AFTER three days of America-bashing that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton endured during her recent visit, she must have carried back an interesting baggage – some realistic and some troubling assessments about how Pakistanis look upon the war on terror that many believe America has imposed on them. If she is honest, she will report to President Obama the disdain that exists in Pakistani streets for America’s thoughtless policies.

She experienced this firsthand. A tribesman from Fata, where fighting rages against the Pakistani Taliban and where American drones kill hundreds of women and children, said to her point blank, "Your presence in the region is not good for peace."

Clinton was here for personally assessing ground realities important for Obama’s future war strategy now under review. She wanted to know the mood of the people, Zardari’s prospects amid public anger against him and reading the mind of Pakistan’s military, which remains the key player in matters related to defence and Afghan war.

Washington has, in the past, turned a deaf ear to sensitivities and opinions from Pakistani civil society and the media about its heavy-handed, counter-productive, insensitive policies that generated public distrust and anger which eventually turned into hatred for America. Obama administration, like others before it, relies for decision-making on Washington-based neoconservatives, military hawks, short sighted diplomats and the so called `experts’ who are either unaware of ground realities, or hide unpleasant facts, telling the administrations only what they want to hear or perpetuate their own distorted visions.

Today, as polls indicate, Pakistanis dislike the US for unreliability, unfriendly policies, patronage of dictators and corrupt and inefficient rulers, interference in Pakistan’s internal affairs, readiness to take advantage of Pakistan at the cost of Pakistan’s security and allying itself with Pakistan’s arch enemy, India. In this backdrop, Hillary’s visit comes as a breath of fresh air. One does not expect a policy change but that she can give a correct input to her administration in relation to Pakistan.

Clinton later told CNN that she anticipated the "pretty negative situation" in Pakistan, but she said "I wanted to have these interactions. ... I don't think the way you deal with negative feelings is to pretend they're not there ..."

She did well to broaden the scope of her visit by meeting a cross-section of civil society. Even though she was sheltered from adverse public opinion, with participants being carefully screened, yet they challenged her on sensitive issues such as drone attacks, mammoth new embassy, suspicious activities of Blackwater, violations of law by American marines, American plans of denuclearising Pakistan and its support to anti-Pakistan elements.

While some of her answers were forthright, to many an awkward question Clinton had no answers. “… [T]his issue is between the leadership of two sides. So let’s not discuss this here,” was her typical evasive line.

On the question of Afghan war, in no uncertain terms was she told by a woman journalist: "We are fighting a war that is imposed on us. It's not our war. It is your war. You had one 9-11. We are having daily 9-11s in Pakistan." And when her contention that the US and Pakistan face a common enemy in ‘terrorism’ was publicly rejected, Clinton admitted that "we're not getting through.”

In a country where 90 per cent people oppose this war, where its fallout turns their lives upside down and where the Afghan Taliban are regarded as national resistance to American occupation this answer is perfectly legitimate. Critical media coverage about American policies caused Clinton to retort that the US would respond “aggressively” to the misreporting by Pakistani media. When this drew immediate response from the media’s spokesperson who said: “We should understand the actual message behind her statement…..”, the US embassy clarified that Clinton was not making any threats. “It has been taken wrong. The word aggressive doesn’t mean that US will take any action…”

Clinton’s meeting with General Kayani, Pakistan’s Army chief was significant. The general’s influence on the presidency is well understood and Pakistan Army is the custodian of nuclear assets. The meeting was aimed to figure out General Kayani’s response to upcoming war strategy, in which Obama would most likely want Pakistan Army to play a role, and discuss the security environment. She must have also tried to make sense of President Zardari’s position in view of the increasing confrontation he faces from the Army on security issues.

A female MNA, Marvi Memon, who refused to meet Clinton, said in an open letter: “…. there are patriotic Pakistanis who will defend the soil before accepting your policies of creating a US fiefdom in Pakistan. As a young parliamentarian, I would only welcome you to Pakistan once we have evidence of your shift in policy so that Pakistan is dealt with as a sovereign country.”

In her meeting with prominent tribesmen in the NWFP, which bears the brunt of the Taliban violence, she heard the same hostile message: Pakistanis do not want American friendship due to its policies, despite offer of a multi-billion-dollar aid package.

Clinton repeated her call for Pakistan to get Al Qaeda leadership. "…… [O]ur best information is that they are somewhere in Pakistan, and we think it's in Pakistan's interests, as well as our own, that we try to capture or kill the leadership of Al Qaeda." Pakistan has consistently denied knowledge about Al Qaeda’s presence on its soil and asked the Americans to point it out if they believe it is here. Recent call for air attacks on Al-Qaeda leaders in Quetta by Anne Patterson, the intemperate US Ambassador in Islamabad in ‘her imperial hubris’ (to borrow a phrase from Eric Margolis) lends credibility to the allegation that America intends to destabilise the situation in Balochistan.

If Clinton kept an open mind and made some sense of the criticism she heard, she should have drawn some important conclusions.

One, there is enormous pent up anger against decades of manipulative American policies towards Pakistan. Two, Pakistanis intensely dislike American intervention in their internal affairs. Three, no government in Islamabad can survive for long that opts to serve the interests of the Americans rather than its own people. Four, Pakistanis would aggressively reject self serving American policies that threaten Pakistan’s interests.