These days we are suffering from all kinds of social, political and economic crises in our country. The graph of law and order situation is coming down south. The government claims to have formulated a stable foreign policy but stability seems illusive till we get out of the US influence. Our leaders insist on enforcing policies patently dictated by the US despite knowing the history of superpower's treachery. US is deceiving us even now on the Indo-US nuclear deal. India, meanwhile, is trying to isolate us through its propaganda so that Pakistan can be declared a terrorist state. Pakistan's previous (military) government was forced by the US to side with it in the American war on terrorism in which Pakistan took a complete U-turn in its foreign policy. The current insurgency in Pakistan that is eating our vitals was the result of that bad act of leadership. Now that we are fully caught up by the consequences of that fatal mistake, we cannot solve the problem on our own because of the constant interference of external powers. We are. In fact, dependent upon the external powers for extricating us out of this mess. The operations launched to counter this insurgency are creating painful disturbances in Pakistan. More than 1,300 Pakistani troops have died tackling the problem and there is still no end in sight. -MEHRUN NISA, Rawalpindi, via e-mail, January 15.