Donald Trump and Imran Khan troll each other amid further decline in US-Pak ties
WASHINGTON: US President Trump and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan trolled each other on Twitter on Monday with snide remarks pointing to a continued dysfunction in ties between two countries stuck in a mutually recriminatory loop.
Following a Fox News interview over the weekend in which President Trump accused Pakistan of hiding Osama bin Laden and berated it for not doing a “damn thing” for the US, Imran Khan pushed back on Monday tweeting, “Instead of making Pakistan a scapegoat for their failures, the US should do a serious assessment of why, despite 140000 NATO troops plus 250,000 Afghan troops & reportedly $1 trillion spent on war in Afghanistan, the Taliban today are stronger than before.”
“Record needs to be put straight on Mr Trump’s tirade against Pakistan: 1. No Pakistani was involved in 9/11 but Pak decided to participate in US War on Terror. 2. Pakistan suffered 75,000 casualties in this war & over $123 bn was lost to economy. US ‘aid’ was a miniscule $20 bn.,” he said in a second tweet.
In a third tweet, Khan said “Our tribal areas were devastated & millions of ppl uprooted from their homes. The war drastically impacted lives of ordinary Pakistanis, “ before asking, “Pak continues to provide free lines of ground & air communications (GLOCs/ALOCs). Can Mr Trump name another ally that gave such sacrifices?”
Within four hours of Khan’s tweets, President Trump returned to the subject again, tweeting, “Of course we should have captured Osama Bin Laden long before we did. I pointed him out in my book just BEFORE the attack on the World Trade Center. President Clinton famously missed his shot. We paid Pakistan Billions of Dollars & they never told us he was living there. Fools!..”
“….We no longer pay Pakistan the $Billions because they would take our money and do nothing for us, Bin Laden being a prime example, Afghanistan being another. They were just one of many countries that take from the United States without giving anything in return. That’s ENDING!” he added.
The US President’s Twitter tirade also involved retired US Admiral William McRaven, who led the operation that killed Osama bin Laden, and who has since criticized Trump on various issues, including his denigration of the media and his attacks against former CIA chief John Brennan.
Trump dismissed McRaven as a “Hilary Clinton backer and an Obama-backer,” in the Fox interview although the Admiral had made no public political pronouncement before Trump began attacking the US security establishment.
The US President’s ire against his predecessor and the security principals during that administration appears to stem from the public humiliation he suffered at the hands of Barack Obama during the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner when he was roasted for his penchant for spreading conspiracy theories.
It was same night Obama, in between practicing his punchlines, greenlighted the operation that killed bin Laden.
The US President’s continued antipathy towards Pakistan, which also remains recalcitrant in not acknowledging its role in the use and spread of terrorism as a state policy despite copious evidence, has taken Washington and Islamabad into a precipitous low in ties. The Trump administration has cut off most aid to Pakistan and the two sides simply haven’t been able to get past mutual recrimination.
Imran Khan was not done after the Trump tirade. “Trump’s false assertions add insult to the injury Pak has suffered in US WoT in terms of lives lost & destabilised & economic costs. He needs to be informed abt historical facts. Pak has suffered enough fighting US’s war. Now we will do what is best for our people & our interests.” he tweeted.
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