Pakistan Army chief Asim Munir has issued another reckless statement in the US, wherein he threatened to blow up any dam India builds in the Indus River. Munir’s statements come soon after the Indian Air Force chief said India downed six Pakistani jets during the Operation Sindhoor, much to the embarrassment of the Pakistani Air Force.
Munir, on his second visit to the US, said to a crowd of Pakistani expatriates: “We will wait for India to build a dam, and when they do so, we will destroy it,” he told members of the Pakistani-American community in Tampa, Florida. “The Indus River is not the Indians’ family property. We have no shortage of resources to undo the Indian designs to stop the river.”
He was referring to India’s decision to put the Indus Waters Treaty, an agreement brokered by the World Bank, in the Indus River and its tributaries, after the Pahalgam attack. Despite Pakistan’s constant protests, India had refused to budge from its decision to suspend the treaty.
Munir also made another startling comment, stating Pakistan was a nuclear nation and if it went down, it would “take half the world down with us." He also went on to devote a substantial part of his speech to an anti-India tirade. "The Indians should accept their losses...Sportsman spirit is a virtue," said Asim Munir, who didn’t make any mention about Pakistani losses, including the attack on Rawalpindi’s Nur Khan air base.
However, Munir also inadvertently admitted his country’s current situation, calling it a dump truck. "India is shining, a Mercedes coming on a highway like a Ferrari, but we are a dump truck full of gravel. If the truck hits the car, who is going to be the loser?" he said, much to the amusement of the cyber world.
He then went on to claim that overseas Pakistanis were not brain drain but brain gain, hailing their “commitment to the homeland”. Ironically, statistics reveal that more Pakistanis are looking to flee the country, driven by economic hardship and a lack of opportunities. Data published by the International Organisation for Migration last November claimed that 40 per cent of the Pakistanis wished to flee their country.
But Asim Munir, in his speech, urged Pakistanis to “remain confident in Pakistan’s bright future” and actively attract investment. He claimed social media, while powerful, was often exploited by anti-state actors to spread “manufactured chaos”.