AM, I'm not sure I understand your argument; rather, I'm not sure there is one to be made. You are speculating about the 'true meaning' of an open ended statement made by someone else (an inherently dubious undertaking). Except now she has gone ahead and actually expounded upon the meaning of that open ended sentence. What you or I or anyone else thinks she meant is of no consequence; her interpretation is the only one that matters. She hasn't changed her original statement, she has clarified it. Even if she is backtracking we will never know.
This is an open and shut case. She gets the final word.
My point is that CF was quite specific in how she described the conversation with Indian officials - her clarification does not suggest she was wrong in attributing those comments to Indian officials, just that she herself was not implying any more than that.
My argument was that regardless of what CF interpreted those comments as implying, the fact that Baluchistan was specifically referred to as being a target of Indian funds raises obvious questions as to why and whom.
If the context was that of the operations of any other intelligence agency, then it was not really worth mentioning - we don't need CF to tell us that the Indians recruit contacts in Pakistan, or vice versa. Nor would one expect Indian officials to point out the obvious - instead Baluchistan was mentioned with specificity.
Is it a smoking gun? No - but it nonetheless raises questions, especially when taken in conjucntion with everything else.
US's relationship with Israel has nothing to do with India, they are inherently dissimilar, as is the context. To conclude that just because the US does something with Israel it must hold true for India is pure conjecture and slides dangerously along the slippery slope of the US-hindu-zionist conspiracy against Pakistan. There is no evidence whatsoever that the US' relationship with India is the way you portray it.
I am not suggesting the US realtionship with India mirrors that with Israel, nor that there is any connection there - trying to inject 'Hindu-zionist conspiracy' in here is nothing but a strawman.
What I am pointing out is that the US will not jeapordize its perceived national interests for the sake of erring on the side of what is right, as it has illustrated in protecting Israel even when Israel's crimes are obvious.
In the case of India we already have one clear instance of such deference in order to protect US interests - the removal of Kashmir from the table despite Obama's commitment to it in his campaign. Accusing India of supporting terrorism publicly would go even further than talking about Kashmir. Hence my point that the US cannot be considered a credible party to address Pakistani grievances, publicly atleast.
