A court in Brooklyn, New York, has summoned the chief of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) to answer questions about ISI's involvement in the tragedy at Bombay's Taj Hotel called ('26/11' in the 9/11 tradition). Reason: relatives of a Rabi and his wife killed in that terrorist act filed a suit in the Brooklyn court blaming ISI for that tragedy.
While its concern for punishing the killers is justified, the Brooklyn court can't exercise its jurisdiction in adjudicating on a crime committed abroad, and according to the plaintiffs, its alleged perpetrators too weren't Americans. Unless the Brooklyn court believes it is a court constituted by international consencus (baffling though not unusual for US institutions) it can't do so.
Besides, plaintiffs' ability to provide plausible evidence (that the entire Indian investigative machinery couldn't) in proving ISI links to that tragedy, is highly suspect. Ironically, Wikileaks suggest that ISI forewarned India about the tragedy - a fact not yet denied by India or Pakistan. But, the US government didn't question the Brooklyn court on these issues, which manifests its concern and respect for its "strategic allies".
The Brooklyn court demonstrated a sense of over-responsibility in this case but, amazingly, it never felt as concerned about the civilians being killed, virtually on a daily basis, courtesy the drone attacks launched on Pakistan's tribal areas by the US forces stationed in Afghanistan. Perhaps, the Brooklyn court considers this "collateral" damage fit for those perceived to be America's enemies.
In this backdrop, the apparent explanation for the Brooklyn court's questionable initiative is the legal threat CIA's Jonathan Banks faced in Pakistan forcing him to make a hasty exit. If that's the case, the Brooklyn court's action is a really big 'tit' for a 'tat' - ISI's alleged leak of the identity of the CIA chief in Pakistan who was masquerading as a businessman. What a response from a 'strategic ally'!
What is more disappointing though is that ordinary Americans, who don't subscribe to the flawed doctrines of their government, don't reject these doctrines emphatically ie dislodge the regimes that practice them. After the 1970s (when Americans showed their might in anti-Vietnam war protests), by allowing the US to plunge into deeper muddles in Afghanistan and Iraq, Americans acted as mere spectators.
Americans still don't see how the imperial mindset of successive US administrations steadily nurtured the current recession by squandering both national and global wealth invested in US government debt. Given the far higher level of literacy in the US, Americans could, but did not, set examples of good democracy and governance for nations like ours that they want to espouse democracy.
America's claims about defending human rights and freedom of expression (with Guantanamo Bay prison in the US backyard), thousands of persons disappearing from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries courtesy overt and covert kidnapping operations conducted by the US or its proxies, and backing regimes in Israel and India that are blatantly repressive, are self-contradictory.
Yet the US insists on being 'the' authority in every matter, and its word being the law. Brooklyn court's summoning of the ISI chief is a minor example thereof, though immensely humiliating for its "strategic ally". Another crippling outcome of this "strategic alliance" is the way the US pays a debt-stricken Pakistan for the expenses Pakistan incurs on behalf of the coalition forces fighting in Afghanistan.
On top thereof come revelations about US a possible attack on Northern Pakistan to grab the fellows the US considers its enemies. The sole logic for an individual becoming fit for extinction is his disagreement with US imperialist doctrines, not the rationality of that individual's dissent. When the US tells its "strategic ally" Pakistan to "do more" it wants Pakistan to unquestioningly implement these doctrines.
Americans no longer respect the sovereignty or dissenting view of other states rendering their claim to promoting democracy highly suspect, and the US betrays its real intentions by installing regimes likes the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan, and backing the regime in Pakistan whose corrupt governance practices have pushed up state debt to a level where loan defaults by the state seem imminent.
America is a great country and, hopefully, will remain one, but not a great nation if it doesn't realise that pursuit of peace, civilised modes of dissent, collective rather than selective good, and environment-friendly innovation is what differentiates humans from animals; defying these values will change us all into animals, and for the US to lead this slide would be the greatest tragedy.
On the whole, Pakistan gained little from being America's "strategic ally". Just recall the US role in the 1965 and 1971 wars, and thereafter the multifaceted sanctions imposed on Pakistan to suit "US interests". Pakistan's interests rarely mattered to the US and Pakistan's continued use as a proxy in America's war in Afghanistan (that initially sought to "give the USSR its Vietnam") may eventually prove the last nail in Pakistan's coffin.
If the US really considers Pakistan its "strategic ally", it must stop interfering in Pakistan's internal affairs. The fact that immediately upon being stopped by law enforcers for a security check and subsequent arrest, Shah Zain Bugti received a phone call from the US embassy reflects on the extent of US interference in Pakistan's sensitive internal affairs; in this backdrop, condemning Pakistanis for being anti-US defies reason.
To convince Pakistanis that the US is not undermining Pakistan's sovereignty, recall of Jonathan Banks should be followed by recall of hundreds of the rumoured CIA operatives and, instead of drone attacks, letting Pakistan tackle the insurgencies in Baluchistan and Waziristan to give the effort the credibility it presently lacks. That's the minimum Pakistanis expect from a "strategic ally", not the opposite thereof.
Besides, the US envoy must stop advising us on how we fix our taxation system; aside from being a dumb effort in supporting a regime with virtually zero credibility, this is not his foray. The envoy should focus on containing the ongoing image loss the US is suffering because of its interference in Pakistan's internal affairs; defying these realities implies turning "strategic alliance" into a bad joke.
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