The Story of New York's Little Pakistan Since 911

Little Pakistan, a tiny community of Pakistani immigrants located just a few miles away from the World Trade Center, drew a lot of negative attention when the twin towers came crashing down in September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

The tragic events of 911 sparked a wave of Islamophobia in America as Muslim and Pakistani immigrants became the latest victims in this nation's long history of persecution of religious and ethnic minorities at different points in the past. Earlier targets of such bigotry included native Americans, Blacks, Jews, Germans, Japanese and various Christian sects like Mormons and Quakers.

Little Pakistan in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York

Little Pakistan is a section of Brooklyn that is home to the largest Pakistani immigrant community in New York City. It was primarily a Jewish neighborhood before the Pakistanis chose it as their home away from home.

Soon after 911, US immigration and law enforcement officials, looking at its Pakistani Muslim immigrants in this neighborhood with great suspicion, began a massive crackdown that induced widespread fear and terror among the residents and drove many from their homes.

At the height of the sweep, over 20,000 people in Brooklyn’s South Asian communities left the United States, a COPO survey found, according to Gotham Gazette, a New York City publication. Many sought political asylum in Canada and Australia, and some returned to Pakistan and other countries. A number of them never returned. Many had their legitimate US immigration applications pending at the time. Others had their cases in immigration courts and they were waiting for disposition by judges.

A year after 911, the newly created Department of Homeland Security launched a special registration system, the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System or NSEER, requiring male citizens over 16 years of age from 25 countries -- mostly Muslim countries in Africa and Asian -- to register with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Although the system was terminated in April 2011, many law-biding Pakistani immigrants fell victim to it, according to Gotham Gazette.

"Before 911, you used to see hundreds of people walking on the streets," said Nadeem speaking to Gotham Gazette. Nadeem is now a store owner of a grocery store at the corner of Coney Island Avenue and Glenwood Road. "The FBI came knocking on people’s doors and asking questions. People were scared. Business dropped more than 50 percent."

Fifteen years later, the residents of Little Pakistan are still haunted by the nightmare of 911.  But life appears to be slowly returning to normal, according to media reports. Some of those who fled are coming back. New Pakistani immigrants are also starting to come into the neighborhood.  Pakistani food and clothing stores are doing brisk business as are the restaurants, beauty parlors and barber shops.

Off course, this could all change if Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nominee who has called for a Muslim ban in America, becomes the next president of the United States.

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Pakistani-American Demographics

Islamophobia in America

Donald Trump's Muslim Ban

Silicon Valley Pakistanis

What if Musharraf Had Said No to US After 911?

Here are a few facts about Pakistan's role in the "war on terror" since Sept 11, 2001:

First, none of the terrorists who carried out the 911 attacks on the United States were from Pakistan.

Second, the former Pakistani President Musharraf condemned the 911 attacks and quickly allied his country with the United States in the coalition to fight the US-led "global war on terror".

Third, Pakistanis continue to pay the heaviest price among the US coalition partners ten years after 911.



Would Pakistanis have been better off if President Musharraf had kept his country neutral after President George W. Bush delivered the following ultimatum to the entire world: "You are either with us, or against us?" Before answering this key question, let us examine the heavy toll the "war on terror" has taken on Pakistan:

1. Before 9/11, Pakistan had suffered just one suicide bombing — a 1995 attack on the Egyptian Embassy in the capital, Islamabad, that killed 15 people. In the last decade, suicide bombers have struck Pakistani targets more than 290 times, killing at least 4,600 people and injuring 10,000, according to data reported by the Los Angeles Times.



2. Pakistan averaged nearly six terrorist attacks of various kinds each day in 2010, according to a report by the Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies.

3. As of April 25, 2011, the Pakistani military has confirmed that since 2004, 2,795 of its soldiers have been killed in the war and another 8,671 have been wounded. There have also been 21,672 civilian casualties (at least 7,598 of these were killed) since September 11, 2001, up to February 18, 2010, according to the military.

