Imran Khan won’t go out silently after ouster as Pakistan PM

OUSTED Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, continues to disappoint US Imperialism and the West after refusing to go out silently and instead called on hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis to protest his removal, claiming it was another ‘regime-change operation’ by Washington with the help of corrupt Pakistani officials and local ‘Amboys’ (American Boys) inside the Pakistani government.

Khan was forced to step down as Prime Minister last April 9, 2022, after he got a ‘no-confidence vote’ from the National Assembly (Parliament), pointing to his alleged poor handling of Pakistan’s economic woes as basis.

The fight to remove Khan was close, with his opponents—whom he accused of receiving money and instructions from the US State Department—mustering a slim margin of just 6 votes, 174 votes against him, 168 votes in his favor, or a slim difference of 6 votes in the 342-member chamber and in a session that reached near past midnight, to force the issue.

Khan a former cricket player and superstar, founded the Pakistan Movement for Justice (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, PTI), that became his vehicle to the premiership when he was first elected in 2018.

Khan would have survived the no-confidence vote after it was first tabled on March 8, 2022 and blocked for further deliberation by his partymate, Deputy Speaker Qasim Suri on April 3, 2022.

Khan then dissolved Parliament and called for elections within 90 days in order to get a fresh mandate from his countrymen.

But surprisingly, Pakistan’s Supreme Court intervened and ruled that the action of Suri and the events that followed were “illegal,” thus paving the way for Khan’s removal.

More surprisingly, the court opted not to look into the claim of Khan that Washington is behind the effort to remove him and that members of the National Assembly are being bribed to vote against him and the PTI.

After supplanting British Imperialism, US Imperialism has always considered Pakistan as its own extended territory in South Asia, using its as a base for intervention, especially in Afghanistan and by extension, against Russia and China.

An example of US Imperialism’s hold on Pakistan was the murder of Al-Qaeda leader, Osama Bin Laden inside Pakistan.

On May 2, 2011, and without bothering to inform the Pakistani government, US Imperialism staged a raid in the town of Bilal, Abbottabad, that resulted to the murder of Bin Laden, whom US intelligence claimed was the architect of the ‘9/11’ terrorist attack in the US mainland ten years previously, on September 11, 2001.

Since becoming prime minister, the list of Khan’s “crimes” against America continues to increase:

He has refused to grant military bases in Pakistan aimed at destabilizing Afghanistan and China (Pakistan shared borders with both countries); he agreed for Pakistan to be a member of China’s ‘BRI’ (Belt and Road Initiative) and even pushed Pakistan to closer economic and diplomatic ties with China;

Khan also regularly reminds Pakistanis that Pakistan got nothing except the death of over 70,000 Pakistanis when it helped US Imperialism first, in its war against the Soviet Union after it invaded Afghanistan in 1979 and next, during the Bush administration’s war against the Taliban in Afghanistan in the aftermath of the 9/11 attack.

At the United Nations, Khan is the prime mover behind the call for the establishment of an ‘International Day Against Islamophobia’ that the West has been using to discriminate against all Muslims and justify the West’s “forever wars” against the Muslims by painting them as “terrorists;”

But what broke America’s patience was when Khan met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on February 24, 2022, coinciding with Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine. Khan visited Russia to negotiate oil and wheat purchases for Pakistan;

At the United Nations, Khan had refused to go along with US Imperialism’s call for global denunciation of Russia over its incursion into Ukraine, including the imposition of sanctions against Russia.

To the Pakistanis, Khan has sent the clear message that Pakistan’s days as a vassal of US Imperialism in South Asia has come to an end, even saying that Pakistanis would now have to choose between “slavery” by the Western powers or liberty.

‘Better a corrupt leader than a nationalist’

Replacing Khan as prime minister is Mian Muhammad Shabaz

‘Shehbaz’ Sharif, leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) and brother to former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

 

Nawaz was removed in 2017 and perpetually barred from further holding any public for corruption.

And like his older brother, Shehbaz too is tainted with corruption.

