| Can't Pakistan Take A Stand on A Dying Woman Abused By US?  Surrendered by Musharraf and almost abandoned by Zardari and Nawaz and a long list of US apologists in a nation seething with anger, isn't it time for Pakistan's rulers to take a stand? US, Britain and India top the list of countries where Pakistani citizens are abused as a state policy. Imagine 60 Indians or Americans or Brits burned alive on Pakistani soil? It happened to us but our failed rulers have hushed it because they can't stand up for national honor. War on terror or not, the policy of humiliating Pakistanis must come to an end.
By AHMED QURAISHI Thursday, 4 February 2010. WWW.PAKNATIONALISTS.COM ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—If Americans and the Brits show little respect for Pakistani citizens today, it is because Pakistani rulers refuse to take a stand on national pride. Pakistanis have been rotting in Indian and Afghan jails, but Pakistan's incumbent president honors Karzai by inviting him for his inauguration party. Indians send dead bodies of Pakistani prisoners and all we do is release Indian terrorists convicted of killing Pakistani citizens under Indian-sponsored terrorism, instead of sending them to the gallows. The governments of the United States and the United Kingdom have been deliberately humiliating Pakistan by targeting Pakistani students at will, in some cases framing Pakistanis in fake cases. It's one way of giving Pakistan more bad press and putting pressure for more Pakistani concessions. But with the case of this dying Pakistani woman, Pakistan has a chance to correct one more wrong that we have accepted in this so-called war on terror. Just as the Pakistani military has forced the United States to review its wrong policy of trampling on Pakistani interests in the region and paying lip service to us while empowering India, it is time that the Americans – and also the Brits and the Indians, as I explain below – be firmly warned that humiliating Pakistan and Pakistanis as part of United States' post-9/11 policy will not be tolerated. I mention the military because Pakistanis have little faith that their politicians, who often play the role of apologists for the US and UK, will ever take a stand for Pakistan's interest. Those politicians who do are not in power. Dr. Aafia Siddiqui's case reeks of anti-Pakistanism that Washington has practiced for the past eight years while courting Pakistan as an ally in the war for the occupation of Afghanistan. Dr. Aafia's latest pictures show a dying woman ruthlessly tortured by Americans in US custody. Two of her three children, kidnapped with her from Pakistan's streets, are missing. It shames most Pakistanis to think that, while she was tortured and possibly raped by Americans in Afghanistan for years, the government of former President Pervez Musharraf did little to raise a voice for her and other Pakistanis who probably continue to rot in various US-run jails and dungeons in Afghanistan. President Zardari, opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, and a long list of Pakistani politicians have barely raised her case in their interactions with US officials. We understand the constraints of our politicians. Their money and properties are in London and New York. In fact, they count on US support to remain in power and not be removed by the military or by the people of Pakistan. That's why instead of boycotting US diplomats in solidarity with Dr. Aafia, US Ambassador Anne Patterson and other US diplomats continue to receive generous treatment in Pakistani circles. Last week Pakistani websites circulated pictures of known Pakistani journalists dancing away at a private party at the US Embassy, in a country where US drones have killed close to 1,000 Pakistani women and children while 'successfully' targeting some 20 low-level terrorists. Betrayed and abandoned by her own, Dr. Aafia was saved not by Pakistan but by Yvonne Ridly, a British journalist. Yet the official Pakistani reaction remains lazy and apologetic. The government of Asif Zardari is now funding Dr. Aafia's lawyers. But how complacent the government has been can be judged from the fact that Prime Minister Yusaf Raza Gilani had to personally telephone Pakistan's ambassador in Washington Husain Haqqani last week to ask him to expedite the effort to secure Dr. Aafia's release and provide 'daily updates' on her case. A QUESTION OF HONOR For eight years, Washington deceived Pakistan as it consolidated the position of India and other anti-Pakistan warlords in Afghanistan. The Americans showed insensitivity bordering on disdain as they trampled on legitimate Pakistani strategic and security interests. The US media single-handedly demonized Pakistan and created a false global alarm over Pakistan's nuclear assets. During the same period, Pakistanis have been abused as a state policy in the United States and Britain. No other countries in the world abuse Pakistanis like US and UK. Adnan Mirza is a Pakistani student in Houston who is in jail for the past several years, without evidence, in a case where undercover FBI agents pretending to be Muslims joined him in a hiking trip and planted evidence to arrest him as a potential terrorist. US refuses to release the kid depite the lack of any credible evidence. In the UK, Prime Minister Gordon Brown lied to his own people last year about an alleged 'big terrorist plot'. His government rounded up innocent Pakistani students and ruined their lives just to build British public's support for sending more troops to Afghanistan. In 2006, Indian intelligence officers and Hindu fundamentalists burned 60 Pakistanis alive on Indian soil. The victims believed the peace talks between Pakistan and India and boarded the so-called 'friendship train' to visit that country, which was later attacked and burned. Pakistani government and politicians have failed to pursue that case. Can you believe this? Sixty Pakistanis burned alive and there's no one to talk about it? Imagine if 60 Indians or Americans or Brits were burned alive in Pakistan aboard a train? Pakistani inmates routinely return from Indian jails with severe mental disorders. All this abuse against Pakistanis and there isn't as much as a squeak from Pakistan's failed and inept rulers. Pakistani government can change this. It can start with Dr. Aafia's case and take a stand and demand US release her. We can retaliate. Let's stop US military supply routes that run through Pakistan for a week. It is time Pakistan warned the United States that Pakistanis will hold the US government responsible if Dr. Aafia dies as a result American torture. The American policy if creating hostility against Pakistanis must come to an end. © 2007-2009. All rights reserved. AhmedQuraishi.com & PakNationalists Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved. | 
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