Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has gotten a respectful and even warm reception in Pakistan, but tensions are not far below the surface. This remark by Clinton has been widely reported: “Al Qaeda has had safe haven in Pakistan since 2002. … I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn’t get them if they really wanted to….Maybe that’s the case; maybe they’re not gettable. I don’t know.”
Secretary Clinton’s hosts, for their part, have not been without complaints about U. S. policy. They contend that U S. drone attacks have had the effect of fomenting violence in Pakistani cities; that conditions placed on U. S. aid to Pakistan violate Pakistani sovereignty; and that the U. S. has lagged in providing market access for Pakistani textiles and other products.
Jay Solomon reports for the Wall Street Journal from Lahore, Pakistan.
From London, the Economist’s “Lexington” columnist looks at Barack Obama’s progress, or lack of it, during his first year in office.
“In his inauguration speech, he declared: ‘We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.’ Yet roughly once a week since that day, he has ordered the assassination of suspected terrorists. These assassinations, carried out with Hellfire missiles fired from hovering drones, are often messy. According to the New America Foundation, a think-tank, it took 15 attempts to kill Baitullah Mehsud, a Taliban leader in Pakistan who was finally blown to scraps in August. Hundreds of people, some of them children, have died in these drone attacks. Mr Obama would presumably include ‘not killing children’ among his ideals. Sometimes, however, he sets aside this ideal in the interests of safety.”
New York Times reporter David Rohde offers the first installment in a five-part series about the seven months he spent as a captive of the Tailban in Afghanistan and Pakistan.