Enough! Bring Baitullah Mehsood to justice. If you can't, ask America to do it. And silence! All you handwringing hypocrites accusing Pakistan of killing its own people. Shame on you for being two-faced. These tribal thugs are destroying us and you say we should let them?

Our military and the civilian spy agencies in tandem with their counter-terrorism outfit can drive a giant crater in the Taliban and Al-Qaeda ranks. The Lahore operation is a shining example of how success can be had if everyone comes together. Why then is there disharmony between the civilian government and the army to meld our spy agencies under a single entity? Are they suspicious of each other? Is there a power struggle? Or is there something else that we don't know? Whatever the reasons, the Americans are fast losing patience with our infantile tactics. Until last week, the ISI or Inter-Services Intelligence agency was the elephant in the drawing room that every patriotic Pakistani assiduously avoided discussing. Finally, one powerhouse after another in the Obama administration blew the lid off the Masonic-like institution in a widely orchestrated attack alleging that ISI had links with the militants.

This is slander. So why just shuck it off? There's no smoke without fire. So let's look for that fire if flagged up by some rogue elements in the ISI. But while an in-house investigation is in process, silence please!

The foolish Rip Van Winkles of our power elites and naysayers must wake up and fall in sync with what the west is saying. We have it from the lady's mouth that her government has scrapped the term "war on terror" from its lexicon. "The (Obama) administration has stopped using the phrase and I think that speaks for itself," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on her way to Hague for a conference on Afghanistan recently.

It's now in public domain that Ambassadors Hussain Haqqani and Richard Holbrooke conferred with President Zardari in Dubai last week to talk on "war on terror" oops, I mean "war on Al Qaeda." Today both our president and the army chief are in Turkey for a trilateral summit. They may meet Americans on the side, who knows? The US has stepped up to the plate and taken charge of our economy (remember $1.5 billion a year for the next 5 years?) and security.

Did America ever tell us to reform our battle-fatigued interior ministry, making it like their Department of Homeland Security? Their tutorial on how to entomb a brain trust spawning the finest and the best counter-terrorism and intelligence minds that Pakistan can find may work. We need every single man, woman and agency working against terrorism to come under one command. But we're on a slippery wicket here when we say "every." Rehman Malik tried unsuccessfully to get the ISI, the premier spy agency of the army, under his belt. He even faxed out a notification ordering ISI to report to him while flying to the US with PM Gilani last July. The takeover lasted a couple of hours before Malik was made to retract his order.

Pakistan Army was not amused.

But the Americans, who after 9/11 have learnt a bitter lesson on super-egos, must now want the Pakistan's army, its paramilitary, and civilian elite forces to morph into a monolith that can rid the world of terrorists. What Islamabad needs is a hybrid between a Department of Homeland Security and a National Security Agency. A task force of experts from every profession and field must be set up. Let chastisers like Imran Khan and Qazi Hussain Ahmad or his successor advise us how to handle the murderers who have sprouted all over.



The writer is a freelance journalist with over twenty years of experience in national and international reporting. Email: aniaz@fas.harvard.edu