“Give Us Proof”: Pakistan’s Terrorism Excuse Is as Old as the State Itself

In a now-viral moment that crystallized decades of denial, Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif responded to a journalist’s question about the Pahalgam terrorist attack with a line as worn-out as it is revealing: “Give us proof.” Delivered with theatrical fatigue and a trace of self-righteous indignation, Asif went further, adding that Pakistan had “done the dirty work for the West” during the Cold War and should not now be treated as a suspect.

This is not just gaslighting. It’s a strategic inversion — turning Pakistan’s own role in cultivating jihadist proxies into a badge of reluctant martyrdom. The underlying message: We bled for your war; how dare you now ask us to clean up the mess.

But here’s the truth: Pakistan didn’t just do the West’s dirty work — it built the workshop, staffed it with fanatics, and then exported the product globally.

The claim that Pakistan was simply a pawn in the Cold War chessboard — manipulated by Western intelligence agencies — conveniently ignores the decades of state-sponsored jihad that preceded and followed that era. Long before the first CIA dollar reached the mujahideen, Pakistan’s military-intelligence complex was already nurturing Islamist proxies to shape regional outcomes.

This Isn’t Incompetence. It’s Doctrine.

In a similar encounter, Pakistani diplomat Mohammad Faisal, when pressed by journalist Yalda Hakim, resorted to the same tired deflection: Pakistan needs “credible information” from India before taking action. This echoes the same excuse offered in 2011, when Osama bin Laden — the world’s most wanted terrorist — was discovered living comfortably in Abbottabad, mere kilometers from a top military installation.

These aren’t diplomatic stumbles or intelligence lapses. They are deliberate components of a national security doctrine that treats plausible deniability as a shield and strategic ignorance as policy.

Terrorism as a Foundational Strategy

Since 1947, Pakistan has used religious militancy not as a regrettable necessity, but as a foundational instrument of statecraft. The popular Western myth that jihadism was born in the 1980s with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan is simply false. The Pakistani military had already institutionalized religious extremism as a tool of foreign policy by the mid-1970s — well before the West took notice.

During the first Kashmir war in 1947, Pakistan dispatched tribal lashkars — Islamist irregulars — into the princely state to forcibly alter its accession. These fighters weren’t homegrown defenders of liberty; they were state-sponsored jihadists, weaponized to sow chaos and fear. From the beginning, Pakistan tied its strategic ambitions to religious warfare.

The 1970s: The First Jihadists Were Pakistan’s, Not America’s

By the mid-1970s, the ISI was already supporting groups like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and Ahmad Shah Massoud to destabilize Afghanistan’s secular government. This predates the Soviet invasion by several years. The endgame? To install a pliant Islamist regime that would act as a client state of Islamabad.

When Khawaja Asif claims Pakistan merely did the West’s “dirty work,” he omits the fact that the fire of militant Islam was burning in Rawalpindi long before Langley got involved. The CIA may have helped fan the flames — but the torch was lit in Pakistan.

Kashmir: A Manufactured Insurgency

In Kashmir, Pakistan’s fingerprints are unmistakable. Former President Pervez Musharraf openly admitted that Pakistan trained groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed to infiltrate Indian territory. These groups were not fighting for local autonomy or rights. They were mercenaries of jihad, dispatched to wage a religious war that served Pakistani strategic interests under the mask of Kashmiri liberation.

Abbottabad and the Cult of Denial

When bin Laden was found hiding in Abbottabad in 2011, just a short distance from Pakistan’s premier military academy, the world was stunned. Islamabad’s leadership responded with its trademark line: “We didn’t know.”

But when the same excuse is offered after every attack — Mumbai 2008, Pathankot 2016, Pulwama 2019, and now Pahalgam 2024 — it becomes clear that this isn’t denial. It’s policy. The so-called Abbottabad Doctrine has become standard operating procedure: deny sanctuary, deflect blame, and demand proof — all while nurturing the next wave of proxies.

Conclusion: Not a Victim, But a Benefactor of Terrorism

Pakistan’s embrace of terrorism is not an accident of history. It is a conscious choice — baked into the DNA of a state born out of religious exclusivism and sustained by militant proxies.

The West did not invent this model. It inherited it. Funded it. And for far too long, looked the other way.

When Khawaja Asif says Pakistan did the dirty work, he’s right — but not in the way he thinks. Pakistan built the machinery of modern jihad, then outsourced it, franchised it, and now wants credit for merely surviving its consequences.

It’s time the world stopped accepting excuses wrapped in grievances. Pakistan is not a victim of terrorism. It is its most cynical, calculating benefactor — and until that truth is confronted, the cycle of violence will remain unbroken.

Iran Exposed: Explosions, Proxy Collapse, and Intelligence Breaches Leave Tehran Cornered on the World Stage