I’m a desi liberal and I would very much like all the CIA/Blackwater/Xe types out of the country.
KARACHI: This is with reference to Yousuf Nazar’s article of February 28 titled “The CIA, the ISI and ‘desi liberals’”. I’m a desi liberal and I would very much like all the CIA/Blackwater/Xe types out of the country. At the same time, I am not so naive or foolish as to believe that our intelligence agencies were unaware of these groups and their presence in the country. I would also like them to stop trying to mislead the people of Pakistan as they have so often done in the past and are doing now in the Raymond Davis case.
As for Davis, as a desi liberal I want Pakistan to be a country in which there is rule of law. If this means that Davis has legal immunity and that he should be expelled, then, so be it. If, on the other hand, he does not have immunity, then, he should stand trial, which should be a model of fairness so no one can accuse Pakistani courts of bowing to external pressure, whether from the US or from anti-US political parties.
I realise that desi non-liberals will see these positions as a defence of Davis. This group is not concerned with whether Pakistan is legally obliged to grant immunity or not to Davis, or whether he was actually trying to defend himself, or even whether our own intelligence agencies are perhaps misleading us. All that the desi non-liberals want is to see Davis executed. For them, the only law by which Pakistan should be ruled is their own will and nothing else. Sorry, but that doesn’t wash with me.
I Z
Published in The Express Tribune, March 4th, 2011.
