Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar dismisses radical cleric's threat

NEW YORK On the day that thousands protested in Islamabad, led by vocal cleric Tahirul Qadri, and a roadside bomb killed more than two dozen Pakistani soldiers in North Waziristan, Pakistan's outspoken Foreign Minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, was still able to smile in an interview with CBS News at the U.N. headquarters.

Khar, who will preside over the Open Debate of the Security Council on counterterrorism, said the Pakistani government, which had clearly been rattled by the large demonstration in Islamabad, turned off the ubiquitous cell phones in parts of the city as a security measure.

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They were concerned the demonstrations would get out of hand. Qadri apparently hopes they will create a Pakistani version of Egypt's Tahrir Square. Cleric Qadri's supporters, who began in Lahore on a 400-mile march to revolutionize the Pakistani system, want a postponement of national elections, among other things.

The Foreign Minister smiled when asked about the cleric, saying: "The reason I smile is because this is a person who, until a few weeks back, was enjoying a comfortable life in Canada, oblivious to the many demands of the weakening of the political system that he now feels so heartedly and passionately for. And then he arrives on the Pakistani scene."

He is not eligible, she said, to contest the elections in Pakistan because he is a dual national, according to the Constitution.

It is the cleric's popularity and demands for a fundamental change that appears to receive Khar's scorn: "He comes in and creates demands, which are in some ways against the constitutional fabric of Pakistan. He wants a role for the judiciary and the military in the political disposition. That is preposterous. It can be called many words, which I will not like to use. You have to have a credibility or a legitimacy and make legitimate demands. We all know Pakistan has its challenges. I am aware as much as he is of the challenge that corruption presents. But what is the way, can you circumvent those challenges?"

The cleric is not all that is troubling Pakistan. In recent months, Pakistan has had more suicide attacks, now targeting Shiite Muslims. It is trying to calm tensions with India that have flared up over the Kashmir region. It is dealing with what might happen when U.S. and international forces leave Afghanistan. It is also responding to a growing number of protests against the U.S. drone attacks against militants.

What surprises the foreign minister are the divisions in the country that were not present before, between Shia and Sunni Muslims.

"Interestingly, Pakistan, unlike many other countries in the Muslim world, is a country where being Shia or Sunni does not define you. When I went to school, I did not know which girl in my school or which boy in my school was Shia or Sunni," Khar said. "In the workplace you typically do not know who is Shia and who is Sunni, so we are a country that is a melting pot of all ethnicities."

The continued U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan spark Khar's anger: "They have no legality, they are completely unlawful, and we also believe on top of everything else, they are counterproductive. Because you see, when drone strikes take place, you take the war away from a Pakistani war against terrorism to being a U.S. war on terrorism, which is enforced on Pakistan. And secondly, you give the ideological space for these people to dance around it and to ruin. There is now evidence - not collected by Pakistanis, but by British and Americans - that there is a fair degree of civilian casualties."

I don't seem to understand why is USA not bombing the eff out of this terrorist loving nation. Since their independence in 1947, they have sucked the blood of US taxpayer by asking all kinds of aid and ammunition, apparently on threat from India. However, India never attacked them and they kept on building their army, navy, airforce with US gifts. When their crazy ISI generals became insane, they used those weapons to attack India outright - be it patton tanks, Sabre jets, F-16s, Stingers, or submarines. So, they the eff can uncle sam not understand the backstabbing nature of this cunning nation? When the time came to help USA, they hid OBL in their backyard to keep milking USA by prolonging the war and saudi by asking protection money. When CIA would try to attack militants, ISI or that SOAB general Musharraf would tip them off few hrs ago and they manage to escape in time. They also tipped off the taliban and AQ militants of US soldier positions and got them killed, their convoys burnt and prolonged the war so US keeps on paying them for renting their soldiers. This is called being an enemy of US. Finally, that goon Musharraf took all this money in safe havens and exited the country for a peaceful retirement. Can the US and CIA not see thru this bash-**** nation? They have got so many US soldiers killed, cost tazpayer money and fooled the US military, so USA should finish this country once and for all. Make allies with India then and counter China in the Asian theater.

Well she and her terrorist country Pakistan should first reply:
1. Why has her country attacked India 4 times unprovokedly in 1947, 1965, 1971 and 1999 (by your shameless thief Musharraf)?
2. Why is the idea of being Pakistani equated with hatred of India and its destruction?
3. Why is the jehadi military and your ISI goons always ready to hijack the national media and even the govt and stir up hatred of India to gain prominence on otherwise useless things?
4. You got latest F-16 block 50/52 C/D and P3-C orion marine recon planes from USA recently as military aid because your thief and goon generals and ISI thugs said they are needed for war on terror and to kill militants. What kind of militants do you kill with F-16 block 52 and P3-C orion jets, please enlighten us.
5. In history most of your thug leaders and politicians took US aid in their pocket for any damn reason and decamped to the UK (benazir bhutto, Nawaz sharif, Bhutto senior, Musharraf etc)? What is the reason for that?
6. Whay is your thug and shameless ISI training and sending jihadi fighters into Indian Kashmir consistently? To wage proxy war and if they get killed, not be answerable to the Indians right? Shameless.
7. Why is Hafeez saeed the terrorist mastermind, thug of ISI, Hamid Gul and that loudmouth Zaid Hamid not arrested and put behind bars for Anti-India, Anti-US speeches?
ALL the above points to a directionless and lying and most imp. duplicit govt of which you are a part. So, please get the eff out of USA and preach this bs to your jihadi brothers in afghanistan and POK, it dont make any sense. In case of India pak war (which will happen due to your jihadi army initiatives), please remember the consequences and the damages from India.

[mjlewis6]

And for Americans to attain her point of view, it is when local and state police agencies are able to obtain similar drones for use in the US and have the capability to make life/death decisions to use deadly force from an unmanned drone....we may well agree.