Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy, a physicist at Pakistan’s Quaid-e-Azam University wrote an op-ed piece for Outlook India in which he explored why young men from Pakistan have been gravitating toward violence.
The image below is a screen capture of the article in Outlook India. The American system’s resilience cannot be illustrated any better than the advertisement for Green Card Lottery that has been placed there by Google.
Even the story about the immigrant trying to blow-up the quintessential American icon, the Times Square in NY, shows that the US is still shopping for more immigrants of chance (the lottery).
[UPDATE, May 22, 2010: Faisal Shahzad’s wife and children were later reported to be in the Middle East with his in-laws.]
I have, however, not heard a single word about Faisal Shahzad’s immediate family, i.e., wife and kids. Media reports suggest that they are in Pakistan. I know that Faisal failed miserably in executing his murderous plans. I do not know how much of his failure was deliberate, given that he appears to be a reasonably smart man to execute what he intended.
Could he have done this out of fear rather than being driven by some extremist ideology. What we do not know is if his immediate family is with his parents or is being held hostage by some extremist elements who may have put him to undertake this task given his ready access to the United States. I raise this because adoptions and kidnapping have become a norm in Pakistan. Not at the goes by when children are kidnapped for ransom. Most children are never recovered alive.
I must add that regardless of the circumstances that drove him to contemplate mass scale murder of innocent civilians, his actions reflect a shear collapse of the moral order in Pakistan.
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