Asim & Tamreez

Hilary Clinton’s latest visit to Pakistan this week ended up in the reiteration of the same old messages and not-so-covert threats. The key message boils down to “we want more from Paksitan” and the warning this time being:

“There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that should an attack against the United States be traced to be Pakistani it would have a very devastating impact on our relationship”

It’s quite interesting to me that the Americans who have no idea themselves what they’re doing in the region and especially when their policy and war operation is in tatters in Afghanistan, still have the gall to dictate terms to Pakistan in such a high-handed fashion. Of course when they come armed with $500M in aid money from the Kerry Lugar Berman Bill (when was Berman added to the infamous Kerry Lugar Bill? I need to read more) that our government is quite keen to accept, it’s hard for the Pakistan government to speak out against such statements.

To be fair, there were some positive statements from Mrs. Clinton and an acknowledgement that the anti-US feelings amongst the Pakistani population are quite high. She said,

“We know that there is a perception held by too many Pakistanis that America’s commitment to them begins and ends with security,” said Mrs Clinton, who also held talks with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, while in Islamabad.

“We have not done a good enough job of connecting our partnership with concrete improvements in the lives of Pakistanis. With this dialogue, we are working to change that.”

There was also the announcement of a historic trade deal between Afghanistan and Pakistan that opens up Pakistan’s borders to the Afghans to reach India. While it sounds like a positive development to me for the Afghans and may go to improve relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan, I’m still not clear how it would impact Pak-India relations. I hope it’s a positive step but so high is my skepticism of anything brokered by the Americans, that I feel quite wary.

The topic that I was most interested to hear about, the drone attacks in Pakistan, Clinton refused to comment on. Apparently there is no officially stated American policy on drone attacks. The Pakistan government publicly denounces but tacitly condones them. A BBC report noted that according to a conservative estimate over 200 people have died just in 2010 from drone attacks being carried out in Waziristan. While the tribal leaders keep screaming that these attacks are indiscriminately killing civillians, men women and children, they continue with the collusion of our government. It seems then the only people left who are speaking out (and ‘doing’ something) against this injustice are the radical anti-Pakistan elements. Is it any wonder then that the insurgency in Waziristan keeps mounting and the ordinary ‘citizen’ in these areas is a Taliban sympathizer?

If we don’t re-evaluate our counterinsurgency strategy, stop these attacks and stop selling our national sovereignty in return for aid packages, we will be in deep trouble. In fact we already are in deep trouble, I’m not sure what it would take for the government to realize that.