4. Pakistan's current leadership says that the alliance with the U.S. against Islamic militants has destroyed the country's investment climate, caused widespread unemployment and ravaged productivity. The government estimates the alliance has cost it $67 billion in direct losses over the last 10 years.

5. There have been incalculable indirect costs of massive war-related societal divisions and disruptions caused by acceleration of internal displacements and migration and proliferation of guns, drugs and violence in major urban centers of Pakistan since 911, the most striking being the increasingly destabilizing violence in Karachi.

Now let's turn to the "what-if" analysis of the road not taken by Pakistan after 911 and ponder the following:

1. Would Pakistanis have been better off by snubbing the world's sole superpower which Musharraf described as a "wounded bear" after 911 attacks?

2. Would Pakistan not have been isolated as a pariah state by the United States with support from the international community by slapping the most stringent international sanctions imaginable?

3. Would Pakistan not have faced the combined military might of the US and India if it had not allowed American troops on its territory to fight Taliban in Afghanistan after 9/11 terror attacks?

4. Would parts of Pakistan not have been heavily bombed into "stone age" with some parts of the country occupied by US military to facilitate NATO supply lines into Afghanistan?

5. Would there not have been an even more violent insurgency against foreign occupation and more frequent suicide bombings with even more horrible consequences for the civilian population of Pakistan?

As mightily as Pakistan has suffered at the hands of the Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists and their affiliates since 911, I do believe that Pakistanis would have been much worse off if Musharraf had not sided with the United States when asked after the worst terror attacks on US mainland.

As the only nation in the history of the world to have used nuclear weapons against civilian targets, I have to agree with Stratfor's George Friedman's characterization of America as "barbaric", particularly when it feels threatened by any external force. I believe the United States would not have hesitated one bit in using all of its political, economic and military might against nuclear-armed Pakistan had Musharraf's decision been any different.

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The Next 100 Years

Seeing Bin Laden's Death in Wider Perspective

Musharraf's Legacy

Seeing Osama Bin Laden's Death in Broader Perspective

Usama Bin Laden was not only the "Most Wanted" man for his horrible crimes against innocent civilians, but also the most hated person in the world, particularly in the United States where his al Qaeda terrorists killed thousands of innocent people on Sept 11, 2001. So it's not a surprise to see on TV wildly cheering crowds in America celebrating his death announced by President Obama on May 1, 2011. In polling by the Pew Research Center before he was killed, support for bin Laden in Pakistan dropped precipitously from a high of 52% in 2005 to just 18% in 2010, lower than 25% in Indonesia and 48% in Nigeria.



While many questions remain unanswered about the events before and during the US commando raid in Pakistani city of Abbottabad where Bin Laden was reportedly killed, it's important to put Osama's death in a broader context as laid out in a recent paper by the Pentagon's "Mr. Y" titled "A National Strategic Narrative". It's a wide-ranging and thought-provoking paper calling for reorienting American policy thinking from the current concept of "National Security" to "National Prosperity and Security".

An important step toward re-establishing credible influence and applying it effectively is to close the “say-do” gap. This begins by avoiding the very western tendency to label or “bin” individuals, groups, organizations, and ideas. In complex systems, adaptation and variation demonstrate that “binning” is not only difficult, it often leads to unintended consequences. For example, labeling, or binning, Islamist radicals as “terrorists,” or worse, as “jihadis,” has resulted in two very different, and unfortunate unintended misperceptions: that all Muslims are thought of as “terrorists;” and, that those who pervert Islam into a hateful, anti-modernist ideology to justify unspeakable acts of violence are truly motivated by a religious struggle (the definition of “jihad,” and the obligation of all Muslims), rather than being seen as apostates waging war against society and innocents. This has resulted in the alienation of vast elements of the global Muslim community and has only frustrated efforts to accurately depict and marginalize extremism. Binning and labeling are legacies of a strategy intent on viewing the world as a closed system.

