The time is long overdue to get tough with young adults who believe that a visit to grandma in Pakistan should include a few months at a Taliban or Al Qaeda training camp.
I have an idea: if you're either a native born American or a naturalized American citizen of Pakistani descent and you won't voluntarily limit your visit to Pakistan to no more than two weeks, you automatically get onto the TSA watch list. If you don't return in two weeks you are automatically placed on the "No Fly List." Unless you can satisfactorily prove to the TSA you have a damn good reason to be spending more time in Pakistan beyond two weeks and deserve to be exempted from the exclusion, tough luck, buddy, you ain't getting onto a U.S. bound flight.
Anyone who thinks this is racial profiling is grasping at a very thin straw.
An examination of recent successful and aborted terrorist attacks in the United Kingdom and the United States have one thing in common: unexplained repeated entries and exits from Pakistan by second generation naturalized citizens prior to the actual perpetration of an attack.
Just take a look at Times Square bomber wannabe Faisal Shahzad. He was either self-radicalized or radicalized not by Al Qaeda per se but likely by the Pakistani Taliban terrorist organization - an expansion of the terror threat against the homeland. His travel DNA is revealing. Before the aborted attack last week, he returned from Pakistan on February 3 having spent FIVE MONTHS there. Moreover, Shahzad may/may have had something to do with a Pakistani militant involved in the Mumbai terrorist attacks two years ago.
Pakistan is a veritable terrorism supermarket and has become ground zero of Salafist terrorism and its supporters -- no thanks to an indifferent Pakistani government that has consistently turned a blind eye to to the threats its own intelligence agency -- the ISI help incubate more often than not.
Fortunately, the civilian Pakistani leadership has awakened to the threat, but it is weak and fraught with turmoil and unable to adequately control the ISI or the Pakistani military.
There are thousands of law abiding Pakistani immigrants living peacefully in the U.S. No one immigrant group has the organizational capacity to know whether any of their progeny may be up to no good. That is why it's time to compel anyone traveling to Pakistan to answer to federal authorities given the altered terrorist terrain there. Had Shahzad been forced to comply with this requirement... he either would have stayed here or never made it back here.
Better safer than sorrier.
I think you would be impressed if you took a trip there, if you haven't been there already.
And meeting a people is always the best way to break down barriers...
As far as I can recall, there have been NO incidents by Pakistani-Americans killing ANYONE in a terror attack in America in recent momory. This latest incident of intent to kill is serious, but no one was harmed, thank goodness.
And Pakistan is such a crucial ally in the fight against Al Qaeda/Taliban. It's no field day on the Pakk-Afghan border. It's grim. And about 5,000 innocent Pakistanis have been killed in terror attacks in 2 years.
I don't think we need to alienate Pakistan by this kind of an ill-advised proprosal.
Stand up to your military dictators
In the entire history of the United States, exactly how many terrorist attacks have been committed against us by people from Pakistan?
To my knowledge he is the only one for at least the last decade, and this guy wasn't even successful, he didn't kill anyone. So you seem to be jumping the gun condemning a country with the population of 116 million people
Its actually a country of 180 million people according to the latest figures.
And you are right , it seems the article is condemning all pakistani's. Whether they are pakistany american or just pakistany's. Very racial.
And he justifies racial profiling at the expense of American values as espoused in the U.S. Constitution and Common Law.
Way to go Obama Administration. More Faux Change We Can't Believe In.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East#Greater_Middle_East
I find that hard to believe.
Surely we have had Jewish diplomats to Israel
No, anyone who thinks this is racial profiling is 100% correct. Note that the proposal is limited to those "of Pakistani descent."
"An examination of recent successful and aborted terrorist attacks in the United Kingdom and the United States have one thing in common: unexplained repeated entries and exits from Pakistan"
Except, of course, for the ones that don't have that in common, such as the attempted Christmas Day bombing. Further,how does this assertion, which immediately follows his denial that this would be racial profiling, prove that it is not racial profiling? Rather than showing that this is not racial profiling, Ginsberg is trying to justify racial profiling. Too bad he has to make facially false claims to do so.
What ratio of innocent travelers to terrorist attackers was disclosed by your "examination" ? Link to data?
Did you ask for data when they said earth is round?
What does the sphericity of Earth have to do with faulty reasoning (Ginsberg's and yours)?
How about we stop sending drones to kill "these people", then maybe they wouldn't have this "rabid unhinged hatred".
Thank you Ambassador!
U.S has cultivated Pakistan over decades by supplying resources which has been used for all sorts of activities. Now, it can't control the monster it has created. The solution he proposes now is a 2 week vacation only policy. What a great proposal.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
for you to come up with this dramatic solution?
You are asking immigrants (naturalized or not) not to visit their home countries for more than two weeks. You are penalizing innocent , peace loving citizens. This is no solution.
Regards.