For Pakistan, America is the enemy

Only a Pakistani journalist could have linked a New Jersey school’s decision to cancel its Christmas concert because of head lice with the American conspiracy to subjugate Islam.

In her ‘View From US’ column in the Dawn newspaper, Anjum Niaz, one of Pakistan’s leading journalists, quoted the letter to parents. ‘Although the likelihood of spreading lice by attending the concert is near zero, we feel that this is an appropriate precautionary measure at this time.’ In the same way, she complained, ‘peace-loving Muslims across the world are getting the flak’ as ‘the Americans are taking “appropriate precautionary measures” against the mother of all lice, al-Qa’eda’.

Over at The Nation, Ahmed Quaraishi had even less love for Washington. ‘The US design to destabilise Pakistan is becoming clearer by the day, even for the most blinkered Pakistani,’ he writes. ‘Now it is evident that the US is seeking to engulf the whole of Pakistan in an asymmetric conflict, which will eventually pit the people against the state, especially the military.’

From the daily diet of anti-American vitriol in the Pakistani media, you would never for a moment guess that the US is pouring in billions of dollars of aid to the country every year, not to mention $300 million for education and $20 million alone in Fulbright scholarships to American universities. Instead you will read about US plans to seize Pakistan’s nukes and to colonise the country with agents from Blackwater, the notorious private security company, accused of involvement in a deadly killing in Iraq. When Congress approved a $7.5 billion five-year aid package, Pakistani media accused the US of trying to interfere in its internal affairs.

These are not minority views. More Pakistanis lost their lives in Taleban bombings last year than Afghans, yet poll after poll shows that Pakistanis regard the US as more of a threat than the Taleban.