Re-engaging US

The US has taken over Pakistani presidency. We in Pakistan may want to hide our heads in the sand. Some of us will argue we can’t take on a hyper, if exhausted, superpower. But if we are going to debate our ties with Washington, let’s not limit ourselves to the Nato supply line. Our American friends played a key role in a secret deal to decide who will occupy our presidency. They continue to quietly take sides in our politics. They are pumping money to influence our media.
It seems ridiculous that our parliament and Senate want to decide the future of a supply-road that feeds the US military in Afghanistan. The agenda, focused on trucks, containers, drones and money, appears trivial when some parts of the US government hide BLA terrorists in Afghanistan and Switzerland. Other parts of the American government continue their anti-Pakistan media war.
In its great compassion, the Zardari government has already breached our own embargo on American supplies by opening the aerial corridor on ‘humanitarian grounds.’ So much for a negotiating tactic. Our military’s media honchos released in January an excellent report on what the US military did in Salala. That report should be mandatory reading for the politicians who will be voting on the list of 30+ parliamentary recommendations on resetting our relationship with the United States.
There are stunning revelations in the report. For example, a senior US military officer was inside our GHQ in Rawalpindi a few hours before the attack and lied to our officers during a briefing. He took part in planning the attack but chose to mislead our officers.
The attack was spectacular and deliberate, where “two F-15s, two Attack Helicopters (AH)-64 Apaches, one Attack Cargo (AC) 130 and a Multi-mission Cargo (MC)-12 Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft” were used for a whole two hours. As CIA drones hovered above, the “F-15s, Apaches and AC-130 all unloaded full ordnance, including Hellfire missiles on the Pakistani Posts.”
The attack, for which no apology has been made by the US, left seven Pakistani widows, sixteen orphans, and 24 soldiers dead. This was the fifth deliberate US military attack on the Pakistan Army since 2008. Someone in Pentagon or Langley has been working overtime to drag Pakistan into a war of some sort, probably as punishment for our alleged responsibility in America’s defeat in Afghanistan.
This is not an argument to end the relationship. It’s an argument to correct it, without appeasement.
We expect our government and our military to take a stand on the BLA. We should seek an end to American meddling in our politics and media, an end to demonising our nuclear program in Geneva, and an end to covert CIA operations inside our territory. The American civilian and military aid must be put in black and white to put an end to American exaggerations about claims of billions in generous aid to an ungrateful Pakistan. While at it, we should bring forward our losses in America’s war, which are enough to humble any of our American critics.
The drones are not effective against the TTP. And our own assessment of Al-Qaeda’s presence in the Afghan border areas is vastly different to the exaggerated American assessment. The CIA has used our tribal belt to perfect its drone technology more than anything else. And there is little chance the Americans will share this technology with us if we let them use our playground.
Let’s hope our ruling elite will not waste this chance to correct the Pakistani-American relationship.

The writer works for Geo television. Email: aq@paknationalists. com