On his visit to Afghanistan and Pakistan on 27th April 2009, the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged £655 million to Pakistan in aid over the next four years and said “There is a crucible of terrorism in the mountainous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. It’s important to recognise that if we do not take action and we do not fight back against the Taleban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, then people in Britain….are less safe…..There is a chain of terrorism that goes from here round to the streets of Britain…..We know that three-quarters of the terrorist activities that happen in Britain arise from the areas around here. Therefore, the safety of people on the streets of Britain is immediately being safeguarded by the action being taken here“
Brown’s ‘Crucible of Terror’ rhetoric deployed on this visit is again part of the same vocabulary of fear that the British government has cultivated as part of it’s global war on Islam and against the Muslims living inside Britain today. Similar to Hilary Clinton’s claim of a ‘mortal threat’ and the British Foreign Secretary Milliband’s recent disgraceful claim that 9/11 was executed from Pakistan’s tribal areas, Brown has once again sought to paint a picture of Pakistan that is failing and turning into a rogue state. This is being done to justify and expand Western intervention in the region and make Pakistan the next target in the West’s continuing ‘War on Terror’. Yet just like Clinton before, Brown has sought to deflect scrutiny away from the real issue of the failing Afghanistan occupation that has now seen the West’s war move across the border into Pakistan. Over a million Pakistanis have been displaced and hundreds of innocent men, women and children have been killed which is the real cause behind the insurrection in Pakistan’s tribal regions.
Gordon Brown’s visit to Pakistan in the aftermath of the arrest and humiliation of 10 Pakistani students in another botched terror raid marks another shameful low for the Zardari regime. The British authorities arrested these 10 Pakistani students claiming to have stopped another huge terrorist outrage with Gordon Brown himself very publicly laying the charge by claiming that ‘a very big plot’ had been thwarted. Despite no evidence being offered the British press accused and convicted these innocent men with lurid wall to wall coverage that has now become the norm for Muslims in Britain. Despite all of this and no subsequent apology from the British government and the fact that these innocent men now face deportation, we have seen the Zardari regime roll out the red carpet for Brown.
The British government’s treatment of these 10 Pakistani men highlight’s the injustice of the secular democratic system wherever it is implemented, be it Pakistan or as in this case Britain, where such unjustified and draconian treatment can be made acceptable. It shows that Pakistanis or those born in Britain of Pakistani origin who are ‘technically’ considered citizens cannot expect their rights as minorities living in Britain to be protected. For Muslims the presumption of innocence simply does not exist. In fact the British government has fully legitimised it’s witch hunt and persecution of Muslims in Britain under the guise of it’s recently published ‘Contest 2′ strategy paper. This in reality is the British government’s latest blueprint to persecute those who adhere to the Shariah and call for the Khilafah state to be re-established in the Muslim world. This is also why the British government continues to support the Zardari regime as it supports many other despotic and corrupt regimes throughout the Muslim world. The latest offer of £655 million ‘aid’ is only more bribe money for the Zardari regime.
The slavish Zardari regime’s failure to stand up for the rights of these ten men is hardly surprising given that it is fully complicit in the death and destruction being unleashed by the West in Pakistan’s tribal regions. The Zardari regime continues to supply 80% of the fuel, food, weapons and other supplies needed by Western forces occupying Afghanistan as 400 trucks cross over daily from Pakistan. Rather then scrapping Brown’s visit, the Zardari regime welcomed it’s British colonial master to receive it’s new round of orders. Zardari’s so called ‘snub’ by failing to host a joint press conference with Brown are mere theatrics; in an open betrayal of Pakistan’s interests the Zardari regime launched a new round of military operations in lower Dir and Buner to coincide with Brown’s visit. Such military operations are actually fuelling the fire of civil conflict inside Pakistan.
Brown’s claims of terrorist plots being traced back to Pakistan’s border regions are unsubstantiated with no credible evidence offered to back up these claims. Indeed Brown’s claims are reminiscent of Tony Blair’s infamous 45 minute WMD claim used to launch the Iraq war. No reasonable person would take such claims at face value. Such claims from Western governments are deeply contemptible given the level of death and destruction they have left in their wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan that dwarfs the number killed in 9/11 and 7/7.
Instead it is very likely that this latest narrative was cooked up in the same Downing Street office from where Brown’s aide Damien McBride hatched his scheme to smear senior members of the Conservative Party. Brown would do better rather than emulating Blair to concentrate on tackling Britain’s growing economic problems for which rightfully many lay the blame for at his door instead of seeking to distract the British Public by indulging in the politics of fear.