Raiwind IX

This is what`s in store for homo jihadis`r`us...

POSTCARD USA: Stand behind that line —Khalid Hasan

To be the bearer of a Muslim name is not convenient these days. What has happened is that there are numerous databases containing information of all kinds. Who knows what triggers an alert. It could be one’s name, part of one’s name, one’s date of birth, the travel stamps in the passport, the place of birth, the country last visited

Profiling at US airports is now a fact of life. Although routine denials, whose frequency has decreased with time, are still made from official quarters, no one denies their existence, indeed their necessity. Almost every time, I have gone in or out of the States, I have been singled out for special attention, which is flattering, though when they ask you “to please follow me,” some people do look up to see if the third deputy of Osama bin Laden’s fourth cousin has finally been nabbed.

To be the bearer of a Muslim name is not convenient these days. What has happened is that there are numerous databases containing information of all kinds. Who knows what triggers an alert. It could be one’s name, part of one’s name, one’s date of birth, the travel stamps in the passport, the place of birth, the country last visited. Once that happens, the passenger is asked to step aside, taken to an area where he may be interrogated, sometime for hours, or he may just be asked to sit down while his papers are looked through and cross-checked with whatever had triggered the alarm.

Since 9/11 many eminent Pakistanis arriving in the United States have been given the treatment, including the present Governor of the NWFP, Lt-Gen. Ali Jan Orakzai, when he was still corps commander at Peshawar and had arrived in the US on the official invitation of CENTCOM. The fact that he was an official guest of the US military had no effect on those ascertaining whatever they were trying to ascertain. I recall that the then press secretary to President Pervez Musharraf and head of ISPR, Maj.-Gen Rashid Qureshi was subjected to the same kind of treatment. Some of our ministers will also have similar stories to tell.

That being so, I am not surprised at the reception accorded to noted Pakistani-American academic Prof Mumtaz Ahmed of Hampton University, Virginia recently. In a speech at a conference, he spoke about his questioning at Tel Aviv airport some years ago, when he was returning after a study tour of the region. Since he had met some members of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad in Gaza, he merited special attention, notwithstanding the fact that he had also interviewed Israeli officials and academics. He was asked to hand over the notes that he had kept in Urdu, but he refused. In the end, he was allowed to board his flight.

Prof Mumtaz Ahmed writes, “But low and behold, while the Israelis were considerate enough not to subject me to body search or to look into my baggage and search my papers, the Homeland Security Department of my own country was not so considerate. It so happens that I share my last name Ahmad with at least 150 million other Muslims, including someone who is on a suspect list of the Homeland Security Department. So during the last two years, whenever I return from my overseas travels at any port of entry — whether it’s Chicago, Los Angeles, or JFK — I am picked up by an Immigration Officer, escorted by him/her to some back room at the airport, and interrogated by the Homeland Security people. The first time it happened to me, I was returning from a research trip to Pakistan and Bangladesh, and I was carrying extensive notes of my interviews with all kinds of Islamic leaders and activists with me. And this time, the notes were not in broken script; they were in regular, legible script in Urdu. And I know that FBI and Homeland Security have hired many people since 9/11 who can read Urdu.

“Anyway, they asked me some questions, and then, without my permission, opened my suitcase. Then they started opening my files, taking out sheets of papers, making photocopies of all the papers that I had with me, including the newspaper clippings. And — you guessed it right — all my newspaper clippings were on terrorism, on militancy, on radicalism. They were so excited that they got their man. Everything they were looking for was right there — screaming headlines of suicide bombing, vociferous anti-American statements of Islamic militants, roaring calls for Jihad, it was all there! Then they asked for my wallet, and they took my credit cards and photocopied them. But then they started photocopying the entire deck of the visiting cards that they had earlier taken from my suitcase. That made me very upset. There were so many people I met in Pakistan and Bangladesh who were not even my research subjects; they were people I met casually at some reception, or in a meeting or at a dinner, and with whom I exchanged cards as people usually do when they meet for the first time ... And I thought, ‘My God, all their names are now going to be on the list of the Homeland Security and FBI, and they will curse me for the rest of their lives! Every time they will apply for a US visa or enter the United States, their names will be there.’ The problem was that all my research notes — my interviews with some of the “radical leaders” in Bangladesh — were photocopied, and now they are probably with the Homeland Security Anti-Terrorism Task Force. If there is anyone from that agency present here, please return my notes.

