Eight years of fighting terrorism has led to recalibration from Washington to Denver, where Pakistan's ambassador Thursday delivered a pointed critique of U.S. tactics.
A lack of focus on the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, failure to win popular support, impatience, and relying too much on military force such as the unmanned Predator drones have limited U.S. effectiveness, Pakistan Ambassador Husain Haqqani said in an interview here.
"If the United States cannot get the people on its side, then any number of bombings from high altitude are not going to change the ground reality," Haqqani said.
"This is an ideological war, and it is an economic war. You have to create economic opportunities, because somebody who does not have a future is more likely to become a suicide terrorist than somebody who has a chance to earn a college degree."
Haqqani was the featured guest with Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter and counterterrorism experts at an evening public forum in the Denver Art Museum put on by Denver's Center for Empowered Living and Learning, or CELL. The forum drew more than 550 people.
"We can't lose sight of the threat of terrorism . . .," Ritter said. "We must continue to engage Pakistan as a key to stabilizing the entire region."
The local deliberation coincides with Obama administration efforts to chart a new course in counterterrorism. Defense officials are weighing a further buildup of U.S. troops — already increased by 21,000 since President Barack Obama took office — to try to control resurgent Taliban forces in Afghanistan.
U.S. officials also are considering legislation that would send $1.5 billion a year for five years in non-military aid to nuclear- armed Pakistan for improving health care and schools.
Pakistan has come under fire in Congress for not doing enough to root out Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in its mountainous, tribal borderlands.
Haqqani called this unfair.
"When the U.S. government says they've been able to eliminate 13 of the top 20 al-Qaeda leaders in the past 14 months, it hasn't been without Pakistani support," he said.
He defended the performance of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. He urged the equivalent of the post-World War II Marshall Plan in Europe to create schools and clinics in Pakistan, where U.S. neglect during the 1990s, after mobilizing legions of holy warriors to fight Soviet occupiers, fostered "deep-seated anti-Americanism."
"I'd rather that people had the opportunity to make boxer shorts for Wal-Mart than IEDs for the Taliban," Haqqani said.
Yet Taliban forces on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border benefit from a $3 billion opium trade and "close to $100 million a year" sent from outside Pakistan "under the guise of charities."
Pakistan still needs more military technology including helicopters and night-vision gear that has been delayed by Congress amid concerns that Pakistan could use the weaponry against India, he said. And Predator drones "need to be operated by Pakistanis" or deployed "with Pakistani participation" to minimize resentment.
Pakistan's government also is trying non-military tactics such as running a radio talk show, using U.S. equipment, in the contested Swat Valley.
"Isn't it sad that the non-military approach is only now starting?" Haqqani said.
After U.S. forces in 2001 helped topple the Taliban, Americans "talked victory" and neglected the region again.
Today, "it's much easier to get support for a quick war than a war that helps change people," he said.
"It's easier to get Americans to support a car industry bailout in this country" than a comprehensive campaign to stabilize the place where 9/11 attackers hatched their plot.
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