*I wanted to share this excellent article with you… M. Lodhi has clearly shown how the US has always sought its own interests and stabbed us on the back numerous times. She also raises an interesting point - the fact that these moves by the US have actually helped us strengthen ourselves… What happened when the US decided not to send us our F-16s, for which we paid for?? Our brilliant scientists developed their own missile technology, and thanks to their efforts, we can teach a lesson to anyone who messes with us, and that goes to our cowardly and hostile neighbour, whom she mentions has been war mongering ever since. Why do they have the tendency to shy away each time they realize the consequences of their actions?
It is about time we send these FBI jokers home, we do not need them in Pakistan anymore - not if we are rewarded by being put up in a list of nations whose individuals have to register themselves if they enter the US. Lodhi has clearly pointed out that the US is no longer the land of oppurtunities, not if it has people who welcomes foriegners, but agencies like the INS who drive them away…Its about time we use the oppurtunity and strengthen our nation in any way we can… And for that our Government needs to back and support its people*
It’s time to pack FBI off to the US
By MAK Lodhi
LAHORE: The US has long been known as the Land of Opportunities. Despite the ebb and flow of relations between the US and other governments like that of Pakistan, people of the world continued their fascination with the life and ways of the United States and loved to work with the broadminded and broad shouldered Americans.
Even during this scribe’s visit the US as its guest as late as 9/11/2002, I could see the large hearted Americans ready to rub shoulders with folks visiting them from other nations. As a people, they still greeted strangers with a smile and warm handshake in their own land as if they were seen trying to put back the most jolting event in the American history on 9/11/2001.
Even Pakistanis living in the US who met a delegation of journalists last September were appreciative of the US magnanimity with which they treated its alien communities. Reactions were there but they were few and far between.
**But, the US doesn’t anymore seem to be the Land of Opportunities, the luring abode of talented legions making for the US shores from all the corners of the world.
The move made by the US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) has mercilessly shown no flexibility to accommodate Muslims, not even that of Pakistan despite its lending shoulder as frontline ally in its war against terrorism.**
When I visited FBI headquarters, the disclosure by its officials that no Pakistani was found involved in 9/11 events was immediately reflected in the sheen on our faces as we exchanged glances under the cameras which watched every movement we made. It was a matter of pride, indeed, for the whole delegation of Pakistani journalists visiting the US. We sent the news back home with a sense of great satisfaction that the nation shared with us. We were appreciative of FBI officials for not being biased in apprising us so honestly.
But the INS policy has lifted a curtain and a deeper scheme of things seems to be unveiling. It indicates as if the US is fast completing its homework to take on other Muslim countries like Iran and Pakistan after it completes the job of plucking out Saddam Hussain. The INS scheme looks like a pre-emptive move to ward off the reaction of communities as and when it turns its back on newly favoured friends like Pakistan.
Basically, it is the right of the US government to computerize its data about all those living on its soil and it is its right to send home all those living on its soil illegally. The INS had started the process much earlier than December 16 last.
During my one-month long stay in the US in September 2002, I happened to visit Canada on Sept 20 for two days. As I re-entered the US on September 22 at Niagara Falls, the US immigration authorities detained me. While tourists of other nations were being cleared, the visa authorities kept me for two hours to have my fingerprints and snapped me through a micro-camera and waited for my clearance despite the fact that I showed them documents of being a guest of the State Department.
I still believed it was the right of the US government. I could imagine the psyche of a nation and government, which, being the most powerful country in the world, had not reacted the way it could have with the available choices at its disposal.
Now that about 100,000 Pakistanis who have been living illegally in the US and earning ‘lesser wages for harder work’ only to help alleviate their own economic burden and replenishing Pakistan’s forex reserves are about to be sent packing home, the long cherished people-to-people relationship is likely to end. The fascination with the Land of Opportunities is soon going to be over.
The government of Pakistan will, therefore, have to stand by its people. It must look into its newfound relationship with the United States. Why should it help the FBI trace elements allegedly sympathetic to al-Qaeda organization and go hunting them out and trying them in courts after amending the statutes books?
The government of Pakistan must ask the FBI officials to pack off and mind their business somewhere else. Pakistan must respond as a nation taking care of its sovereign right, integrity and national ego. **Pakistan should not be afraid of any kind of sanctions. If they have to come, they may be a blessing in disguise for Pakistan. What happened when the US held back F-16s purchased by Pakistan of its own money? Pakistani scientists worked harder and developed missile technology. Today Pakistan is not dependent on F-16s as such and any country growling at Pakistan can be taught a lesson only at its askance.
The nation of Pakistan hasn’t forgotten India’s threatening blitz after conducting nuclear tests in May 1997. War cries of Indian leaders and its jingoist hawks filled the columns of newspapers, which are a proof of Indian schizophrenia. Pakistan had to ‘follow the suit’ as the scribe urged, using this term for the first time in this context in a comment piece.**
The then government reacted in the same coin. On May 29, 1997, India’s belligerence had ended. Ex-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had aptly told a US magazine that if he had not, he would have been out of power sooner than latter.
There are times when nations, even small ones like ours, have to take major decisions in support of its people irrespective of the unforeseen consequences. Look at North Korea. It has revoked its NPT membership and its nation backed up their leader in a million-strong demonstration.
Honestly speaking, there was no need for our President Pervez Musharraf to deny or withdraw a statement regarding Pakistan’s N-threat to India to keep it off. It is true that it worked. India knew about Pakistan’s nuclear capability that averted its adventurism when its forces were deployed in eyeball-to-eyeball position on Pakistan’s borders in an attempt to exploit Pakistan’s situation at its western borders.
The world must know that Pakistan is there to exist and its people want to live as a respectable and peace loving entity in the comity of nations. We shouldn’t be therefore at the beck and call of any other country. The cooperation between the two countries should be only on the reciprocal basis.
We hope Pakistan’s new Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri would hold parleys with his counterpart during his recent visit to the United States in the light of these ideas. We are proud of his bloodline. He never took a decision in the past that could compromise his commitment to the people of Pakistan. We also know about his US friends and the way he always honored them. Mr Kasuri will therefore be walking on a tight rope during his visit. He should not bother about offices. Nobody has forgotten his father or his willingness to part ways with Nawaz Sharif’s government on a matter of principle. He should go to the United States with this mindset.
The nation of Pakistan takes its pride in its national heroes. Dr Qadeer Khan is a very loving hero. It is true that nobody is infallible and may suffer from flaws. But Pakistan should not allow anybody to degrade its heroes. Pakistan should, therefore, think independently of all external pressures. When the US required Pakistan to support it in the war against terrorism, Pakistan supported it. The US must know it was not a unilateral decision of one man, the President of Pakistan.
We are living in a different world today. It is fast becoming polarized once again. The policy statement of President George W Bush declaring three states to be axis of evil further fomented anti-US sentiments in many parts of the world. Even people of the United States would not approve of such policies which tantamount to interference in the affairs of other nations beyond a degree of propriety. If some of the nations have piles of N-weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles, it is the right of other nations also to acquire them.