Who is Mr. Y? It is a pseudonym for US Navy Capt Wayne Porter and US Marine Col Mark "Puck" Mykleby who are active serving military officers. The paper offers a disclaimer that "Mr. Y is a pseudonym for CAPT Wayne Porter, USN and Col Mark "Puck" Mykleby, USMC who are actively serving military officers. The views expressed herein are their own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Marine Corps, the Department of Defense or the U.S. government".

According to Foreign Policy magazine, "Mr. Y" pseudonym "is a takeoff on George Kennan's 1946 "Long Telegram" from Moscow (published under the name "X" the following year in Foreign Affairs) that helped set containment as the cornerstone of U.S. strategy for dealing with the Soviet Union".

The authors are senior members of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff who say they wrote the "Y article" in a "personal" capacity, but it is clear that it would not have seen the light of day without official sanction.

Relative to the latest developments, it's important to emphasize Mr Y's argument "to accurately depict and marginalize extremism" without alienating Muslim allies like Pakistan. To make this point further, let me offer the following quotes from a Washington Post Op Ed by President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan:

"Although the events of Sunday were not a joint operation, a decade of cooperation and partnership between the United States and Pakistan led up to the elimination of Osama bin Laden as a continuing threat to the civilized world. And we in Pakistan take some satisfaction that our early assistance in identifying an al-Qaeda courier ultimately led to this day."

"Only hours after bin Laden’s death, the Taliban reacted by blaming the government of Pakistan and calling for retribution against its leaders, and specifically against me as the nation’s president. We will not be intimidated. Pakistan has never been and never will be the hotbed of fanaticism that is often described by the media.

Radical religious parties have never received more than 11 percent of the vote. Recent polls showed that 85 percent of our people are strongly opposed to al-Qaeda. In 2009, when the Taliban briefly took over the Swat Valley, it demonstrated to the people of Pakistan what our future would look like under its rule — repressive politics, religious fanaticism, bigotry and discrimination against girls and women, closing of schools and burning of books. Those few months did more to unite the people of Pakistan around our moderate vision of the future than anything else possibly could."

Here's how President Obama acknowledged Pakistan's role in the Abbottabad operation in his May 1 speech televised live from the White House:

"Over the years, I’ve repeatedly made clear that we would take action within Pakistan if we knew where bin Laden was. That is what we’ve done. But it’s important to note that our counterterrorism cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to bin Laden and the compound where he was hiding. Indeed, bin Laden had declared war against Pakistan as well, and ordered attacks against the Pakistani people.

Tonight, I called President Zardari, and my team has also spoken with their Pakistani counterparts. They agree that this is a good and historic day for both of our nations. And going forward, it is essential that Pakistan continue to join us in the fight against al Qaeda and its affiliates."

After all is said and done, I think OBL's killing is at best a Pyrrhic victory for America, unless it's followed by a fundamental reorientation of US policy posture as advocated in Mr. Y's "A National Strategic Narrative" in its concluding paragraph:

"This Narrative advocates for America to pursue her enduring interests of prosperity and security through a strategy of sustainability that is built upon the solid foundation of our national values. As Americans we needn’t seek the world’s friendship or to proselytize the virtues of our society. Neither do we seek to bully, intimidate, cajole, or persuade others to accept our unique values or to share our national objectives. Rather, we will let others draw their own conclusions based upon our actions. Our domestic and foreign policies will reflect unity of effort, coherency and constancy of purpose. We will pursue our national interests and allow others to pursue theirs, never betraying our values. We will seek converging interests and welcome interdependence. We will encourage fair competition and will not shy away from deterring bad behavior. We will accept our place in a complex and dynamic strategic ecosystem and use credible influence and strength to shape uncertainty into opportunities. We will be a pathway of promise and a beacon of hope, in an ever changing world."

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British Pakistani Housewife on No-Fly List

A British officer has recently been fired for putting his Pakistani wife on a terror watch-list, according to a report in The Daily Mail.



He used his access to security databases to include his wife on a watch list of people banned from boarding flights to Britain because their presence in the country is "not conducive to the public good".

As a result the woman was unable for three years to return from Pakistan after traveling to the county to visit her family.

