I spotted this online today and thought… if only the roles reversed…

The U.S. State Department lodged a sharp protest over ongoing Pakistani missile strikes and ground raids today, saying the Islamic Republic was violating American sovereignty.

“We will try to convince Pakistan…to respect [the] sovereignty of the United States - and God willing, we will convince,” State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters. (1)

The controversy stems from the Pakistan Army’s recent decision, leaked in a prominent Pakistani newspaper, to mount intensifying air attacks and new ground assaults against extremists hiding in American safe havens across the ocean.

American papers reported that under the new policy, the Pakistani military will no longer seek America’s permission in killing Americans, but will inform American diplomats about these killings as a friendly gesture between close allies. (2)

Pakistan Army General Ashfaq Kayani told reporters outside Islamabad late last night that the new strategy was justified. “We are working to prevent more attacks on the Pakistani people,” he said. (3)

The general’s stance signified strong Pakistani dissatisfaction with America’s reluctance to crack down on religious fundamentalists and neoconservatives, who, experts note, have deep ties to American intelligence services and military leaders. The largely unchecked extremists, experts observe, have used America to bolster the agenda of their ideological counterparts across the ocean in Israel, and to strike directly against Pakistan and other parts of the Muslim world.

“We have to strike them over there so that they cannot order strikes against us here at home,” General Kayani said, referring to American firepower that has terrorized hundreds of thousands of civilians on either side of the Pak-Afghan border and in the Middle East.

As Kayani spoke, new precision attacks and commando raids were being conducted against ranches in Texas, small towns in Alaska, the offices of AIPAC and energy-related lobbying firms in Washington, D.C. Commandos were also dispatched to America’s unruly federally-administered Bible Belt, where resentment of government authority runs high.

Several high-value targets were killed in the attacks. Local media outlets claimed 50 civilians were also killed, but these assertions could not be independently verified. Pakistani officials said they would send in their own team to investigate the claims, time permitting.

Seeking to assuage domestic concerns, American officials downplayed the actions of their staunch ally. “The nation should not be upset by the statement of Pakistani General Kayani,” White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said in an official statement. (4) “Pakistan respect U.S. sovereignty and looks at us as partners,” she added. (5)

U.S. officials also insisted no secret deal had been reached beforehand allowing Pakistanis to strike inside American territory. “Media reports about authorization for Pakistani raids into the U.S. are incorrect,” the American ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson, told Fox News last night. She added that the South Asian country had “no aggressive designs or postures” toward America. (6)

Regimes allied to Pakistan, including those in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Palestine, expressed support for the new Pakistani strategy, citing the need to “remove and destroy” strongholds where key militants have masterminded attacks against their countries. (7)

Informed of this, Ambassador Patterson appeared unfazed, saying, “Pakistan respects American sovereignty.” She insisted that Pakistani officials provided her with assurances that “no such order had been given” for new rules of engagement. (8) Finally, the ambassador explained, America had already carried out its own recent military offensive that left hundreds of rural Americans dead, relieving the need for further Pakistani intervention.

But in Islamabad, Pakistani corps commanders said their new strategy would see continued implementation in the coming weeks. Speaking on condition of anonymity, one commander said that as far as Pakistan was concerned, “most things have been settled in terms of how we’re going to proceed.” (9)

M. Junaid Levesque-Alam blogs about America and Islam at Crossing the Crescent and writes about American Muslim identity for WireTap magazine. He works as a communications coordinator for an anti-domestic violence agency in the NYC area and can be reached at: junaidalam1 AT gmail.com.

Notes

Except for note 2, all the above-quoted statements are real quotes; only the roles have been switched.

1. Quote actually taken from Pakistani PM Yousaf Gilani. Reuters, Sept. 12, 2008.
2. It was actually the Pakistan daily, Dawn, which reported on the U.S. policy shift as follows: “Under this new policy, the US military will notify Pakistan’s government when it conducts raids, but will not seek its permission.” Sept. 12, 2008.
3. Quote actually taken from US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen. Dawn (Pakistan Daily), Sept. 12, 2008.
4. Quote actually taken from PM Gilani. (Source: note 3)
5. Quote actually taken from Pakistani Ambassador Husain Haqqani. (Source: note 3)
6. Quotes actually taken from Ambassador Haqqani. (Source: note 3)
7. Quote actually taken from U.S. ally and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Washington Post, Sept. 12, 2008. 
8. Quotes actually taken from Ambassador Haqqani. (Source: note 7)
9. Quote actually taken from anonymous U.S. official. (Source: note 7)

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This is a great list for those of us who are either from Karachi, live there now, or have been there sometime in their lives. If you can add to the list, please do…..

And for those of you that have great stories of your experience in the city, please share those too!

You know you’re from Karachi when…

1. You get shocked when someone stops at a yellow light
2. You never really know what to say when someone asks you what there is to see in Karachi
3. You give “missed calls”
4. You’ve never really seen a tourist
5. Its December and you attend 5 mehndis/shaadis in one night and end up meeting the same people at each of them
6. You use the phrases “what’s the scene?” “scene on hai” or “whose she sceening with?”
7. You still have some of Everest Videos movies and don’t plan to return them
8. You’ve met a Parsi
9. You’ve given an exam at Regent Plaza
10. You feel you never have to wait in line if you are with “lay-diss” (ladies)
11. You’ve bought a dvd of a movie that hasn’t even been released yet
12. You actually go “out for coffee”
13. You used to go for tuitions even though didn’t need them
14. You say that you really like that restaurant/shop and someone says “oh yea, my family owns that”
15. You categorize people as “burgers” or “melas”
16. You roll down your car window and you can actually touch the car next to you
17. You go by landmarks not street names
18. Your only argument in the Lahore/Karachi debate is “well we have a beach”
19. You own either a Suzuki Corolla or a Civic
20. You never realized that North Nazimabad was actually in the North
21. You never have dinner before 1am in shaadi season
22. You’ve always wondered what “khayaban” meant
23. You know the “telefun” number by heart even though you don’t know what “telefun” is/does
24. You blame everything on K.E.S.C
25. Your school gets closed when it rains
26. You know you are in Karachi when there is two-way traffic on a one-way road.
27. You are a Karachiite when there is no such thing as over time yet everyone sits in their office till after 9 pm .
28. You don’t take the police seriously at all.
29. You are afraid to go to a hospital because you might get a disease.
30. You have at least 5 servings of some form of caffeine each day.
31. There is no such thing as lunch.
32 To you wildlife means crows.
33. You think cows live on the streets.
34. Sunday morning starts at 1 pm.
35. You ll go to the coolest place to eat but on your way back will want paan from the khoka.
36. Winter means the first 15 days of January.
37. A short drive takes 25 minutes to get from A to B.
38. You actually pray for the electricity to come back.
39. Eating at KFC is a life and death gamble.
40. You can smell fish while driving and don’t complain.
41. I’m on Shahrah-e-Faisal is always a valid excuse for arriving late.
42. A road with bumps and manholes still qualifies as a road.
43. Beggars travel in the local bus.
44. You see street lights on during the day and not during the night.
45. You’re a Karachiite when you think public buses kill people everyday.
46. You think people are not cool if they haven’t been robbed at least 3 times in their life.
47. You know you’re in karachi if you can’t go home when the president is in town.
48. You go to sleep listening to rickshaws and wake up to the sound of one.
49. Your lungs have enough smoke to match a chain smoker.
50. You know your city is a hole but you love it anyways.

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