President Asif Ali Zardari is reported to have firmly told a delegation of US Senate Foreign Relations Committee headed by Chairman Senator Robert Menendze to stop the drone strikes. There is no disputing his stand that the backlash the strikes were provoking was hurting the security of Pakistan. But this factor as well as the other one that our sovereignty was being made a travesty of, now seems to have little relevance for the US. It bears pointing out that the resolutions passed by our Senate and the National Assembly too figures nowhere in this scheme of things. But the pity is that conscientious American public that talks of innocent casualties is silenced by constant briefings and doomsday scenarios conjured up by the Obama Administration. US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham is, for instance, reported to have said that an estimated 4,700 people, including some civilians, have been killed in such bombing raids.
It is the first time a lawmaker or any government representative had referred to a total number of fatalities in the drone strikes. The mystery surrounding the aerial warfare has been unfathomable as the US officials refuse to publicly discuss any details of the campaign. But with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham’s revelation, it is high time Pakistan knocked on the door of the United Nations.