Anti-Americanism peaking in Pak: Out to destroy us

Much of it began with Washington8217;s War on Terror which ousted the Taliban from Kabul and saw heavy fighting on the lawless Afghan-Pak border. The US campaign in Iraq exacerbated it like in most Islamic countries in the region. For Pakistan though, the turning point came when the fighting on the Afghan border escalated about a year ago and repercussions of the conflict began to increasingly spill over into its territory, past the federally administered border areas, into Peshawar and beyond, and now Islamabad, political observers say.

The Marriott bombing also signalled a change in the strategy of terror groups from targeting government or military facilities to a public centre like a five-star hotel where most victims were poor Pakistani civilian workers. Such 8220;collateral damage8221; of the conflict had already fuelled anger outside cities and had been further fanned by sections of the media, observers add.

8220;Now there is a feeling that things have gone out of control and it is all America8217;s fault,8221; says Anees Jillani, a Pakistan Supreme Court lawyer and a member of the Washington DC Bar. 8220;Life is tougher in border areas like Swat. I am told there has been no power in some places for 12 days, no stocks of petrol in the pumps and the curfews are unending. And people have even been barred from standing by the road if the army is using it.8221;

Top government officials attempt to put it in context by going back to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the subsequent turmoil that gripped the region. 8220;When these groups fought the Russians, they were mujahideen, when they fight Americans, they are terrorists. Pakistan is caught between these forces and is now fighting for its survival,8221; says a foreign ministry official. 8220;If NATO forces can8217;t fight them how can we control them? The US should understand our plight and leave us alone, return Afghanistan to its people and let them decide for themselves.8221; Another senior official suspects the Marriott bombing was in retaliation for the mounting operations by the US and Pakistani troops against the Taliban on the Pak-Afghan border earlier this month. 8220;The message is, if we can hit them, they can hit back. But this is not our war.8221;

Pakistani politicians have been unusually quiet, apart from making some mandatory noises about the need for US troops to respect the sovereignty of Pakistan while hunting militants on the border. But even this has been obviously ignored by the US, with President George W Bush making no explicit commitment that American ground troops would not cross over into Pakistan or that Drone missile attacks would stop, when he held talks with Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

Thursday8217;s incident when two US helicopters reportedly crossed into Pakistan in North Waziristan and were fired upon by Pakistani forces, adds more fuel to the fire. On Friday morning, on a talk show on the Urdu language ARY One World channel, a young woman host asks an analyst in its Karachi studio: 8220;Do you think America is telling us one thing and doing another, as usual? Has the time come to tell them that they should stop, that enough is enough?8221;