ISLAMABAD - A leaked U.S. diplomatic cable says that senior Pakistani military officers are taught anti-American courses at a prestigious defense university in the heart of the capital.
The cable, published in Dawn newspaper on Wednesday and obtained by WikiLeaks, is likely to fan concerns about loyalties within the military after Osama bin Laden was found living in a garrison city, possibly for years.
Then U.S. ambassador to Islamabad, Anne Patterson, wrote the cable in late 2008 in reference to the National Defence University in Islamabad.
Pakistan officially allied with the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in its war on the Taliban and al-Qaida, but has long been accused of playing a double game in supporting Islamist militant networks.
"Lecturers often 'teach' their students information that is heavily biased against the United States," she wrote.
Instructors, she said, "often had misperceptions about U.S. policies and culture and infused their lectures with these suspicions." She said some students shared those "misconceptions" despite sending their children to study in Britain and the United States.
In contrast, "students and instructors were adamant in their approval of all things Chinese," she wrote.
Patterson was left recommending increased opportunities for colonels and brigadiers "receiving biased NDU training" to hear alternative views of the U.S., and pushed for an exchange program for instructors.
Pakistan's military leaders were humiliated by the discovery that the head of al-Qaida, the world's most-wanted man, had been living possibly for years near the country's top military academy.
The cable, published in Dawn newspaper on Wednesday and obtained by WikiLeaks, is likely to fan concerns about loyalties within the military after Osama bin Laden was found living in a garrison city, possibly for years.
Then U.S. ambassador to Islamabad, Anne Patterson, wrote the cable in late 2008 in reference to the National Defence University in Islamabad.
Pakistan officially allied with the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in its war on the Taliban and al-Qaida, but has long been accused of playing a double game in supporting Islamist militant networks.
"Lecturers often 'teach' their students information that is heavily biased against the United States," she wrote.
Instructors, she said, "often had misperceptions about U.S. policies and culture and infused their lectures with these suspicions." She said some students shared those "misconceptions" despite sending their children to study in Britain and the United States.
In contrast, "students and instructors were adamant in their approval of all things Chinese," she wrote.
Patterson was left recommending increased opportunities for colonels and brigadiers "receiving biased NDU training" to hear alternative views of the U.S., and pushed for an exchange program for instructors.
Pakistan's military leaders were humiliated by the discovery that the head of al-Qaida, the world's most-wanted man, had been living possibly for years near the country's top military academy.
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