THIS is apropos the report ‘The US finds Pakistan useful only to clear the mess in Afghanistan: PM Imran’ (Aug 12). As a matter of fact, Pakistan has made itself useful to the United States for the last over seven decades.

We were members of the South East Asia Treaty Organisation (Seato), the Central Treaty Organisation (Cento), the Baghdad Pact and were useful to the US right through the Cold War. The U-2 spy plane shot down near Moscow had taken off from a Pakistani airfield.

However, when we needed assistance in 1965, the US slapped a crippling arms embargo on us when we only had US arms in our inventory. With the help of some other friends, we managed to keep the air force afloat, and our soldiers literally threw themselves under Indian tanks while defending the BRB canal. Pakistan got away with it by the skin of its teeth.

Again, in 1971, when we came under attack, we thought we had our back covered by the US; our ally. When the time came, the US promptly slapped another crippling arms embargo on us; its ally.

It was only after we got the nuclear deterrence that we were able to stand on our own and subsequently diversified the weaponry at our disposal.

The PM’s statement quoted above simply called a spade, a spade. Toeing the US line was not helping Pakistan at all. His ‘absolutely not’ in response to an earlier request regarding airbases inside the country was music to Pakistani ears.

Capt Afaq Rizvi
Karachi

Published in Dawn, September 6th, 2021