Ahmad Khan Rahimi: Fingers point to Pakistan as ‘terroristan’ again

Ahmad Khan Rahimi: Fingers point to Pakistan as ‘terroristan’ again September 20, 2016, 12:23 PM IST Chidanand Rajghatta  Ahmad Khan Rahimi: Fingers point to Pakistan as ‘terroristan’ again To no one’s great surprise, the needle of suspicion and inquiry about the radicalization of Ahmad Khan Rahimi, t... To no one’s great surprise, the needle of suspicion and inquiry about the radicalization of Ahmad Khan Rahimi, the accused New York bomber, has quickly moved to Pakistan, the motherlode of terrorism worldwide. Initial accounts of Rahimi’s background indicate that his Afghan family emigrated to the United States when he was a kid, he graduated normally from a New Jersey high school, enrolled in a community college to study criminal justice (but did not finish the course), and was actively engaged with the community. Then at some point, he went to Pakistan, a swamp of radical Islam and an epicenter of terrorism that has produced some of the most toxic extremists in history, typically revered as ”heroes” or ”freedom fighters” in Pakistani iconography and its fervid media. Some accounts said Rahami had made three or four long trips to the region, visiting his home country Afghanistan, but staying for the most part in Quetta or Peshawar in Pakistan. However, the Wall Street Journal, quoting US Congressman Albio Sires, said he stayed in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad for about a year. He married a Pakistani woman named Asia (Aasia?) bibi, and he sought Congressman Sires’ help to bring her over on an immigrant visa, an enterprise that was reportedly complicated by the fact that she was pregnant and her passport had expired. Sires said his office made inquiries to the State Department as it would for any constituent. He also recalled one of his staff members complaining that Rahami was ”nasty.” ”He was a type of guy that wanted things done his way,” Sires told WSJ. Evidently, he wasn’t so nasty as a high-schooler. Several accounts said he was a friendly and jovial guy, and the WSJ even unearthed this gem: He got his high-school girlfriend pregnant. All of which begs the question: What is so toxic and poisonous about Pakistan that it turns so many people into raging extremists? Why do so many terrorists emerge from this embarrassing blot on civilization that has nothing else to give to the world? The answer is fairly obvious to those who study the country (holding their nose for the most part). It is a country that officially and constitutionally prescribes and practices bigotry, hatred, and discrimination against minorities, including Muslim minorities. You can be the most liberal Pakistani (and there are many heroic ones), but to get a Pakistani passport — among other things — you have to sign a declaration saying you do not recognize Ahmadiyyas as Muslims, and other such discriminatory nonsense codified into law. As has been well-chronicled, such poison begins in its school textbooks which describes Hindus, Jews, and others in the most derogatory terms. As a result, most Pakistanis emerge from school with a extremist temperament, their young minds having marinated in bigotry about the ”other.” They call it ”Pakistan studies,” a curriculum designed to provide rationale for an artificial, moth-eaten country confected from the starting alphabet of a few provinces of British India. The word ”Pakistan” itself is meaningless (unlike Punjab, Sind, Balochistan etc). It could well have been called Kapistan. Decades of stewing in extremism (some ascribe its beginning to Zia ul Haq; others trace it back to Ayub Khan or even Jinnah himself) has now brought the country to such a pass that every time there is a major terrorist attack in the world ( forget Mumbai or Delhi for a moment), Pakistanis immediately check to see if one of theirs is involved. They are seldom disappointed. Actually, they are. Many of them are hardworking immigrants who just want to make a living abroad after bolting from the horror show back home. But their lives and livelihood have been poisoned by the bilious extremist effluents their country has consistently produced over the years. Tune into their television talk shows any time to hear their anchors spew it out ad nauseum. So the chronicles and cast of Pakistan-inspired terrorism across the world, and in the United States in particular, is long and gory. It did not begin with Ahmad Khan Rahimi. Starting with the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 by Ramzi Yousuf, to the killing of CIA personnel outside its Langley headquarters by Mir Aimal Kansi the same year, to 9/11 masterminded by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, to the Times Square attack by Faizal Shahzad, San Bernardino attack by Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, the country variously known as Terroristan, Jihadistan, Talibanistan, Alqaedistan etc has a murderous history of nourishing, nurturing, aiding, and abetting terrorists. Its hosting of Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar, Masood Azhar, Hafiz Saeed, and assorted vermin, usually denied at first but reluctantly acknowledged when caught with its pants down (as with Osama bin Laden) is now well-chronicled. There’s also London, Madrid, Brussels and cities across the world whose bloody carnages have fingerprints and footprints that came from Pakistan. Yet, this poisonous country that sheltered Osama bin Laden and proliferated nuclear weapons designs to North Korea, among other dangerous misadventures, has escaped sanctions and punishment for over two decades, even as it continues its terrorist depredations across the world, not just against India. When Nawaz Sharif, the stooge of Pakistan’s rapacious army, goes up before the UN General Assembly on Wednesday to raise the Kashmir issue, that’s what India and world community should ask him first after he is done with the money-grubbing scheme (Cash Mere for the Pakistani elites; they give diddly-squat for Kashmir). Why do so many footprints of terror attacks lead to Pakistan and how long do you think you will get away with it?