Shamsi, drones and our sovereignty (II)

I cannot for the life of me understand why we take billions in aid from the US and then abuse it and hate it.

CANBERRA: For a state that ranks at the bottom of several global rankings (status of women, incidence of poverty, law and order index, safety of life for journalists, literacy, suicide bombings, failed state index and so on), telling the US (which last time I checked was still the global super power) that we will not compromise on sovereignty sounds just a bit too hard to believe.

A military-controlled and dominated state that still has fantasies of things like ‘strategic depth’ and which many outside of Pakistan believe harbours terrorists can’t keep pulling the wool over the world’s eyes.

The real issue is not pontificating about sovereignty and linking it with Shamsi and the use of drones but rather that if we don’t correct our course now, we could end up on a badly losing side. The time for verbal semantics is well over. We cannot keep telling the world that we have militants and jihadis waiting in the wings to take over and hence it should help us, because the fact of the matter is that many in the world think that that’s already the situation in Pakistan.

If the US pulls out its economic aid and assistance, and so do other multilateral lending institutions, then the state could well collapse under the burden of its debts. I cannot for the life of me understand why we take billions in aid and shiny weapons from the US and then abuse it and hate it. What a sad lot of hypocrites we are.

Haris Chaudhry

Published in The Express Tribune, July 6^th, 2011.