How did US citizen Gary Faulkner manage to get entry visas for Pakistan six times, bring along weapons, roam the military-prohibited tribal region, and not once catch the eye of Ambassador Husain Haqqani and his staff at the Pakistan embassy in Washington DC?
This question is important because only a few months ago Ambassador Haqqani faced accusations he issued visas to tens and possibly hundreds of US citizens without verifying who these visa applicants represented. Most of them, however, claimed to be traveling on US government business. Pakistani security officials suspected Mr. Haqqani was basically facilitating US intelligence agents and private security contractors for Pentagon and CIA. By directly issuing visas, Mr. Haqqani avoided the long route through the Pakistan Foreign Office, which also meant verification by law enforcement agencies.
This issue is so close to Ambassador Haqqani's heart that at one point late last year he fired a letter to Pakistan's Foreign Secretary and ISI chief warning them that blocking visas to US citizens would endanger the supply of military hardware.
Mr. Faulkner traveled to Pakistan six times and was caught in the last one carrying a gun, a knife and hashish while 'hunting' for bin Laden in the Pakistan border region. He lied to Pakistani investigators that he planned to cross into Afghanistan. He never tried to cross into Afghanistan in the previous five trips.
Despite violations of Pakistani visa and laws, he was released without a single charge, not even a police report for the record. This was done most probably on the orders of Interior Minister Rehman Malik.
While it's nice to be nice to others, the problem is that such generosity is never reciprocated by the US government, which continues to prosecute innocent Pakistani college students on terror-related charges in cases where FBI agents planted flimsy evidence to promote their careers.
Compare Faulkner to Adnan Mirza, a twenty-something Pakistani and his cousin Shiraz.
Adnan remains in jail for the past 4 years because FBI is forcing him to accept guilt while he won't accept something he didn't do. The so-called evidence against him consists of [believe it or not] a tape recording where an undercover FBI agent pretending to be Muslim lead him into a conversation on Iraq and Afghanistan. Adnan's cousin Shiraz, whose wife and child are US citizens and whose aging parents live with him in the US, was released by a US judge for lack of evidence. But last week, FBI descended on him as he celebrated his child's birthday after Amb. Husain Haqqani colluded with US authorities to issue his deportation papers.
This is the worst part, where the Pakistani ambassador has actually been forcing these kids to accept the false charges against them. What Mr. Haqqani should have done was to tell US authorities that fake terror cases against Pakistani citizens for war propaganda purposes would hurt US-Pakistan relations. But of course Mr. Haqqani can't do that.
Moral of the story is that Pakistanis can rot in US jails but a US citizen who is in clear violation of Pakistani laws will always be promptly released by a pro-US government in Islamabad. These Pakistani officials, whose lives and careers exist outside Pakistan, don't even have the imagination to drive a fair bargain by exchanging Mr. Faulkner for Mr. Mirza, or even for Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, who might be partially guilty in some ways but whose method of punishment would forever remain a stain on the faces of those American and Pakistani political and intelligence officials who handled her case.
It is important to add a nore here about how ordinary Americans have dealth with Adnan Mirza's case in Houston. Ordinary Americans are good people who are confused and scared because of these fake terror cases. Many of them are coming out now to defend Adnan Mirza. These are college students and charity acitivists who knew him. But Amb. Haqqani won't defend this Pakistani because, well, Mr. Haqqani can't upset FBI since he has to live in the US long after the incumbent US-installed Pakistani govt. is gone.
P.S.: Mr. Faulkner plans to return to Pakistan in August. Let's see if Amb. Haqqani will grant him a visa for the seventh time.
For more information on Adnan Mirza, please see www.FakeTerror.com
You Heard About Indian Air Force Officer Deported By Israel For Molesting A Kid? Neither Did I
A music teacher masturbated and forced his female student to have sex with him. This happened inside the South Florida Hindu Temple for four years. The student is 14 now and testified in court on Tuesday. Semen splatter has been found by the police inside the Hindu temple.
When the girl's family tried to go public with this, the Indian community forced them to keep the scandal under wraps, shunning the girl and her family.
If this was a case involving a Pakistani, even if there was a hint of Pakistani involvement, like maybe the Indian music teacher traveled to Karachi en route to the Himalayas, this news would have been on CNN, Fox and BBC. But since it involves an Indian, the US media will give it a pass.
This is not an issue of religion. Deviants are found in all religions. It's an issue of how the Am-Brit media selectively treats stories that impact government's foreign policy priorities.
For example, in keeping with the official Washington policy of elevating India as a future power, the Am-Brit media won't cover the story of an Australian preacher burned alive with his two young boys by an Indian religious mob. But when the professors of London School of Economics decide to become Inspector Gadgets and release a ridiculous 'I-hate-you' report against ISI and the Pakistani military, it is accorded maximum space by the Am-Brit news media because it simply suits current Am-Brit policies.
[See the original story here: Music Teacher Found Guilty Of Sexually Molesting Girl In Hindu Temple ]
So you can get away with a lot these days if you're an Indian offender facing the Am-Brit media [a.k.a. the "international media"].
Take for example the case of the Indian Air Force officer deported by Israel last year for molesting a 6-year-old. I consider myself a news junkie and I have plenty of junkies like me in our PakNationalists team who scour the news as a hobby and yet I never heard of this story until today.
While the Am-Brit media pushed this news under the rug, the Indian Express covered the story and linked it to the reports of Indian peacekeepers in Africa found involved in child prostitution:
But the story that takes the cake for how the Am-Brit news media is totally motivated and often passes biases for analysis and news is the following story.
"This is the first time that an official from the IAF has been charged with attempting to abuse a child during a foreign posting. In the past, soldiers from the Indian Army posted at a peacekeeping mission in Congo have been investigated and found guilty for child abuse by the United Nations. A UN report revealed last year indicted Indian Peacekeepers posted in Congo for child abuse and paying minor Congolese girls in North Kivu for sex in 2007 and earlier this year."
When 69 Pakistanis were burned alive aboard the so-called Peace Train as it traveled through India, BBC's Jill McGivering, like most Am-Brit corresponds, pinned the blame on Pakistan and Kashmiri freedom groups.
Read these two fascinating paragraphs written by Ms. McGivering:
Even in her analysis, BBC's Ms. McGivering was convinced that the perpetrators were Pakistanis and that the high number of dead Pakistanis was probably a blunder on the part of the attackers who aimed at 'a different target' like maybe Hindu Indians.
"The prime suspects might be groups such as Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, the main Islamic militant groups who have been blamed for many high-profile bombings. Recent attacks on Delhi, Mumbai and Varanasi, for example, seemed designed to damage India's image abroad and stoke anti-Pakistan feeling inside India. But the fact that so many of the dead on the train were Pakistani Muslims may indicate that the devices were intended for a different target, or exploded prematurely."
Of course, in 2008, three serving Indian military intelligence officers were arrested and charged with planning and executing the terrorist act. A Hindu terror group was also indicted as having helped the three Indian officers.
But did the BBC or Ms. McGivering apologize for their wrong information and wrong analysis?
No.
Did the BBC and the rest of the Am-Brit media highlight the nexus between Indian intelligence and Hindu terror groups?
No.