In late 2019, Pakistan’s National Accountability Bureau confiscated at least 23 of his assets in for money laundering—the leaked papers from the ‘Panama Papers’ identified him and his son, Hamza, as among the Pakistani officials who have secretly siphoned off a huge stash of money to various offshore accounts abroad.

On September 28, 2020, the NAB formally arrested Shehbaz and he was convicted for money laundering by the Lahore High Court.

At the time of his formal ascension to the premiership last April 11, 2022, two days after the questionable removal of Khan, he was out on bail on the same charge.

Many believe that had the general elections called for by Khan not been preempted by the decision of the Pakistan Supreme Court—under pressure from threat of another military coup by the Amboys in the Pakistan armed forces—Khan and the PTI would have again emerged victorious due to the corrupt reputation of Shebaz and the Pakistan opposition.

But despite his sleazy record, US Imperialism feels comfortable working with Shehbaz, who in his assumption, announced that he wants “better relationship with the United States.”

“Imported government run by outlaws”

Despite repeated denials by Washington, Khan bared that last March 7, 2022, Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington, Asad Majeed Khan, received a letter from the State Department signed by an “undersecretary” informing Imran that a ‘no confidence motion’ (NCM), would be tabled before the National Assembly and that the prime minister should take his removal without any protest or he and Pakistan would be facing “horrible consequences.”

Sure enough, the NCM was pushed the next day, March 8, 2022, before parliament, mainly supported by Sharif’s PML-N and the Pakistan’s People’s Party (PPP).

Although Khan did not name the US State undersecretary, it can no other than Undersecretary for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland, the same person behind the US regime change operation in Ukraine in 2014. As Undersecretary for Political Affairs, Nuland oversees US policy implementation not only in South Asia (that includes Pakistan) but also, Africa, East Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Eurasia, the Near East, Central Asia, the Western Hemisphere, and International Organizations, according to her job description at the Department of State website.

That foreign pressure is being applied to oust Khan can be seen from the fact that aside from the Pakistan Supreme Court ruling against Khan, the Islamabad High Court also ruled that Khan cannot disclose the US’ letter to the public by classifying it as a “state secret.”

Then on March 9, the day after the NCM was tabled at the National Assembly, Pakistan’s military leadership said it would stand “neutral” in the conflict between Khan and the US-supported opposition groups—despite seeing for themselves the March 7, 2022 letter sent by Washington to Pakistan.

And had the Pakistan Supreme Court looked into the allegations of Khan, that members of the National Assembly have been bribed and, that America is orchestrating his removal, many of those who voted against him would have been languishing in prison by now.

(For a fuller understanding of the issue, please refer to this link: Imran Khan takes on America (thecradle.co)

Next target of US assassination?

Despite his removal, however, Khan remains defiant while admitting he is now a target of assassination by the West (read: America), similar to what had happened to his predecessors– Liaquat Ali Khan, Z.A. Bhutto, Muhammad Zia al Haq and Benazir Bhutto.

Ali Khan was Pakistan’s first Prime Minister who was assassinated on October 16, 1951; Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged on April 7, 1979 on trumped up charges before a kangaroo court, after being deposed in a coup by Zia al Haq, then Pakistan Army chief, on July 5, 1977.

Al Haq, in turn, was killed in a mysterious plain crash on August 17, 1988, on board a C-130 transport plane supplied by the United States, along with US ambassador to Pakistan, Arnold Raphel and some of Pakistan’s top military commanders.

Arriving at a different conclusion during the crash investigation, Pakistan suspected “sabotage” as behind the crash and not “mechanical problem” as claimed by the United States.

Bhutto, daughter of Z. A. Bhutto and Pakistan’s first lady prime minister, for her part, was assassinated on December 27, 2007.

Addressing huge crowds in Islamabad and Peshawar, Khan said he intends “to go to every city of the country … and I challenge to them (Western imperialism and their local cohorts) that they would have never seen the kind of mobility (mobilization) of the public the way I would do.”

Khan also encouraged Pakistanis to continue to reject the “imported government” that now holds the reign of power in Pakistan and accused US Imperialism of “disrespecting” Pakistan, by “imposing outlaws” (referring to Shebaz’s corruption case that remains pending) to run the country.