Hurrah for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who's finally speaking bluntly to Pakistani leaders and their people.
From the Associated Press:
In a lively give-and-take with students at the Government College of Lahore, Clinton said inaction by the government would have amounted to ceding ground to terrorists."If you want to see your territory shrink, that's your choice," she said, adding that she believed it would be a bad choice.
Clinton likened Pakistan's situation -- with Taliban forces taking over substantial swaths of land in the Swat valley and in areas along the Afghan border -- to a theoretical advance of terrorists into the United States from across the Canadian border. It would be unthinkable, she said, for the U.S. government to decide, "Let them have Washington (state)" first, then Montana, then the sparsely populated Dakotas, because those states are far from the major centers of population and power on the East Coast.
Clinton was responding to a student who suggested that Washington was forcing Pakistan to use military force on its own territory. It was one of several questions from the students that raised doubts about the relationship between the United States and Pakistan.
I like that comparison Clinton made regarding the land concessions. The Pakistani approach takes on a new feel when you look at it from that perspective, doesn't it?
The bottom line for Pakistanis is that, for better or worse, their country is a nuclear power. They wanted to achieve that status, and now they have to live with the responsibility of being one. If they are not going to do the things necessary to ensure the viability of their democratically elected government -- and, therefore, the security of those nukes -- then someone has to.
And all of us -- Americans, Europeans, Talibanis, al Qaeda and everyone else alike -- know that it's not going to be the U.N.
Pakistan has a choice. They can do what's necessary to stop the advance of the Taliban, or they can watch while someone else does.
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