First, we enthusiastically back and fund a not-particularly-competent military leader, who spends most of the money we send him on a potential war with India, and now we send “Mr. Death Squad” to lean on a not yet formed opposition government to be more proactive, all while continuing unilateral air strikes in populated areas.

Some selected quotes from the article below:

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The meeting with Nawaz Sharif, …. have failed entirely. Sharif said that Pakistan would no longer be a “killing field” where other countries pursue their own interests.

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[with tribal elders] “We told them that whatever differences we have (with the extremists), they can all be solved through the jirga system,” said Malik Darya Khan, one of the tribal chiefs who participated, referring to the traditional meetings of elders to solve disputes.

There also appeared to be an open dispute between Sharif and U.S. officials on how to deal with Musharraf. Sharif said afterward: “We don’t recognize him as the legitimate president.”

Dawn newspaper, in an editorial on Thursday, described the arrival of the two U.S. envoys as “indecent haste.” It added: “It is time Washington gave the new government time to settle down.”

“Bad timing gives the wrong signals, as if they are trying to pressurize the new government when it is in the stages of being formed,” said Shireen Mazari, the director general of Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad.

“The war on terror has be to revisited. The most dangerous thing is that the Americans have succeeded in shifting the center of gravity of the war to Pakistan. We have to shift it back to Afghanistan,” Mazari said.

Pakistani concerns about U.S. activity have been ignited over the last month by a series of apparent American missile attacks on targets in Pakistan. The news that the former commander of the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention camp, where hundreds of Muslim prisoners, many of them Pakistanis, have been held without charge, has been appointed the chief U.S. defense representative in Pakistan isn’t likely to help relations.

Seriously, they could not screw this up more if they tried.