Right response at last

[sonicboom]

Right response at last

Published: January 14, 2011

In a refreshing break from the past when Pakistan would stave off the US pressure for a military action in North Waziristan with the argument that its forces were busy consolidating peace in the areas that had been cleared of militants and would move into the Agency later, it is reported to have plainly told visiting Vice President Joe Biden that ‘neither politically nor strategically it suited the country to open up any new front there’. That response should be final, and neither Pakistan needs to falter in this resolve, nor must the Americans raise the issue again. If the US is serious in its views, as Mr Biden professes, that its relations with Pakistan are “absolutely vital” and the US wants to ‘see it a developed and prosperous country’, it should show due respect to the considered views of its experts. That should bring the mantra of ‘do more’ to an end.

Already, we have suffered a great deal, being at the receiving end, along with Afghanistan and Iraq, of the fall-out of the American military aggression. The public reaction in Pakistan to the widespread death and destruction the US forces have inflicted on the innocent people of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the endless and brutal inroad of drones into Pakistan has taken the form of severe anger, directed not only against the American administration, but also the Pakistan government because it is seen, not too wrongly, as complicit in the crime. To a huge loss of the lives of soldiers in armed action in FATA and the deaths of innocent tribesmen by drones – six killed on Wednesday as the Vice President was meeting the President, Prime Minister and COAS – must be added thousands of victims of terrorist attacks committed in reaction to US cruel operations. Terrorist incidents, occurring the same day at Bannu and Peshawar, claimed more than 20 lives, largely of security personnel.

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