It's Pakistan's sovereign obligation under international law to root out terrorists and terror havens from its own territory. And as the people of Swat testify, Pakistani citizens like it as well.
What does keeping terrorists around do for Pakistan, anyway? "Strategic depth?" Get rid of them, don't discriminate about it, and compel the military to accept a lower profile and social and political importance of themselves - for the only enemies Pakistan has right now are the ones the P.A. has nurtured itself for its own reasons.
I do fully agree with what you said in the first para, but then again, US?NATO should be themselves committed too before asking us. Did you see the US commitment in Iraq when they send 3-4 times over the strength of troops as compared to what they have/had deployed in Afghanistan in the peek time frame. Why not you ask your govt that how come they send 400-500+K troops in Iraq when it has nothing to do with terrorism nor the Iraqis killed Americans in the US on 9/11 or even had any link with them, while on the other hand you send just 100K troops in the very country from where the so called terrorist plot originated of 9/11, where the terrorism was growing and getting trained ?? Isn't that hypocrisy from your side, you send 500K troops to occupy a country which was no threat to the US, but then you send just 100K troops to a country which housed the very terrorists that were attacking the US.
And what strategic depth are we gonna had gotten out of a country which was at war with itself for decades, whose economy was shattered, which had no infrastructure to support us in case of war, no proper airfields, no communication system, no industrial base which could not provide anything except for small caliber bullets that also of very low quality. What strategic depth are you guys talking about ?? Why not you guys think before use the word of strategic depth ?? What was or is in Afghanistan which can be used for strategic depth ?? Do ponder about that before next time using this word.
Do you forget what the US tried to do with Cuba, since the US perceived it as a threat very close by, so the US tried everything to change the leadership in Cuba. So, now tell me what is wrong with us if we are thinking for our future by thinking that a hostile Afghanistan govt is gonna be trouble for us, especially since we are facing another enemy in the shape of India. Would you like be sandwiched by 2 hostile neighbors from 2 sides ?? Don't think so. That is what exactly we are thinking. We have India on one side, and then if an Afghan govt hostile to Pakistan with the active support from our enemies that would be the US & India comes on our other side, what are we gonna do ?? So, better to not let that Afghan hostile govt come up. Do, check out the recent comments by the Afghan Armed forces chief where he said he does not recognizes the Pak-Afghan border, may be it will give you an idea how much hostility we have from the current Afghan govt.
And as for the rest of things about PA, i think things are going fine as of now and as time goes by, we will change so will the PA.
