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'India like Mercedes, Pakistan dump truck': Asim Munir makes odd analogy; inadvertently admits vast gap

'India like Mercedes, Pakistan dump truck': Asim Munir makes odd analogy; inadvertently admits vast gap

Time of India15 hours ago
TOI Correspondent from Washington:
Between expansive threats against India from US soil and bragging about Pakistan's oil and mineral wealth that would lift the country from a morass, Pakistan's military chief embarrassed himself and his country by inadvertently admitting where it currently stands vis-a-vis India -- in the pits.
"India is shining a Mercedes coming on a highway like Ferrari, but we are a dump truck full of gravel. If the truck hits the car, who is going to be the loser?" Munir reportedly said at a Pakistani community event in Tampa, Florida.
Munir's "crude analogy" as he himself put it, drew peals of laughter on social media for its description of Pakistan, with jokes about the dump truck breaking down or overturning even before it got the Merc.
Munir also talked up the Pakistani diaspora -- sections of which allied to incarcerated PTI leader Imran Khan are protesting his visit -- borrowing freely from former Indian prime minister Vajpayee quote that immigrating to US is not a "brain drain but a brain gain." With strong partnerships growing with the US, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and China, and with 64% of its population being dynamic youth, Pakistan's future is bright, he said.
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Impoverished by decades of military spending on borrowed money and with little to offer to the world in terms of trade, Pakistan is banking on its purported oil discoveries and mineral wealth, which foreign grifters are eyeing with the promise of economic manna for the country.
Pakistan's bilateral trade with US currently stands at around $ 10 billion compared to India's $ 135 billion, but Munir is pitching the country's purported oil and mineral wealth, first promised by prime minister Z.A. Bhutto 50 years ago and never realized, to win back US interest.
While Munir was speaking at the ballroom of the Hyatt in Tampa, dissidents allied to Pakistan's incarcerated PTI leader protested outside. They have called for similar protests in Brussels, Belgium, where Munir is headed to on Sunday.
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