Western front on fire

PAKISTAN’s commitment of unstinted help to the US military campaign in Afghanistan has brought the country to a pretty pass. With the passage of time the situation on the western front has markedly heated up. As Washington declared its intention of staying indefinitely in the occupied country rather than pulling out after its purpose of toppling the Taliban government had been achieved, and as it adopted ruthless measures, including indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians, to crush Afghan resistance, there was unrest in Pakistan’s tribal region. That unrest turned into veritable turmoil as Pakistan launched military operation in aid of the American objectives. The inability of the both, the US and Pakistan, to calm down the tribesmen’s roused sentiments led the former to accuse the latter of failing to seriously honour its commitments as a key ally of the War On Terror. As a consequence, from making an occasional foray into Pakistan’s territory to hit suspected Al-Qaeda and Taliban hideouts, the US forces in Afghanistan now seem to be freely attacking whenever and wherever they want, without much concern whether they destroy the government’s checkposts in the process, kill its security personnel or ordinary people. The Americans have replaced the old line of denial of involvement or simple silence with plain declarations that they have the right and Pakistan government’s permission to intervene. Islamabad is left with making puerile protests.