http://rupeenews.com/2008/04/16/husain-haqqani-dangerous-5th-column-or-selfish-opportunist/

http://rupeenews.com/2008/04/11/pakistans-new-ambassador-to-usa-hh-an-embarresment-for-all/

http://rupeenews.com/2008/04/11/mr-potato-chips-goes-to-washington-neocon-from-pakistan/

http://rupeenews.com/2008/02/10/rebuttalunmasking-dr-ayesha-siddiqa-agha-traitor-enemy-agent-misdirected-peacenik-or-a-confused-don-quixote/

Mr. Husain Haqqani is harming Pakistani interests with his loose talk, his subservience to his foreign friends and his loyalty to his Neocon paymasters. His depricating attitude towards Pakistan is the worst example of kowtowing seen in modern times. This person has crossd the line. His days as an ambassador are numbered. His days as an employee of the Pakistan government can be counted. When he came to the USA this know-it-all FOB (Fresh of the boat) man jumped on the Neocon bandwagon and stabbed the Civil Rights Movement in the heart. Mr. Hussain Haqqanis incorrect, false and incendiary statements caused havoc with the normal functioning of the great American Democracy. Hackles were raised. If a man named Hussian said this, it must be true. If a Pakistani said this it must have veracity. Now he is again speaking his master’s voice.

Pakistan’s odd dance with the Taliban By Mustafa Malik Commentary by Tuesday, July 01, 2008

As NATO troops face stepped up guerrilla attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s new ambassador to Washington, Husain Haqqani, is trying hard to explain to Americans why his government has tried to make peace with the Pakistani Taliban. That peace deal, despite the army’s confrontation with a senior Pakistani Taliban leader in the past few days, appears to have bolstered the flow of Pakistani fighters into Afghanistan. Kandahar Governor Asadullah Khalid says most of the 56 militants killed in a recent military operation there were Pakistanis.

The Pakistani Army had pushed for the Taliban deal and, more ominously, its paramilitary troops are reported to be training Taliban guerrillas. Some Pakistani officials say the recent American air strikes that killed 11 of their soldiers were a US warning to their army.

So why is the army helping the Taliban? I asked Haqqani at a dinner reception in Arlington, Virginia. The ambassador said he prefers “not to answer this question.” After a pause, he added: “The army operates in Pakistan’s social environment.” I was surprised by the envoy’s effort to explain, rather than deny, his military’s involvement in Taliban activities.

OTHER QUOTES FROM HAQQANI: Reflecting recent mainstream news coverage on the issue, Haqqani, a syndicated columnist for the Indian Express, Gulf News and The Nation (Pakistan), reiterated the pressing danger of Pakistani-orchestrated nuclear arms proliferation. Though such dangers have been recognized by the American government as a growing security threat, he explained, “there is going to be no consequences for Pakistan, because Pakistan is cooperating with the United States in the hunt for Bin Laden.”

HAQQANI SPPECH AT JINSA: Hussain Haqqani during JINSA’s March 2, 2004 Policy Forum.
Pakistan’s Role as a Center of an Militant Islamic Movement
While lauded for its cooperative role in war against terrorism, Haqqani suggested that Pakistan also has, and continues, to serve as the center of an Islamic militant movement. Abdul Alaa Maududi, founder of Pakistan’s Jamaat-e-Islamimovement, authored Jihad for Islam, a seminal work regarded by Haqqani and others “as the boiler plate for subsequent developments in that whole theory about global [Jihaddist] effort.” <strong>While Pakistan acts as a centralhub for international Islamic militancy, such violent factions also enjoy domestic support within elements of the Pakistani government. Haqqani suggested that “Pakistan’s military for strategic reasons has allied [with Islamic militancy] time and time against, and it was the alliance between the mosque and the militancy … which produced things like the Taliban.” </strong>

Pakistan’s “social environment” is indeed overwhelmingly supportive of the guerrilla movement to expel NATO troops from Afghanistan. The discredited Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf led the “war on terror” against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda to gain American support for his military rule. But the current democratically elected government, sensitive to public opinion, considers it suicidal to do so. Government officials also point out that Musharraf’s military crackdowns against the Taliban have increased, instead of decreased, the guerrilla group’s popularity and militancy.

During a fall trip through Pakistan, I was told by politicians, scholars and ordinary people that they didn’t differentiate between NATO and Soviet troops in Afghanistan. Pakistani youths, supported by the CIA and American arms, fought to roll back the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.

In Islamabad, Senator M. Enver Baig of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party reminded me that the US government and media called the anti-Soviet guerrillas “mujahideen” or freedom fighters. He said the Taliban were resisting “American hegemony,” but that they “don’t hate Americans.”

The Taliban are made up mostly of Pashtun, who make up 42 percent of Afghanistan’s population and nearly 20 percent of Pakistan’s. Numerically, Pakistan has twice as many Pashtun as in Afghanistan. Many Pashtun in both Pakistan and Afghanistan resent the boundary, drawn by the British colonial power, that divides them between the two countries.

The Pashtun are known for their infinite hospitality and legendary spirit of independence. Unlike Al-Qaeda, the Taliban didn’t have an anti-American agenda. Their belief that they had a “duty” to protect their guest Osama bin Laden made them face the catastrophe of the 2001 US invasion. In Bajaur tribal agency, I was told that if George W. Bush had become a Pashtun guest, they would have protected him, too, with their lives.

Similarly, throughout history the Pashtun have shown indomitable valor in beating back invaders, some of them superpowers of their day such as the Greeks, British and Soviets. Today most Pakistanis and Afghans believe in their bones that the Pashtun will drive back the NATO forces from Afghanistan as well, and Pakistanis overwhelmingly support their campaign.

Apart from Pakistan’s pro-Taliban social environment, strategic calculations weigh heavily with the Pakistani Army, which dominates the management of Islamabad’s Afghan (as well as Kashmiri and nuclear-arms) policy. Army officers resent Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s warm ties to India, Pakistan’s arch-adversary. And they believe that because NATO will one day be pulling up its stakes from Afghanistan, they need to make sure Kabul doesn’t come under the influence of a hostile power, especially India. The Pakistani Army is cultivating the Taliban because it sees them dominating political life in post-NATO Afghanistan. They ruled Afghanistan during 1996-2001, when Pakistan’s relations with it were the closest ever.

The Pakistani Army values relations with the United States, but it thinks it can’t ignore Pakistan’s strategic interests in Afghanistan. The army has, however, lessened somewhat it support for the Taliban in an effort to placate the Bush administration, hoping, perhaps desperately, that the Americans will eventually realize that they will need some day to bid Afghanistan farewell, but that Pakistan cannot do so.

Mustafa Malik, a Washington-based journalist, worked as speechwriter for the late Pakistani Prime Minister Nurul Amin and carried out diplomatic assignments from the Pakistani government. He wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR.