An American In Pakistan, she feel safer than her people in USA Options

[Badhshah]

I will put it that way..... she is throwing big slaps at those people faces who talk nothing but about a war.

Is she an American journalist or an Al-Qaeda member? For people like sinopak, she must be an Al-Qaeda member because she is against the Bush government.




AN AMERICAN IN PAKISTAN: In Pindi on March 1

Catherine Mayo

The democracy of the USA means a world between two oceans created entirely by the minds of those who live there. US citizens now live in a world created reactively by a few powerful men after a cataclysmic terrorist event. I like the irony of my feelings of safety here while my fellow Americans on the other side of the world feel anything but safe

I was in Pindi on March 1, but I didn’t know about the important arrest until later. I was concerned about another threat. On the platform of the Pindi Railway Station, waiting for their train, were what seemed to me to be hundreds of soldiers. They were clustered in front of the overhead TVs, watching the Pakistan vs. India World Cup cricket match. Since I was also waiting for a train I watched with them. We were as tense as the Pakistan players but weren’t much help to them. I could have been in great danger, but I was only an American, everyone could tell that I wasn’t from India.

The arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed on that day wasn’t just coincidence, it was synchronicity. President George Bush knows that the war against terror needs to be fought with intelligence and special operations. He knows that all-out war against Iraq will do nothing against the threat of terrorism in the world. Pakistan showed him that his horrific military force in the Gulf is irrelevant when it comes to the surprise capture of one man and the information contained in his pockets and in his laptop.

The US soldiers on the aircraft carriers, the families of those who died on September 11, the reservists stationed around “soft targets” in Washington DC and Chicago should all be celebrating this week with fireworks and songs, feasting and prayers of thanks. Al Qaeda is on the run.

The smoking gun has been found. President Bush can now call all his troops home.

Pakistan told the US that it was its ally in the war on terrorism, and it delivered.

Of course, we all know that President Bush’s campaign against Iraq has nothing to do with the war on terrorism. The reasons he gives change daily, and what he says doesn’t matter anymore. What he does is the measure of the man.

On the railway platform TV, India got another wicket. Discouraged, I went up and over to my platform to wait for my train. The concession stands were doing a brisk business. I smelled something good, and thought about tracking it down. A young man, a student of English literature, came over to talk to me. We started using big words to discuss the world situation, sometimes big words are a comfort. I ended up singing him an anti-war song. After he left, I was still humming it to myself. A railway constable came up to me and told me that I would be better off taking the train on the next platform. It was ready to leave. After I settled into my seat, the manager from the first class car saw me and invited me up to his office in Coach 7 for a cup of tea, a cigarette, and another cup of tea with an extra tea bag in it so it would be more like coffee.

If anyone had asked me how I felt at that particular moment, I would have said that I felt well taken care of.

American citizens are on their own now. Not just globally, with “the coalition of the willing” being mostly a mythical concept. Americans are on their own in a world not of their making. This has never happened before. The democracy of the USA means a world between two oceans created entirely by the minds who live there. US citizens now live in a world created reactively by a few powerful men after a cataclysmic terrorist event.

It was one of the interesting coincidences of my life that I was in Pindi on the day of the big arrest. I like the irony of my feelings of safety here while my fellow Americans on the other side of the world feel anything but safe.

They are on their own now. While their government takes them down a road with no ending, each citizen needs to carry democracy in his heart.

Cathy Mayo is an American journalist based in Pakistan

[Pak-ora]

link plz

[PakSniper]

yeah give a chatnee to this pakora man! lol :P

[Pak-ora]

:lol:

[Jaawan]

Here is the link....

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?p...11-3-2003_pg3_7

[postman]

Nice article ..sort of heart warming in a way...the average american is a great and good person no matter where they are and its nice to know that the pakistanis at home treat them as honourary Pakistanis while they stay in Pakistan...ive met italians, germans, the french and americans in Pakistan and thats when feel proudest of Pakistan and its people ..we may be a poor country at the moment but we welcome all with open hearts and true friendship........And that friendship is at stake every time we get humiliated by the western governments. The western governements always push that little further, just a little more, ever so slowly untill the people they represent become targets and thats the most unfortuante part because those that beocme targets in Pakistan are there as real friends of our country. just my opinon.

[Munir]

The world is not against the US but against the Bush administration... Just like India... India is fine... But the government is not ok.

[pakistanzindabaa...]

actually the lady is right....

bush's plans are going to create more problems than solve em......

i dont exactly get what his goals are for the "war on terror". if its stopping terrorism, then he's going about it the wrong way. do u really think that starving or killing the palis or the chechens or the kashmiris is going to stop "terror"????

no its not... its simply going to drive the people in to a more bitter hatred. end result of his current escapades are that the current govts in power across the muslim world are going to be overthrown by their iranian look alikes.

result, the US is screwed. the rest of the world is going to polarise. which will in-evitably lead to another WW.

[shamayel]

I like Americans. It's their government's stupid policies which I hate.