Pakistan general makes extraordinary nuclear threat from US soil

TOI Correspondent from Washington: Emboldened by the Trump White House's support, Pakistan's de facto military ruler Asim Munir has threatened to destroy any infrastructure India builds that could impede water flow to Pakistan, and warned that as a nuclear power, it will take half the world down with it if it faces an existential crisis.

"We will wait for India to build a dam, and when it does so, we will destroy it with ten missiles," Munir reportedly said at an event in Tampa, Florida, adding, "The Indus river is not the Indians' family property... We have no shortage of missiles, Alhumdulillah."

Munir is on his second visit to the US in two months after a June 18 White House luncheon with President Trump during which he recommended a Nobel Prize for the MAGA supremo for his peace-making efforts, a proposal he repeated at the Florida event. At the same time, he also held out a wider nuclear threat on US territory, saying, "We are a nuclear nation. If we think we are going down, we'll take half the world down with us."


The remarks could not be independently verified but they were reported by the Pakistani media and analysts, some of whom expressed pride in his approach. "FIELD MARSHAL DIRECTLY GIVING NUCLEAR THREATS TO CENTCOM LEADERS ON THE U.S SOIL," one Munir fanboy gloated on social media.

Munir was in Florida to attend the retirement ceremony of US CENTCOM Commander General Michael Kurilla, who on July 26 was awarded the Nishan-e-Imtiaz, one of Pakistan's top honors, for his role in pivoting American interest back to the country after almost two decades of US neglect and near isolation. He also met Kurilla's successor Admiral Brad Cooper and Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine, attesting to the renewed Pakistan-US ties that appear to have fortified him to make wild threats from soil of his host country.
Referring to the recent four-day clash with India, Munir, a product of Islamic seminaries as much as military academies, quoted profusely from religious texts to frame it as a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty which martyred "innocent civilians," while reaffirming that Kashmir is Pakistan's "jugular vein." By most accounts, the April 22 Pahalgam terrorist attack carried out by Pakistani infiltrators who massacred 26 civilians on the basis of their religious identity, was triggered by a similar remarks by Munir steeped in religious exclusivism and bigotry.

Munir's expansive threats against India from US soil, likely an allusion to New Delhi's recent troubles with Bangladesh, included warning that Pakistan's attack will "start from India's East, where they have located their most valuable resources, and then move westwards." He also mocked India's recent trade fracas with the US while boasting about Pakistan's ability to balance ties between Washington and Beijing.

Pakistan's "diplomatic and security victories are the result of Allah's blessing, national unity, visionary leadership, and the unmatched professionalism of our armed forces," Pakistani military websites quoted him as saying.