The act went unnoticed until the immigration officer was selected for promotion and his wife's name was found on the suspects' list during the vetting process.

The British Home Office said that the officer has been fired for gross misconduct.

This is not the first time that questions are being raised about the no-fly list. The process of adding names to the list has been a mystery since it was first launched in September, 2001. It contains names of little children, and of people who have long been dead.

Officially, the process to add or delete people from the list has been a closely guarded secret, with only bits of information made public during US congressional hearings, according to Wired magazine.

Even though the list has grown, but it did not contain the name of airline passenger Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab, according to ABC news. The Nigerian tried to bomb a Detroit-bound Northwest airlines flight on Christmas Day using explosives packed in his underwear.

Here is how Wired magazine and AP have described the process:

The first step might be a simple tip to law enforcement or an intelligence agent or may come from information gleaned from a wiretapped conversation. The tip is submitted to the National Counterterrorism Center in Virginia, where it’s entered into a classified database known as Terrorist Identities Datamart Enterprise, or TIDE. The database might include a suspect’s name and relatives and associates. About 2 percent of the names in the database belong to Americans.

Here information is data-mined to connect dots and flesh out partial names and identities. If enough information can be connected to a Terrorist Watchlist target, it’s escalated to the Terrorist Screening Center, also in Virginia, for more analysis. About 350 names are sent to the screening center daily.

Depending on what the analysis turns up, a suspect might wind up on the FBI’s terror watchlist, which includes the names of about 418,000 people — including a New Jersey eight-year-old who regularly gets frisked at the airport. Airport security personnel use the list to single out some travelers for extra screening or interrogation, and the watchlist is also used for screening U.S. visa applicants and gun buyers, as well as suspects stopped by local police.

To get on this list, there must be “reasonable suspicion” that the person is involved in terrorism, according to the AP. People whose names are on this list are singled out for questioning at U.S. borders, but they can still fly. A Justice Department inspector general report last year found that the FBI was mishandling the watch list and failing to add legitimate suspects under terrorist investigation to the list; at the same time not properly updating and removing records from the list so some U.S. citizens are subjected to unjustified scrutiny.

In order to get on the no-fly list, authorities must have the suspect’s full name and age and have information indicating that the suspect is a threat to aviation or national security. The final decision for adding a name to the no-fly list rests in the hands of about six people from the TSA, the AP said.

At this point, a suspect can either be added to a “selectee list,” a list of about 18,000 people who are singled out for extra screening at airports or be put on the no-fly list. Not all people on the no-fly list are prevented from flying, however. Sometimes authorities allow them to travel unimpeded, but place a tail on them to monitor their activity, the AP said.

Originally intended to be a serious intelligence document, FBI agent Jack Cloonan told CBS that the No Fly List has become a "cover your rear end" document designed to protect bureaucrats and make the public feel more secure.

"I know in our particular case they basically did a massive data dump and said 'Ok anybody that’s got a nexus to terrorism, let’s make sure they get on the list,'" Cloonan explained. "And once that train left the station, or once that bullet went down range. There was no calling it back. And that is where we are."

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Is America Young and Barbaric?

Contrary to the growing belief that the United States of America is already past its prime and going downhill from here, George Friedman, the Chairman of Stratfor and author of "The Next 100 Years", believes that the American Age has just begun. Friedman forecasts that the 21st century will be the American century. Surprisingly, he expects a significant challenge to the US power only from Russia, not China or other members of the so-called BRIC quartet. Neither India nor Pakistan are likely to emerge as great powers in this century, according to Friedman. He does see rising Turkey (allied with Japan and Germany in this century) as the biggest challenger to US power by 2050 after the reconstituted Russian challenge is defeated by the United States with Turkey's help.



Friedman argues on page 28 of his book that "psychologically, the United States is a bizarre mixture of overconfidence and insecurity". This, he says, "is exactly the American condition in the twenty-first century. The world's leading power is having an extended adolescent identity crisis, complete with incredible new strength and irrational mood swings".

