Imran Khan takes on Donald Trump: Don't make Pakistan a scapegoat for US failures

A day after US President Donald Trump launched a tirade against Pakistan, country’s Prime Minister Imran Khan hit back at America on Monday, accusing it of making Pakistan “a scapegoat for their failures”.

Taking to microblogging site Twitter, Imran Khan claimed that Pakistan suffered 75,000 casualties in “US war on terror”. Khan further claimed that Pakistan suffered a loss of $123 billion while the US aid was “a miniscule $20 billion”.

“Record needs to be put straight on Mr Trump's tirade against Pakistan: 1. No Pakistani was involved in 9/11 but Pak decided to participate in US War on Terror. 2. Pakistan suffered 75,000 casualties in this war & over $123 bn was lost to economy. US "aid" was a miniscule $20 bn,” tweeted the Pakistan Prime Minister.

Record needs to be put straight on Mr Trump's tirade against Pakistan: 1. No Pakistani was involved in 9/11 but Pak decided to participate in US War on Terror. 2. Pakistan suffered 75,000 casualties in this war & over $123 bn was lost to economy. US "aid" was a miniscule $20 bn. — Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) November 19, 2018

3. Our tribal areas were devastated & millions of ppl uprooted from their homes. The war drastically impacted lives of ordinary Pakistanis. 4. Pak continues to provide free lines of ground & air communications(GLOCs/ALOCs).Can Mr Trump name another ally that gave such sacrifices?

— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) November 19, 2018

Instead of making Pakistan a scapegoat for their failures, the US should do a serious assessment of why, despite 140000 NATO troops plus 250,000 Afghan troops & reportedly $1 trillion spent on war in Afghanistan, the Taliban today are stronger than before. — Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) November 19, 2018

Further claiming that tribal areas of the country were devastated and “millions of people uprooted from their homes”, Khan alleged that the “war drastically impacted lives of ordinary Pakistanis”. He added, “Can Mr Trump name another ally that gave such sacrifices?”

Imran tweeted, “3. Our tribal areas were devastated & millions of ppl uprooted from their homes. The war drastically impacted lives of ordinary Pakistanis. 4. Pak continues to provide free lines of ground & air communications(GLOCs/ALOCs).Can Mr Trump name another ally that gave such sacrifices?”

“Instead of making Pakistan a scapegoat for their failures, the US should do a serious assessment of why, despite 140000 NATO troops plus 250,000 Afghan troops & reportedly $1 trillion spent on war in Afghanistan, the Taliban today are stronger than before,” the Pakistan Prime Minister added.

Defending his government’s decision to stop hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Pakistan, Trump had on Sunday said that the country “does not do a damn thing” for the US. Trump had also accused Pakistan of helping Al Qaeda leader and 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden.

Talking about Laden during an interview with Fox News, Trump had said, "You know, living - think of this - living in Pakistan, beautifully in Pakistan in what I guess they considered a nice mansion, I don't know, I've seen nicer...But living in Pakistan right next to the military academy, everybody in Pakistan knew he was there"