The writer is a freelance journalist with over twenty years of experience in national and international reporting

President Obama's pointman for 'Af-Pak' Richard Holbrooke is hunkered at the American embassy in Islamabad. And so is US Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen. The Americans are in Pakistan to kill the two-headed hydra: militancy and anti-US sentiments. The monster meanwhile threatens to rain destruction on mainland America itself. The ultimate nightmare is the monster's control of Pakistan's nuclear assets. In Greek mythology the monster was slain by Hercules. So, who will slay this beast –Holbrooke, Mullen or General Petraeus?

None of the above, I guess.

"The Americans have just seen the trailer," says a former Pakistani diplomat. "The real movie is yet to roll." He thinks unless the Americans take everyone on board, including the Jamaat-e-Islami and other politicians left out in the cold, religious insurgency will take over. "No battle is ever won without the mass support of the people on the ground." Hakimullah Mehsud a leader of Tehrik-e-Taliban has claimed responsibility for last week's bombings. He has warned that the Taliban plan to carry out two bombings a week within Pakistan in what he calls "revenge" against Pakistan for the American missile strikes.

But the Americans don't seem to get it.

The smiling faces of G-20 leaders gathered in London to help make this world better didn't cheer us. Yes, they have promised to fatten the already bloated bureaucracy of the World Bank and the IMF so that poor nations like us don't disintegrate or turn terrorists. But they showed scant regard to what's actually happening in our backyard every day. The innocent are dying; women being brutalized; mafias dictating how we dress and the starving youth turning to the Taliban as their last resort. The greatest mistake the Obama administration in charge of fixing Pakistan is making today is to sideline the intelligentsia and stakeholders. The result: our government stumbles from crisis to crisis without a roadmap. Our TV analysts and their guests, especially the shrill spokeswomen of political parties like the PML- Q refuse to accept the massacre by suicide bombers in our cities. Hysterically they whip up populist sympathy to take political mileage out of this national tragedy hitting us daily. Everyone panders to their scripted agendas hawking more hate and terror.
And Rehman Malik repeats himself once too often. His pantomime after a blast is predictable. Like a well-rehearsed actor, he shows up at the site of death and destruction (that is if he's not in London or Dubai). He makes two short statements: first, suicide bombings are a reality so better brace up to them; second, don't let out your home on "short lease" to tenants wanting accommodation. He then leaves the area. End of story. The facts, faces and DNA of those dead are buried in the basement of the ministry of interior. They are not to see the daylight again.

When another blast occurs a few days later, Rehman Malik is there again. He wrings out his clichéd statement.

The adviser on interior appears handcuffed to a dilemma that defies solution. Obviously, he gives himself credit for his instincts that the terrorists don't own homes in cities. They are short-term renters who rent a place and begin assembling their deathly bombs and suicide jackets. But does that mean if they are denied accommodation suicide bombings will be aborted? Pakistan will be free of suicide bombers? If we think that we can contain the terrorists by not leasing out our homes to them for a "short stay" as the interior adviser says, let's please do it!

Realistically, the evil sprouting around us is spawned not by "short leases" but with empty stomachs.

Those fifty young shirtless Afghans lying in rows stone dead were human not cattle. They were the sons and brothers of someone. Choosing a claustrophobic container in the hope they could be smuggled to foreign climes and get jobs, they died of suffocation en route. Many questions come to mind. Did they apply to the Taliban high command for a job as suicide bombers? It's a job in demand among the illiterate youth looking for quick and easy money. And of course a free passage to paradise. No one has the statistics, but exactly how many suicide bombers are recruited daily by the hiring agency in 'Af-Pak' – our new name given to us by the Americans? They're too lazy to say 'Afghanistan-Pakistan.' Anyway, Af-Pak areas are dirt poor. People have to eat. So the families send their sons to the Taliban/Al-Qaeda/FATA warlords/religious militants recruiting centres to work for these murderous thugs.

But maybe (let's keep our fingers crossed) the unemployment figures among the insurgents is rising like the rest of the world currently hit by recession. Perhaps the Taliban economy (we're told the funds come from India according to the Council on Foreign Relations) has overheated. Imagine for a moment that perhaps the demand to enrol is greater than the output (suicide bombings) organized by the tribal outlaws. Maybe the boom for the bombers is over? There's over-employment at the camps. I'm not being facetious when I say that perhaps Rehman Malik's formula of stopping suicide bombings is working. He claims to have in his possession a number of would-be suicide bombers. If he has grilled them, why is he not sharing the information with the media, even if it's of a very sensitive nature? We do know that the ministry of interior conducts background briefings for foreign journalists because we read about it the next day in The New York Times or Wall Street Journal.

Here's something for Holbrooke and Mullen to mull over. The silver lining is that perhaps the Taliban are willing to negotiate peace. More importantly the two officials should take a leaf out of their president's life. Charles J Ogletree Jr., a Harvard law professor who mentored the young Barack Obama, put it, "He can enter your space and organize your thoughts without necessarily revealing his own concerns and conflicts."

Pakistanis want to live. They want their beautiful country to survive. They want their rulers to be humane and not unfeeling corrupt aliens. Pakistani-Americans sending hard-earned dollars back home need to be recognized. Recently, the gunman who barged into an American Civic Association, which teaches English to immigrants in New York State was initially thought to be a Pakistani when according to BBC it received a phone call by Baitullah Mehsud claiming responsibility for the shooting of 13 people. Mehsud vowed to continue attacks on American soil.

It turned out that the killer was not a Pakistani but a Vietnamese. Jiverly Wong, 41, was an angry man. He had lost his job. His English was poor. Wong went to the immigration centre to learn English but quit after complaining that he had been made fun of. Students mocked him. His neighbour said that "The times are so bad…I think that's why a lot of people are so stressed. People are losing their jobs and they don't know what to do." Another co-worker said that "He was real nervous, real high strung. He worked real hard."

In America too, people kill and get killed. The war today is not between religious ideologies but between the rich and the poor, no matter where. Billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffet want to leave a better world behind. They give generously of their billions and their resources to help humanity. But unless governments – be they the Obama administration or the Zardari rule –genuinely and sincerely work to earn the trust of ordinary people, we all will fail. To win the hearts and minds of Pakistanis, Obama, Holbrooke, Petraeus and Mullen must stop bullying us with their threats and accusations. Their Rottweiler attacks on ISI are surely counterproductive.

When "Pakistanis and Muslims" as alleged by Hakimullah Mehsud of the Tehrik-e-Taliban, kill Pakistanis and Muslims, a fight to the finish has begun. It's Pakistan's war.