An American Pakistani's Hope For Peace in South Asia & Around the World~

By Ahad Khan for EthanCasey.com

In his recent article “Home Free: Waging War on Ourselves,” Ethan Casey writes about what I know as “the American dream” or, as he calls it, “the ugly truth buried beneath the manicured lawns of the American suburbs.”

As a person of Pakistani heritage, I didn’t need help to notice the near exact parallel between the history of black people in America on one hand, and the plight of the U.S. government’s ghosts somewhere in “Afpakistan” on the other. I am talking about the victims of America’s drone war in the “Af-Pak” border region, home to the folks who supposedly hate the American way of life (courtesy U.S. presidents of the past decade). If we are to believe their advocates, Predator drones are so advanced that they even have their own conscience. You don’t have to worry about them mistakenly firing on women and children alike.

Our world’s affairs have arrived at a confusing point. Wars between different countries, overt and covert, increasingly appear to be conflicts between civilizations. I should not say that we can’t tell where it may lead us during the course of our own generation. History has clearly taught us time and again that struggles for freedom become inevitable wherever people are forced to live with a feeling of being suppressed. It was just such a struggle that gave birth to an America that dreamt of liberty and justice for all. It was such a struggle that solemnized the rights of the black people of America, through the brilliance of heroes like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

It was that same struggle that led to the creation of Pakistan, by a nation of people that – like black Americans – had grown sick and tired of being denied equal treatment in their own society. It is this freedom that we, as human beings, have shown to hold so dear, that it has served to justify our restless campaigns for the rights we demanded to live in honour and dignity.

It is no less amazing what man would do to defend what he perceives to be his freedom, or any symbol that represents it. While it still holds true that the horrific events of 9/11 raised more questions than answers (technically speaking), who would dare to challenge the notion that the USA was dealt a devastating blow to its core beliefs? To repair America’s presumably unshakeable spirit of justice, someone was going to have to pay. A determined U.S. military thus engaged in a worldwide war on ‘terror’. Over a decade later, we find the same forces holed up in Afghanistan, unwelcome and surrounded from all directions. Their enemies (those that were meant to be paid back) are stronger than they were at any point during the course of the war and easily project effective control over most of the country. The lack of a clearly defined war strategy is just one rampant example out of many to show how American leadership is completely clueless about what it’s doing there. But at least bin Laden’s dead. Mission accomplished, whatever it’s been.

As the world looks at its old ally today – they who slammed the lid on Hitler’s coffin – it’s been curious to know what the USA really aims to achieve. As America’s government continues to pursue ‘the terrorists’, it has made that country itself into the biggest victim of terror. Before anyone jumps me for contradicting other countries’ body counts: terror succeeds where people allow themselves to be terrorized; you can’t terrorize the dead. Thus, in my humble opinion, the primary victims of terror are not those that are now laid to rest in their graves; they’re the people amongst us who are ready to sacrifice their freedom for the sake of the mirage that’s presented as “threats to national security.” Those who refused to come to terms with their defeat once, failing to learn from it, are thereby damned to fail in future.

In my humble opinion the Obama administration does know that it had failed, long before the latest breakdown in relations with Pakistan after Pakistani soldiers were attacked without reason. When was the last time you heard any U.S. government official tell the world that they’re trying to “win the hearts of minds” of people on the other side of the world? They never intended to bomb their hearts and minds out, it depends on the means chosen to aim at the target. The tendencies that champion the death sentence as a means for the sake of internal security, favor the use of drones when it comes to external security.

As much as we’ve suffered as Pakistanis under America’s misleading wars, I can’t help but feel sorry for America. As this great nation’s ideology is its biggest victim of war, the defeat couldn’t be greater. The rampant paranoia at present about hunting “terrorists” does not represent the example America gave to the rest of the world in the course of the previous century. Sadly, most of our generation will remember it by the images of a shoe-throwing Iraqi journalist. Pakistan and the emerging Arab nations will learn what democracy is on their own. They’ll take an example in future of what happened in America when people allowed themselves to be governed by fear instead of by a determined leadership. Justice will be sought and found, even by some of those people that the knights of freedom would describe as terrorists.

Ahad Khan is a Dutch Pakistani whose parents hail from Karachi. A health management student from Erasmus University in Rotterdam, he’s a dental practice manager in everyday life.