There are three stages of development of cultures: Barbarism, civilization and decadence, according to Friedman. He puts the United States currently in the barbaric stage. He says that "America, like Europe in sixteenth century, is still barbaric (a description, not a moral judgment). Its culture is unformed. Its will is powerful. Its emotions drive it in different and contradictory directions".

Here are a few more interesting observations about the US conflict with elements in the Muslim world, and the emergence of the Turkish challenge by mid twenty-first century:

1. America is a place where the right wing despises Muslims for their faith and the left wing hates them for their treatment of women. Such seemingly different perspectives are tied together in a self-righteous belief that the American values are superior to Muslim values. Americans, being at a barbaric stage, are ready to fight for their self-evident truths.

2. Perhaps more than for any other country, the US grand strategy is about war, and the interaction between war and economic life. The United States is historically a warlike country. The nation has been directly or indirectly at war for most of of its existence...the war of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, Vietnam War and Desert Storm. And the US has been constantly at war in Afghanistan and Iraq since the beginning of this century.

3. The United States has achieved its strategic objective of further dividing and destabilizing the Islamic world after 911. The US-induced chaos and deep divisions in the Islamic world are sufficient to fend off any challenges to the US power from any of the large Muslims nations of Indonesia, Pakistan, Iran or Egypt during this century. Even if America loses in Afghanistan, it has already scored a strategic win against the deeply divided Islamic world.

4. After the second collapse of Russia in 2020, Turkey will be backed by the United States to emerge as a stable platform in a sea of instability and chaos all around it. The Turks will have substantial economic and military presence extending in all directions in Eurasia. Israel will recognize the Turks as a regional power and reach an accommodation with them. Eventually, the US will feel existentially threatened by the combination of Turkey's political and economic power, and go to war with Turkey. The US and its European allies will prevail over Turkey and its coalition by using space-based weapons and technology in 2050s.

Friedman acknowledges that 100 years is a long period to make forecasts about, but he believes that the knowledge of history combined with current trends make it possible to prognosticate about the events in the 21st century.

All analyses and forecasts aside, no one has a perfect crystal ball. Only time will tell how the new world order emerges in the 21st century. But I do think the demise of the US power is highly exaggerated, as are the predictions of BRIC's extraordinary rise in this century.





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Turkey's Erdogan Blasts Israel at Davos

Clash of Ideas in Islam

The Unitended Consequence of Charlie Wilson's War

The soon-to-be-released Hollywood movie "Charlie Wilson's War" tells the story of behind-the-scene activities that led to the massive CIA backing of the Afghan resistance against the Soviets in the 1980s. Based on a book of the same title by late George Crile, it focuses on the efforts of a "scandal-prone, womanizing" US Congressman Charlie Wilson and "out-of-favor, blue-collar" CIA operative Gust Avrokotos who both found a willing partner in Gen Zia-ul-Haq of Pakistan. Wilson, a congressman from East Texas with almost no Jewish constituents, was a strong supporter of Israel as he saw Israelis as the underdogs surrounded by Arab enemies armed by the Soviets. His support for the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan was motivated by his hatred of communism and the Soviet Union that he saw as the evil empire. That may also be why he ignored any concerns about the unintended consequences of his actions in supporting a strongly religious band of Islamic fighters who disliked western values and culture as much as they hated communism.
George Crile connects the dots from the CIA's supply of weapons and training to the Muslim fighters in Afghanistan to the the fall of the Soviet Union and then the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, 2001, concluding that the terrorism we face today is the unintended consequence of our actions in Afghanistan back in the 80s. Crile starts with this conclusion at the very outset and then spends the rest of the book backing his conclusion with facts and figures he gathered in his research. Having been a producer of CBS 60 Minutes, Crile was well equipped to write such a book. Let's wait and see if this movie does justice to a great story. With the star-studded cast including Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman, it should be a big draw at the box office.



The big question that will continue to loom for Americans and the world is whether we have learned any lessons to avoid even greater and more disastrous but unintended consequences of our current actions in the ongoing "war on terror".

Here's a trailer of this movie: