Pathankot terror attack: Strike after strike fail to change US outlook on Pakistan

WASHINGTON: Individual expressions of support and commiseration over the terrorist attacks on Indian assets in Pathankot and Mazar-e-Sharif has been tricking in from a raft of US lawmakers, but don't hold your breath for the Obama administration to alter the long standing US policy of coddling Pakistan's terrorism-steeped military establishment that has harmed both US and Indian interests in the region.

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House Speaker Paul Ryan, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer and many senior US lawmakers tweeted and issued statements with the pro-forma expressions of support for India's sufferance. But Washington, which laid out the red carpet to Pakistan's military strongman Gen. Raheel Sharif last November, is showing no signs that it would hold the country to account for its continued backing of terrorism.

If anything, cocky Pakistani generals are already rubbing their hands in anticipation of the next lot of military toys, according to reports in the Pakistani media, including eight of their favored F-16 fighter jets.

Some lawmakers have called for a reevaluation of military aid to Pakistan if its hand is proven in the Pathankot attack, but given that the country has gotten away with so much on the terrorism front, including sheltering a host of terrorist principals from Osama bin Laden to Mullah Omar, the threat is seen as little more than bluster.

"Pakistan has provided safe haven to terrorists for years from shielding Osama bin Laden to backing covert terrorist operations around the world," fumed Texas lawmaker Ted Poe, who also chairs the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Non Proliferation. "We should not send money to nations who provide assistance to terrorists."

But although this has been known for years, Washington - and Poe's colleagues - has funneled billions of dollars of US taxpayer money to bankroll Pakistan's military strongmen.

Senate grandees John McCain, and before they joined the executive wing John Kerry and Joe Biden, have repeatedly facilitated US military and civilian aid to Islamabad even as Pakistani perfidy has continued to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan and civilians across the world, let alone in India. Despite multiple instances of terrorism by Pakistanis and Pakistani-origin extremists across the world and within the US itself - from London to San Bernardino -- Washington's policy is designed to coddle this garrison state.

Arguments made for continued backing of what is widely seen as a terrorist state in all but formal designaton include, it is "too big to fail" and that it has nuclear weapons which could fall into "wrong hands." Pakistan is only too happy to play into these fears invoking scenarios of every more toxic extremists overrunning the country and its assets in order to extract more money from America.

"The government of Pakistan has spoken very powerfully on this (the Pathankot attack) and it's our expectation that they'll treat this exactly the way they've said they would. We have been clear with the highest levels of the government of Pakistan that it must continue to target all militant groups," the state department's John Kirby said earlier this week.

Pretty much the same things have been said since the Mumbai attack on 11/26 where six Americans were among those killed. Washington's response has been to give Pakistan more money and arms.