ALI SUKHANVER
Carelessness and negligence are the basic ingredients of a road accident whereas fate and luck also play an important role in occurrence of it. In the first week of this April, a US embassy vehicle ran over a motorcycle at the intersection of Margalla Road and 7th Avenue in Islamabad, the Capital of Pakistan. The vehicle was being driven by the US defence attaché Col Joseph Emanuel who simply overlooked the traffic signal and rammed into a motorbike. One man died on the spot and another was critically wounded as a result of this accident. The CCTV clip of this accident also became viral on social media which instigated the public emotions a lot. The officials of the two countries had to sit down and think over the solution to the problem. Later on, it was told to the media that as per Vienna Convention, diplomats cannot be detained, arrested and prosecuted by the host country for whatever crime they do. It means if a diplomat belonging to Pakistan or any other country unluckily faces the same situation in US, he would also be treated in the same way in the light of the Vienna Convention. In other words the Vienna Convention helps in creating an air of trust, security and confidence to the diplomats of the member countries. Trust is the basic ingredient which makes relationship solid and stronger particularly when it is among the nations and among the countries. Lack of trust increases distances and generates confusions. Keeping aside the sad incident of the road-accident in Islamabad, it must be kept in mind that Pakistan and USA have such deep-rooted and time-tested relations that simple road accidents could never breach their closeness. From health facilities to the supply of clean water and from educational programs to financial assistance projects, the US has ever been a great source of help and support to Pakistan in all matters. And same has been the role of Pakistan regarding US, though not in the fields of education, clean water and financial assistance; Pakistan has been helping US in so many other ways, particularly with reference to the war against terror. Pushing Russia beyond the Afghan lands and then maintaining law and order and starting economic activities in the war-stricken Afghanistan could have never been possible if Pakistan were not there to help and support US. If Pakistan had not provided shelter and support to millions of Afghan refugees, the situation for US in Afghanistan could have gone upside down. In short this co-operation between Pakistan and US has always run on the basis of equality rather on the basis of ‘give-n-take’. However some analysts strongly believe that in spite of, no doubt, a very deep-rooted relationship a secret rather hidden current of doubts and suspicions has ever been distorting the serene face of relationship between these two countries. In their opinion these two countries are like two lovers who are always peeping deep into each other’s eyes but with a grain of mistrust and such an unromantic situation is always very favorite to our ‘well-wishers’ like India. India tries to extract all possible benefit whenever there is a situation of misunderstanding between Pakistan and US by exploiting the situation. It is very much true that US is losing its control in Afghanistan because of the resistance and opposition of the local people and it is also true that many of the US think tanks have suggested to the Trump administration that US must not waste more of its time and more of its resources in Afghanistan as the people of Afghanistan desire to live a life of independence and liberty. Unluckily, India seems misguided by the notion that it has an ability of replacing US when US moves out of Afghanistan but at the same time it has very serious fears regarding Pakistan’s affiliation with the people of Afghanistan. More agonizing fact for India is that Pakistan’s affiliation with Afghanistan is not one-sided. Pakistan lives in the hearts and minds of the people of Afghanistan. So to counter this love and affection, India is trying all its best to create misunderstandings between Pakistan and Afghanistan and certainly to malign Pakistan in the eyes of US too. The only target is to promote an air of disbelief and distrust against Pakistan by adding more fuel to the fire of doubts and suspicions with the help of various propaganda tools. There are different web-pages, dummy newspapers, twitter accounts and watsapp groups where anonymous members are busy in spreading false and baseless information rather disinformation regarding ‘Pakistan’s support to the terrorists’ active there in Afghanistan. As far as the terrorists active in Afghanistan are concerned, they are those who once had been doing all this in Pakistan. Even then they had their headquarters in Afghanistan from where they used to sneak into Pakistan territory in guise of Afghan refugees. After Pakistan had shown strictness on the Pak-Afghan borders, the terrorists from Afghanistan lost all opportunities of doing interference and insurgency in Pakistan. Recently an article of Abhinav Pandya was published in the Fair Observer. Abhinav Pandya is a regular contributor to India’s premier think tank on security affairs and diplomacy Vivekananda Foundation. The only job of this so-called ‘think tank’ is to defame Pakistan and to frame it in every terrorist activity in India, Afghanistan and even in Bangladesh. The article said, “Pakistan’s lack of cooperation during the 2008 Mumbai attacks investigation, the discovery of Osama bin Laden’s hiding place near a military academy in Abbottabad, and the protection given to the recognized terrorists such as Hafiz Saeed (the mastermind of the Mumbai attacks) have exposed Pakistan’s complicity with terror groups beyond any reasonable doubt.” Similarly there are so many other fictitious web-pages which are knowingly or unknowingly also doing the same job. The recent road accident in Islamabad was also exploited by various India-based web-pages but the ‘innocent brains’ behind these fake-web pages are not aware of the fact that every US diplomat is not a Raymond Davis.