikes.
John McCain expresses sorrow at the death of 24 Pakistani soldiers in weekend NATO strikes. PHOTO: REUTERS
WASHINGTON: Key US Senator John McCain expressed sorrow on Monday at the death of 24 Pakistani soldiers in weekend NATO strikes but scolded Pakistan over support for extremist fighters killing US forces in Afghanistan.
The Republican lawmaker said all Americans were “deeply saddened” by the killings and backed NATO’s vow “to investigate this tragedy thoroughly and immediately” but sharply rebuked Islamabad over the decade-old Afghan war.
“It is important to note that certain facts in Pakistan continue to complicate significantly the ability of coalition and Afghan forces to succeed in Afghanistan,” he said in a statement.
“Pakistan’s intelligence agency continues to support the Haqqani network and other terrorist groups that are killing US and Afghan forces in Afghanistan, and the vast majority of the material used to make improvised explosive devices originates from two fertilizer factories in Pakistan,” said McCain.
His comments came after Pakistan vowed no more “business as usual” with the United States in response to the weekend strikes, but stopped short of threatening to break the troubled alliance altogether.
NATO and the United States sought to limit the fallout of Saturday’s attack as Pakistan shut vital supply routes to the 140,000 foreign troops serving in Afghanistan and ordered a review of its US alliance.
The top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar, told reporters relations were “very complex” and warned against calls to cut off US aid to Islamabad, seen as an important if volatile ally against extremists.
“I would not recommend that we take action of that sort,” said Lugar, a leading champion of expanded aid to Pakistan to win over its people and dilute mistrust of the United States.
Reader Comments (22)
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Maybe Mcain should be scolding Western policy that allowed groups like the Taleban to come to power in the first place. They used Pakistan to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan and end the Cold War. They brought in all kinds of foreign fighters and weapons and then left the place with instability. How dare they blame Pakistan when they didn’t clean up the mess they created and didn’t leave Pakistan with any resources to finish the job? Now they want to make Afghanistan an even bigger puppet state of the Indians who are already engaged in criminal acts in Pakistan.
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In this Situation where 24 soldiers were killed, US is looking to Blame Pakistan rather than making sure that this kind of situation dont happen again…It is so funny to see them blaming Pakistan.Recommend
Americans do not understand the language of civilized human beings they are worst than beasts and should be treated like wise.
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McCain is so funny.. He is trying to attract voters by adopting this policy.. May Allah give brains to the Americans to use their vote in a prudent way..ameen
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Which Haqqani network, the one they support or the other one?
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Blaming and scolding Pakistan is a key to success in US Politics.
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McCain is an old pak basher…he keeps ranting so whats the point in giving precious space to him in the newspaper?
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McCain for President 2008-2012!Recommend
Please dont try to shine your politics on our name…after being in power you will be requesting us on every move to let the supplies open….
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Here comes the uncle Mcain with another story to hide what is really a hot issues these days….
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@Maria:
“Maybe Mcain should be scolding Western policy that allowed groups like the Taleban to come to power in the first place”
While I agree that the US had a hand in creation of Jihadism in Afghanistan against Soviet Union, Taliban was a sole creation of Pakistan. After the US left AFG around 1989, Pakistan created the Taliban as part of its strategy of strategic depth with the view to annex AFG as the fifth province of Pakistan. Pakistan also used AFG to train anti-India terrorists.
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Are they helping Pakistan?? I think notRecommend
John McCain dirty face do whatever you can do. We will keep supporting Haqani Network. You Americans are biggest terrorist in this universe.
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Put a sock in it McCain. We have you by your private parts on this matter. You should be scolding the policy makers of the War on Terror that left you dumping every failure on Pakistan. 1700 vs 40,000 casualties speak for themselves.
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If I was zardari I would have assigned Zulfiqar Mirza to DEAL with McCain.
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or perhapes Wasi Zafar
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Too bad Senator… maybe you would like to kill some more….or killing half a Million muslims is enough revenge for 911..
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This man has lost it. Even US media ignores him, why Pakistani media bothers to cover him?
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McCain and his Republican bunch should know that witout Pakistans help in the war of terror, The American would have the same fate as in Iraq, instead of bragging about aid to Pakistan all the time they should be thankful that due to Pakitans participation, Nato and American are having less to sacrafice, McCain if you ride a Taxi then you hav to pay for it Nothing comes for free. To our leaders, Please try not to turn Pakistan in to a begger state, if 80% of your population can bear the hardship of poverity, you cando with less. Time to get out of your
Slave mentality and your begging habits.
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Mr McCain,
Don’t you know that our ISI has already taken out the Haqqani network, just the last week. In fact DG ISI Pasha saheeb personally went to london to handle it. :)
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Pakistan just dismantled the Haqqani network – the more lethal one that was based in Washington DC.
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@Maria:
for how long will you guys keep singing the same 30 year old Soviet war – tune? Even the Soviet Union has vanished!!
Time for you to wake up , face reality and look how you can live like a civilised country going forward!!!
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