Flight of credibility

It is important for governments to retain credibility; with thus comes trust, and when trust between people and governments is lost, a great deal of damage takes place. We have already seen this happening in the past over the drone issue that has been with us for so long. We now see a repetition of past patterns, with a drone strike killing eight people and injuring three others at a Hangu madrassa on November 21, less than 24 hours after the prime minister’s adviser on foreign affairs, Sartaj Aziz, had told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the US had assured Pakistan it would halt drone attacks while talks with the Taliban were on. Mr Aziz had said that the attack which killed Hakimullah Mehsud earlier this month had taken place only because he was considered a ‘high value’ target by the US. Whatever the reason, the arguments on the violation of national sovereignty, and the Pakistan and US governments not being on the same page remain as evident from the protests following the attack. Indeed, they further confuse the issue for some regarding who is the ally and who is the enemy.



Meanwhile, Mr Aziz’s words had been met with some incredulity, notably from within the PTI. Certainly, the senior official did not say where or when the assurance by the US had been given. With the Hangu attack coming so soon after he addressed the Senate panel, it is now quite obvious that the US has no intention of stopping drone attacks and is interested only in guarding its own interests.

We do not quite know what the precise nature of the deal between Pakistan and the US is. Speculation on this issue has floated for far too long. It is time for the government to come clean and tell people the truth. This, after all, is fundamental to establishing a relationship of honesty with people, and also making it clear how things stand in real terms. Fabricating stories or disguising the truth will not, in the longer run, help us and will indeed only make things more complicated as far as the matter of devising a strategy to take on the Taliban goes. We need to face the reality of drones and work within this realm to find a way to cope with the menace of terrorism that has already taken such a high toll on our country and its people.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 22^nd, 2013.

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