Our friends and benefactors, or rather the friends and benefactors of the entire mankind, and womankind for that matter the United States, has come up with a formidable list of faults, failings and lack of strategy, even insincerity, that it thinks our establishment is guilty of. That is a bit funny, coming from the big mouth of a country that made a complete mess in Iraq which it could not sort out even in nearly a decade and left it in shambles, a thousand times worse than what it was before the 'gentry landed there. In addition to doing what it did to Iraq and Iraqis, it ended up increasing in the region the influence of Iran which it is determined to curb. It also got itself badly bruised, throwing down the drain hundreds of billions of dollars of its taxpayers hard-earned money, apart from bringing home over four thousand healthy Americans turned into corpses, many times more wounded and maimed and a fifth of all its soldiers suffering mental derangement in varying degrees which must have permeated even to higher levels and is demonstrated quite often through their words and deeds. Yet this country, USA, which specializes in committing follies, blunders and crimes of the worst kind considers itself an angel, perfect in all respects and never misses a chance to lecture others on humanitarian issues, war strategies, just about everything. I was under the impression that our government is taking a firm stand and would refuse further contacts with the US authorities until they apologized for killing 39 innocent tribesmen and paid compensation. So, it came as a shock to me that US Central Command Chief Gen. James Mattis has already arrived in the country to discuss operational matters and our authorities have agreed to receive him. Pakistani public is really getting fed up with the arrogance displayed by the Americans. People were already very annoyed with CIA contractor Raymond Davis issue and soon after his release, CIA killed 39 of our people for no reason. Is that the sort of 'strategic relations the US wants to maintain with us? S.R.H. HASHMI, Karachi, April 8.