By Ahmed Quraishi
Someone is working overtime in Washington to scuttle President Obama’s and the American people’s wish to end the war in Afghanistan.
The more America gets closer to that goal, CIA and US military in Afghanistan do something stupid to raise tensions with Pakistan. The drones have been doing that job for some time now. But recently CIA operatives have joined hands with likeminded rogue elements inside NDS [the National Directorate of Security, the Afghan spy service] to train, arm and send hundreds of terrorists across international borders into Pakistan to kill Pakistani civilians and soldiers. When Pakistan protests, US and NATO officers have a ready answer: It’s the Taliban, what can we say.
The purpose of these antics is nothing but to harass Pakistani citizens and military and just avenge Pakistan’s refusal to submit to CIA demands.
There is another reason for CIA’s rude awakening in Pakistan.
Pakistanis have misled the agency hotshots for some time into believing that dealing with Pakistanis is like dealing with the defeated and conquered Iraqis and the Northern Alliance 
puppets in Afghanistan.
Why Pakistanis did this? I don’t honestly know. Maybe for US aid, or maybe to cooperate with the Americans in the hope that this time the United States will not prove to be a two-timing untrustworthy ally.
But when CIA went too far in treating Pakistan as a conquered territory, someone in Islamabad had to give Langley a wake-up-and-smell-the-coffee call.
The bottom line is that now CIA is trying hard to cause a military standoff between the United States and Pakistan in the hope of derailing Mr. Obama’s plans for a drawdown.
The CIA and US commanders in Afghanistan are doing everything they can to provoke Pakistani military into armed retaliation.
I am not sure what messages Pakistani military commanders are sending to the peeved Americans. But those messages are certainly not good because Admiral Mike Mullen was so angry the other day he accused ISI of murdering a Pakistani journalist.
Imagine this: a US Chairman Joint Chiefs turning into a homicide detective for a day!
If I had the liberty of sending a message to the honchos at Bagram base, it would be this:
The Soviets were smarter.
