An American reader left an interesting comment on my last post ("
Pakistan Double Crossing the US"). In it I had written:
"It's nice to know that the countries of the civilized world are finally coming to their senses. Or rather they are now choosing not to ignore problems that they should have fixed or help India fix a lot time ago."This is what the reader commented:
"By that account you are saying:A. India is not a civilized country: What countries do you consider civilized then? Is it somehow our responsibility to clean up a mess because we are a "Civilized Country"? Do you somehow feel we owe you our help? B. That we, as the United States, are somehow responsible to fix all the problems in the world. Americans are tired of being the world police and having our tax dollars, corporate income, and young men's lives go to fixing countries that have backward ideas about human rights, basic human decency, and we are also tired of being the scapegoat of the governments of these same countries. Perhaps India has a contingent in Afghanistan or Iraq that is commensurate to the size of the population? What? You are not helping there? But you expect us to help you? It is not our job, go ask China to help. What? They won't? Imagine that.C. That somehow by supporting Pakistan we are not supporting India. If that were the case we would not be sending money by the truckload to India for IT and support services along with the billions given to your country by our government (and many of the jobs we used to hold as well).I have a suggestion. Clean up your own back yard so we don't have to."A. India is as civilized a country as the US or any other thriving democracy.
B. Not just Americans, the entire world is tired of the US being the world police. We can see the excellent police work the US has done in Iraq. They went in to fix a problem that wasn't there and now have created a much larger one. It is quite understandable if the world expects countries to fix problems they have created. For instance, the US and Pakistan created the Taliban and funded Osama bin Laden to counter the USSR during the cold war. When the cold war ended, their Frankenstein was left to grow and take a form of its own. It has now come to a point that the Pakistan military cannot let go of the Frankenstein they created and nurtured and have been using against India. Pakistan cannot fix this problem. They are the problem. We have been trying to fix them for decades now. But thanks to the backing of the US (due to its own strategic interests in the region), our efforts have been futile.
There is a sense here in India that after the 26/11 attack on Mumbai, the only reason why India has not yet attacked Pakistan is because the US has now joined in a concerted effort to root out terrorist elements in the Pakistan establishment and military. This can be seen from all the noises that US officials at the highest level have been making. Call me an optimist, but I believe that the US now believes that the time has come to fix the problem called Pakistan, which their former secretary of state Madeline Albright recently right termed as an "international migraine".
Report after report coming out from the US suggests that the next terror attack on the US will originate from Pakistan. I think the Obama administration realizes that they don't want to see Pakistani trained and funded terrorists spraying bullets on Americans in their malls, hotels and parks.
As far as helping out in Afghanistan, India was the first to open an embassy in Afghanistan after the war and our companies are busy building the much needed infrastructure there. In fact, the
report I mentioned in my last post suggests that the Pakistan ISI is urging the Haqqannis to
sabotage efforts by the Indian government to help Afghanistan government to build the Khost-Gardez road.
C. The reader clearly does not understand the difference between aid and trade. I guess by his logic every payment made by an Indian to a US company for its goods and services (even for something as simple as a Coke) would be considered as India giving aid to the US.
As far as losing jobs to other countries, I believe Americans should decide whether they want the free market system or communism. They cannot have both. If they want their jobs, then they should elect a government that will make their companies let them keep their jobs. This is clearly a problem that they have created and only they can solve.
And as far as cleaning of backyards is concerned, if someone throws his garbage in my backyard I expect him to clean it out. Or at least not make it difficult for me to clean it out myself.
