Hillary Clinton gives clean chit to Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday she was even more committed to Pakistan after Osama bin Laden's killing, but said the country needed to do more in its battle with Islamist militants.

Clinton is the most senior US official to visit Islamabad since relations between the wary allies went into freefall over the US Navy SEALs raid on May 2 that killed the al-Qaida chief in the city of Abbottabad.

Shrouded in blanket security, she met Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, before talks with army chief Ashfaq Kayani and the chief of Pakistan's intelligence agency Ahmad Shuja Pasha.

The discovery that the world's most-wanted man was living just a stone's throw from Pakistan's equivalent of West Point raised troubling questions about whether anyone in the Pakistani establishment was protecting him.

She said the United States had "absolutely no evidence that anyone at the highest level of the Pakistani government" knew where bin Laden was and said she would return to Washington "ever more committed" to the relationship.

"This was an especially important visit because we have reached a turning point. Osama bin Laden is dead but Al-Qaeda and his syndicate of terror remain a serious threat to us both," Clinton said.

"There is a momentum toward political reconciliation in Afghanistan but the insurgency continues to operate from safe havens here in Pakistan," she added, saying she believed that Pakistan and the United States had the same goals.

Pakistan has suffered a wave of attacks since the May 2 raid, with the country's main Taliban faction vowing to strike Pakistani and American targets to avenge his death in the American raid.

On the eve of Clinton's visit, 35 people were killed in a suicide car bombing outside a Pakistani police station in the northwestern town of Hangu late Thursday.

Islamabad's alliance with Washington is deeply unpopular in Pakistan, where the bin Laden operation and a CIA drone war against militant commanders in the tribal belt fuels widespread anti-American sentiment.

"America cannot and should not solve Pakistan's problems. That's up to Pakistan," she said.

"Pakistan should understand that anti-Americanism and conspiracy theories will not make the problem disappear," she added.

The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, who accompanied Clinton in her meetings went on to plead for greater co-operation between the two wary allies in the war against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

Clinton denied that the meetings, held under blanket security, were tense and said she had heard Pakistan commit to "some very specific action", saying the country deserved more credit for its efforts in the war on militants.

Her visit was seen as an effort to demand more cooperation from Pakistan in the fight against Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants but also smooth over relations with Islamabad humiliated by the US raid that killed bin Laden.

Kayani has said any similar raid would prompt a review of military cooperation with the United States and Washington is reducing the strength of US military personnel to a minimum following a request from Islamabad.

Western officials have long accused Pakistan's intelligence services of playing a double game by fighting Islamist militants who pose a domestic threat, but protecting those who fight against American troops in Afghanistan.

"They are now having to look at some very tough questions that they either tried to avoid or which they gave inadequate answers to before," a senior US official told reporters travelling with Clinton.

The United States has long put pressure on Pakistan to lead a major air and ground offensive in North Waziristan, the most notorious Taliban and Al-Qaeda bastion used to launch attacks across the border in Afghanistan.

Pakistan has always maintained that any such operation would be of its own time and choosing, arguing that its 140,000 troops committed to the northwest are too overstretched fighting against militants who pose a domestic threat.

Pakistan has been fighting homegrown Taliban for years in its northwest and militant attacks have killed more than 4,400 people across the country since July 2007 in revenge for the government's US alliance.

Oh, shut up Hillary. Nobody connected to Ohaha has any credibility whatsoever.

MOVING AHEAD America needs a president to declare that the America's ME adventures are o-v-e-r. There is NOTHING in the US Constitution that compels US citizens to be kept in servitude to subsidize these backwater ME hellholes (who do not even want us there).

The only people gleeful about the US presence in the Mideast are neocons. Now don't even dare to speak up------the vicious tactics self-serving neos use against Americans who dare to utter a discouraging word are legend----neos get nervous when they fear the US money train might stop.

Looks like Pakistan must be kept on the foreign ad list b/c war profiteer neocon, Richard Perle's ME oil business needs several billion more to keep afloat. Probably Ohaha is getting a percentage of the business (/snix).

Freud would have a field day with the neos' paranoic need to be number one. They think nothing of sacrificing US soldiers and US treasure for their selfish needs.

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TRILLION DOLLAR MOMENTS TO REMEMBER Smirking neo Billy Crystal (Fox talking head) was all aglow when the US dropped bombs on Libya---chortling that Omao was now a "born-again neo." The Libya no-fly zone is another cockamamie con job by the neurotic, self-absorbed neocons. Libya is a backwater tribal society. God only knows the trillion dollar nation-building the US is undertaking in Libya.

<><> Mubarak partnering with the Egyptian army to keep power......and to make zillions of dollars in business ventures with the Army, including lucrative arms dealing. American citizens are losing their homes and SS is broke--but the money to the Mideast keeps on rolling along------thanks to conniving neocons. The US taxpayer has has dumped TRILLIONS into the Mideast----making these butchers and dictators wealthy beyond imagination.

<><> War profiteering by the Endless Mideast Invasions cheerleaders is monstrous. Neocon guru Richard Perle's war profiteering is such that he is starting an oil business in the bloody Mideast---a region made safe for Perle's business interests with US tax dollars and rivers of blood from young soldiers.

<><> Impoverished Egyptians with hardly enough food in their stomachs were able to topple 30-year dictator Mubarak who controlled the Egyptian Army. Yet, the Iraquis are whining that their army---trained with zillions of US tax dollars---won't be "ready" for another five years. By the time we exit there---if ever---all of the Mideast Invasion Cheerleaders will be zillionaires---and won't be paying a penny of US taxes.

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Pakistan is another colossal failure of the congenitally-stupid neocons. N/C are truly the enemy within----their insistent finagling with US foreign policy----infiltrating the US govt----duping the US into emptying its Treasury into Mideast backwaters----propping up brutal dictatorships posing as democracies.

Neocons duped the he US into thinking we could hold back 100 million starving Arabs by throwing trillions at their savage rulers.

Mubarek's personal wealth is estimated at close to $70 billion---thanks to the neocons goading the US into blanketing Eqypt w/ US tax dollars.

Every US administration and congressional leader since 1980 is guilty of making this man one of the richest dictators in human history. Starving Egyptians who threw him out of the country spend 80% of their $2 per day income on food alone. This has been going on for decades.

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Everytime I see Obama's snickering face, I get the chills.

Americans need to be very vigilant: Obama and his loathsome cabal of progressives embedded in our govt are very calculated in their use of power. As dissent among the populace grows, they are capable of plotting staged events to boost their advantage.

If these arch-manipulators perceive there isn’t measurable fear in the hearts of the people, they will create that fear to solidify their power.

They know people will succumb to fear and will relinquish their God-given liberties when they are fearful.

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