Claim: Former US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, has said that the US controls Pakistan through its generals because the country’s civilian government and judicial machinery are helpless before the power of the army.
Fact: There are no news reports or publicly available evidence to suggest that Hillary Clinton made any such statement. The claim is false.
On 16 April a Facebook user posted an image of former US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton with the following quote attributed to her:
’ہم پاکستان کو اس کے جرنیلوں کے ذریعے کنٹرول کرتے ہیں کیونکہ وہاں کی سویلین حکومت اور عدالتی مشینری فوج کی طاقت کے سامنے بےبس ہوتی ہے۔‘
[Translation: We control Pakistan through its generals because the civilian government and judicial machinery there are helpless before the power of the army.]
Screenshot of the Facebook post
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check found this claim questionable because a high-ranking diplomat like Clinton is unlikely to make such an inflammatory statement openly.
We first ran a basic Google search to find if any credible news outlets have reported Clinton making such a claim about Pakistan and its generals. No relevant statement or news articles came up.
In order to find any statement that may have been misrepresented in the claim that is being fact-checked we looked at the US Department of State website to find if Clinton has ever made such a claim or anything close to it. We searched the archived content from the time when she visited Pakistan in 2009 under the presidency of Barack Obama and found a media note issued by the Office of the Spokesman, Washington, DC, dated 30 October 2009. Contrary to the claim, it mentioned the United States’ desire to strengthen Pakistan’s civilian institutions. In particular, the media note stated that during her 3-day visit at the time, “Secretary Clinton underscored America’s desire to build a broad and deep partnership with Pakistan based on mutual trust and respect that both combats violent extremists and strengthens Pakistan’s democratically elected government and civilian institutions to serve Pakistan’s people.”
The media note details activities from each day of her 3-day visit, and cites several instances in which she assured support for Pakistan’s return to democracy. Civilian rule was returning in Pakistan after former army chief Pervez Musharraf was ousted as president in 2008.
The Obama administration had also expressed frustration towards Pakistan time and again after Osama Bin Laden, who was the mastermind behind the 9/11 attack, was found and killed in Abbottabad city of Pakistan in May 2011. Therefore, we ran a basic Google search to see if Clinton had made any statement criticising Pakistan around this time.
The results revealed that Clinton had warned Pakistan about addressing terrorism while addressing a news conference in Islamabad during her 2011 visit . In a quote that became famous later on, Clinton said, “You [Pakistan] can’t keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbours.” She also urged Pakistan to fight terrorism not only for global and regional peace but for the sake of its people too. However, even in this instance, Clinton did not say anything about the US controlling Pakistan through its generals nor did she call the civilian government and judiciary helpless before the army.
Based on our thorough online search for news reports or any publicly available evidence for such a statement, Soch Fact Check concludes that Clinton has never said that the US controls Pakistan through its generals.
Virality
Soch Fact Check found this claim was shared twice on X and Instagram, respectively, one TikTok post, and six Facebook posts.
Conclusion: Clinton did not say that the US controls Pakistan through its generals because its civilian government and judiciary are helpless before the power of the army. The claim is false.
Background image in cover photo: Reuters
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