“Since then, I have realised that I probably cannot maintain confidentiality as long as I am not cleared from the Homeland Security Department. Now I have started writing my notes in Punjabi — and not even in Punjabi, but in a dialect of Punjabi that only I and my mother speak. So this for me is the safest way to maintain confidentiality of my research subjects. Confidentiality is very, very difficult in terrorism research, particularly in the United States where laws have been passed that can compel disclosure of any information that the government wants. And if I refuse to comply, then I am in trouble. Of course, as in legal practice, I will have no qualms about disregarding the confidentiality principle if a law is going to be broken or when human lives are at stake. But that’s where the line should be drawn.”

So that is the way it is folks, out here.

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent. His e-mail is khasan2@cox.net

Re: # 225

arjun you ignoramus:

paki this paki that. you are the cause...your knowledge is thru the bloody frigging newspapers. you cant do shit but gloat... the guys who can do shit are all happy. things are working as they want to. who cares about the commom pappu or abdul....actually common arjun. you or me should not even discuss these thing because we count for shit. once in a while some general or minister gets stripped by some twit in an airport wnd you and your like get orgasms. @#%^^^ this is a mighty small price to pay. if you were to give me such power and money i will always go arount totally @#*&^% stripped.

#214 by GT

Hahaha GT ... so one of your guests sneaked on that message when you took a loo-break?

Haha .. AMANUL ZINDABAD ...

#213 by GT

GT, BDs are great cricketers, particularly in batting. There were some in our corporate cricket team a while ago and I was amazed. All they needed was confidence and some coaching which they`ve got now. I have no doubt they`ll emerge as another Sri Lanka.

As for Ireland/Pak, everyone knows Pak was a sort of a `B` team and in fact they shouldn`t have participated in WC at all with such an understrenghth team as many had suggested. Pak`s strength is and has always been bowling, and they don`t have a single world class bowler right now. On the other hand, India`s is a full-strength team which was roasted by the BDs. They`ll have to wok hard in the coming matches.

Re: # 223

zee, i have been roasted thru the night (even by my wife) now i will roast yo.

Re: # 223

peemax is all talk and no action..typical of pakis..it`s just like behram who pretended to be a hotshot entrepreneur but was outed as an affirmative action small time contractor..peemax himself is a brit-paki..which means he is probably on welfare and his kids are at the bottom of the educational ladder..

if all of peemax`s braggadocio was actually true and pakis really did have any intestinal fortitude, kashmir would have banega`ed pakiland by now, wouldn`t it?

Re: # 221

k might not have banega Pakistan but India stinks ... we lost to bong land, what can be worse? you stink too like zee.

#209 by subhashjoshi

Curiously you never get peeved at Pakis posting pictures of dead Indian soldiers.

You mean this one?



Or like this?



Or even this?

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Re: # 219

zee, you stink.

The offensive character who sent 214 had not even btushed his teeth when he did so. An now my wife and kids are off with them to have some stinking indian food .. i need a drink to soote my hedache.

#194/6 subhashjoshi,

Mr. bhindidick, these photos don`t tickle us at all because we`ve been seeing them since 1971 in both the Pakistan press as well as the Pakistan TV ... :~)

Re: # 217 Zeemax

Ratslitter, of course they don`t tickle you, you being the offspring of the very same shameless rat-Maxes, and used to live in perpetual shame......but we won`t just let you forget how we rubbed their porcine snouts in sh!t, and sent them back home alive to spawn you, and why you should be rather proud of such illustrious pedigree....hahahahahaha


Scores of Pakistani Army troops from East Pakistan, that surrendered to the Indian Army on 16 December 1971, await their fate at a make-shift POW camp.

#209 curiously you never get peeved at Pakis posting pictures of dead Indian soldiers.

first, only zeemax does that as far as i have seen. second, i in fact did ``get peeved`` with zeemax on that. third, far from getting peeved, i was offering you and arjun a tea break, since you were getting breathless in ranting about pakis.

i just thought i would correct your factual errors. you can now go back to voicing your contempt for us cowardly pakis and your Great Victory of 1971.

#%@**&^
chowk staff delete 214.