US slam on Pakistan earns praise in India

GlobalPost
The World

America's recent criticism of Pakistan's alleged double-dealing in Afghanistan has unsurprisingly won the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff a few fans in India, where his claim that Pakistan's spy agency is using a terrorist group to fight a "proxy war" has a familiar ring.

In New York to meet U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Monday, just after Pakistan recalled its own top diplomat, Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna stated the obvious when he told reporters: "We have always been saying it. I am glad US finds it is also suffered under the ISI," according to India Today.

That said, it's unclear what game U.S Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen was playing when he testified before the Senate that Pakistan was indirectly responsible for the recent attack on the U.S. embassy in Kabul by members of the Haqqani network.  It was already common knowledge in the U.S. state department that Pakistan was backing the Haqqani — whom America had also backed in the past as a rival to the Taliban.  And it was already well known that Islamabad, and Pakistan's unelected military-intelligence shadow government, were not exactly unreserved in their support for the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.

So are the public statements meant for Pakistan?  Or for U.S. decision makers who haven't been willing to take on Islamabad?

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