U.S. Relations With Pakistan Sometimes Need Secrecy: Blabbing About It Won't Help Pakistan's Situation on the Ground

The U.S. relationship with Pakistan has always been a little tricky, especially in recent decades. And some arrangements have had to be done in secret in order to keep the various Pakistani governments out of trouble with their own people and with the wider Muslim world.

For instance, when it was decided in the 1980s that the U.S. was going to supply Afghan freedom fighters with anti-aircraft missiles and other heavy weapons to shoot down Soviet Hind gunships and hurt the Red Army, a deal was struck between Israel, the U.S. and Pakistan, which insisted upon secrecy out of fear of offending not only the Soviets, but also the Muslim world by working with the Israelis.

In the early days of the campaign, the Israelis would help provide Soviet-built or inspired weapons, and would transfer them to Pakistan, who would be in charge of getting the weapons to the mujaheddin who were killing Soviet soldiers.

That story was not publicly known until well after the Soviet Red Army withdrew from Afghanistan.

The Soviets were aware of Pakistan's involvement in the Soviet-Afghan War later on; they took enough prisoners during the war to confirm that the Pakistanis were arming the Afghan rebels; the KGB and their Afghan allies struck at a munitions depot outside of Islamabad in 1988, and carried out more than one hundred attacks on targets inside of Pakistan throughout the duration of the war.

Fast forward to earlier this week. The British news story that showed American aircraft at a Pakistani base in 2006 hasn't helped the Pakistani government. They're surrendering territory to the Taliban even now, and this story will only destabilize the Pakistani government even more.

Pakistan will continue to help us, but not if the press and our Congress blab about everything.

The press should be a little more sensitive to the situation in Pakistan and understand that their reporting will have a severe impact on the government there. Do we really want a Taliban government in Islamabad? We don't, but the way that the press has been acting, they might.