There is a proverbial saying that truth comes out spontaneously. So is the case when Pentagon chief spoke about India. A web page report says: Former chief of CIA and currently US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta put both feet in his mouth by describing India and China as 'emerging threats to his country. Panetta's gaffe in Washington coincided with President Barrack Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's meeting in Bali to boost bilateral engagement. But Panetta, who recently said that he was looking forward to visit India, strayed from the known US foreign policy stand by adding China and India to the list of countries posing security dangers. Facing the threat from rising powers like China, India, and others, he said, the US had always to remain alert and to make sure that it had sufficient force protection out in the Pacific to make sure they know we're never going anywhere. These assertions of Secretary Panetta are reflections of double standards that US policymakers apply while formulating their future strategies. New Delhi should have learnt its lessons from Pakistan that remained American ally for over six decades and each time, Islamabad needed US support in difficult times, it found US standing on the other side. True that the US wants to build India as a counterweight to China in the South Asian region; true that it wants to assign India a larger than life role in Afghanistan with a clear objective to protect its interest following withdrawal of NATO and ISAF forces by 2014. But if at any stage, the American leadership feels that India was acting independently in its national interest, the US would take no time to disown New Delhi. Although Pentagon spokesman Captain John Kirby quickly sought to correct the impression, saying Panetta believed that relationships with China and India were absolutely vital. "Any suggestion that he was implying either country was a military threat is just false," Kirby said suggesting Panetta was referring instead to the challenges that China and India face "within themselves. On the face of it, what the spokesman said appears to be an attempt to pre-empt any reaction from its new-found ally India. Panetta must have recalled Indias record: betraying its long ally, the former Soviet Union and tagging on to the US. Old habits they say...