No country has ever been bombed by its own ally, like Pakistan has
been bombed by the US, Pakistani politician Imran Khan tells Julian
Assange. He says it is time to put an end to the US-Pakistani
‘client-master’ relationship.
In the tenth episode of The World Tomorrow, Julian Assange talks to
Imran Khan, whose political party was ignored for years and which US
State Department cables called “Pakistan’s one-man party.”
But
today he is a front-runner in Pakistani politics. Nowadays his party
counts far more than “one member” as electable people come to join him.
But
when, Khan, a former captain of Pakistan’s victorious cricket team,
created his party from humble origins no one paid attention, no one
supported him.
That was so till Khan’s party, along with a few others, boycotted the elections in 2008, because they
“were manipulated by the Bush administration,” and until his predictions turned out to be obvious.
Khan has always warned that elections would be
“a disaster for the people of Pakistan”
and that Pakistani leaders were turncoats telling Americans how great
they were, but at the same time giving their own citizens a different
opinion.
“The War on Terror has been devastating for Pakistan,” Khan says, because 40,000 Pakistanis have been killed
“fighting America’s war.” “Basically, our own army was killing our own people.”
“No
country has ever been bombed by its own ally, as we have been bombed in
this country. Never has a country's ruling elite, for personal
benefits, never have they betrayed their people as much as this elite
under Musharraf and the current elite,” Khan says.
Imran Khan says that the US operation on Pakistan’s soil in May 2011 against Osama bin Laden was the
“ultimate humiliation” for the state, which was
“sacrificing for the US.”
It turned out that
“our
ally did not trust us and actually came and killed someone on our own
soil. It was that the two factors combined: the sacrifices, and
secondly, here is an ally which – are we a friend or an enemy?”
Khan says the
“client-master relationship” between the US and Pakistan, when the latter is
“a hired gun, being paid to kill America’s enemies” should be reviewed.
“The only thing that the Americans should be told is that “Look, there will be no terrorism from our side,” he says.
The relationship with the US should be based on
“dignity and self-respect” instead of the
“client-master” model.
