An Indian-American in Pakistan

Just got this over a list:

An Indian American's Tribute to Lively Mini-Pakistan
By Anuj Kumar Nadadur
Princeton University

My visit to Pakistan and six weeks of stay in Karachi was my first, and unintended, personal experience of the gap between the media myths and ground reality of the day-to-day world. When I first decided to go to Karachi, my friends in America and back in India thought I had gone crazy. They anxiously asked me if I knew what I was getting into or if I had been watching the news recently.

They warned me that in Karachi, as an Indian-American, I would not be welcomed and most certainly be ostracized and harassed. That did not deter me but added to my apprehensions of the unseen. In retrospect, I feel my friends were honest in their views and right to the extent they were judging Pakistan through the prism of the CNN, BBC and other powerful Western media outlets..."
[Written for PakistanLink: http://www.pakistanlink.com/Opinion/2005/Feb05/04/07.htm]

I find it really, really hard to agree with Anuj Saahab when he says that his friends were honest in their views. He's most probably trying to give dear friends the benefit of the doubt, and that is commendable. You will have to excuse my forthrightness when I say this, but even something like "ill-informed" doesn't seem the right way to put it: anyone saying at this point in history and media exposure that "an Indian-American...would not be welcomed and most certainly be ostracized and harassed" (or vice-versa; an Pakistani/Pakistani-American in India) is, either very stupid or very, very malicious. I have been in and out and about India since 1976, and I am yet to find that true; ever. It is sad, really, that more people don't take the trip over to the other side.

Bob Graham on the House of Saud

WNYC, New York's morning news/talk show, The Brian Lehrer Show, has a segment with Bob Graham. The intro says:

"Intel Matters

Bob Graham, former Senator (D-FL), former presidential candidate and author, Intelligence Matters: Intelligence Matters: The CIA, the FBI, Saudi Arabia and the Failure of America's War on Terro (Random House, 2004)
-on uncertainty over the role of the CIA and the new National Intelligence Director and his book about the intelligence failures of the Bush administration"

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/episodes/03042005

One interesting thing is that he actually says that he doesn't see the current political dispensation in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia lasting over, say, the next 25 years...

Afghanistan and Pakistan: A Reporter's Notebook

WBUR in Boston's morning news/talk show, The Connection has a segment today titled "Reporter's Notebook with David Rohde" discussing Afghanistan and Pakistan. The intro says:

"A lot has changed in Afghanistan since the New York Times correspondent David Rohde made his way into Kabul along with the Northern Alliance in the autumn of 2001. He was among the first reporters to reach the Afghan capital during the defeat of the Taliban. Since then he has spent many months in that country -- watching as people there try to rebuild, to create a new democracy out of the rubble of war. While the focus of much of the world has moved to Iraq -- Rohde's eyes have stayed focused on Afghanistan and Pakistan -- where he has reported on everything from opium production, to the ongoing teaching in the madrassahs. We return to two countries that remain at the center of the struggle for human rights and democracy. A reporter's notebook with David Rohde."

http://www.theconnection.org/shows/2005/03/20050304_a_main.asp

Wole Soyinka on The Connection

The man himself is on The Connection today:

http://www.theconnection.org/shows/2005/03/20050302_a_main.asp

Will comment after I listen.

Manji on Iraq

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4516893