Parting kick!

Nosheen Saeed
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently on her three-day official visit to Pakistan said: “I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are, and couldn’t get to them if they really wanted to, Maybe that’s the case; maybe they’re not gettable. I don’t know.”
Ms Clinton’s parting kick negated the positivity of her visit. Once again a formal charge of wrongdoing has been brought against Pakistan without any concrete evidence and on only unfounded information. Pakistan needs to watch out; three days after his inauguration, on January 23, 2009, President Barack Obama ordered US predator drones to hit inside Pakistan. Since that first Obama-authorised attack, United States has repeatedly bombed Pakistan, killing scores of civilians including women and children. The New York Times recently reported that the attacks were clear evidence that the Obama Administration “is continuing, and in some cases extending, the Bush Administration’s policy.”
During his presidential campaign, the US president made it clear that Pakistan’s sovereignty was subservient to American interests, saying that the US forces would “attack with or without the approval of the Pakistani government.” And if the Americans had “actionable intelligence” that “high value” targets were in Pakistan, they would attack. In the same context, the US secretary of state echoed similar sentiments on her campaign trail and “did not rule out US attacks inside Pakistan,” citing the missile attacks her husband, former President Bill Clinton, had ordered against Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1998. “If we had actionable intelligence that Osama bin Laden or other high-value targets were present in Pakistan I would ensure that they were targeted and killed or captured,” she maintained.
A good scapegoat (Pakistan) is nearly as welcome as a solution to the problem. Washington has since long stopped thinking, it only listens and responds to hemlock being poured into its ears by regional players, especially India, who have their “own axe to grind” in the region. They expect Pakistan to do what the United States could not with all its military might, sophisticated weapons, well-trained soldiers, satellites, spyware equipment and unmanned surveillance aircrafts. Not to forget intelligence agencies devoted to information gathering, espionage, communication interception, cryptanalysis, but incapable of pinpointing the exact locations of terrorists and targeting them; agencies powerless to find out who is providing financial support and hi-tech weapons to the terrorists; agencies ineffectual to guard security checkposts that allow militants to cross over freely, permit free flow of weapons and grant an easy escape route. If the intelligence agencies and the NATO forces have not succeeded in stopping cross border infiltration how is Pakistan supposed to perform miracles?