washington pakistanrsquos prime minister nawaz sharif trooped into the white house on wednesday for a meeting with president obama in the face of multiple repudiations from the united states over islamabadrsquos pet peeves drone strikes on pakistan its gripes against india over the kashmir issue and pleas that washington treat it on par with new delhi by accepting it as a nuclear equal the meeting with the us president was going on at the time of writing and there was no readout yet but the obama administration made it clear on tuesday that it did not particularly share pakistanrsquos perception on any of these issues starting with its handwringing over drone attacks on its lawless territory accentuated by a welltimed amnesty report highlighting some civilian casualties white house spokesman jay carney set the stage for a rejection of pakistanrsquos plea to stop drone strikes saying us counterterrorism operations are precise lawful and effective and they in fact minimize civilian casualties that would be greater if other conventional means were adopted to eliminate terrorists the united states does not take lethal strikes when we or our partners have the ability to capture individual terrorists our preference is always to detain interrogate and prosecute we take extraordinary care to make sure that our counterterrorism actions are in accordance with all applicable domestic and international law and that they are consistent with us values and us policy carney said adding before we take any counterterrorism strike outside areas of active hostilities there must be near certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured and that is the highest standard we can set he said however both sides are expected to project language that will minimize differences on this subject with washington promising to ease off the strikes as more and more suspected terrorists are eliminated and praising pakistanrsquos fight against terrorism despite its dubious credentials on this count the us media was already predicting the pitch would be taking spin with a headline in one newspaper reading drones what drones obama and pakistans sharif to accentuate the positive various agreements including one on science and technology cooperation are being wheeled out to cover the tracks of disagreements including over indiarsquos role in afghanistan and more broadly the growing regional and global heft that washington is helping new delhi develop earlier this week the obama administration snubbed sharif over his plea that washington should mediate between india and pakistan over the kashmir issue saying it was for the two sides to take care of this issue in fact despite the controversy over sharifrsquos reported putdown of prime minister manmohan singh that he brings his complaints against pakistan to washington it is pakistan that has kept up an incessant reference to india making it very much part of its gripe list the obama administration has entertained this only in the sense of trying to wean pakistan out of its new delhi complex of constantly seeking parity with it washington us officials indicated ahead of