Ambassador Haqqani’s staff has been issuing blanket visas to anyonoe who applies. When the Pakistani Foreign Office checked the applications, and overruled the Paksitani Ambassador to America, a  story “about harassment” was leaked to the Washington Post. Who leaked the sensitive story is a matter of conjecture.

“They don’t want more Americans here,” another American diplomat said. “They’re not sure what the Americans are doing. It’s pretty pervasive.” Washington Post

ISLAMABAD – Pakistan has refused visas to as many as 137 US citizens because of incorrect information that the applicants provided to authorities through Pakistan Embassy in Washington, well placed sources told TheNation on Wednesday. According to the official sources, as many as 137 US citizens had applied for Pakistani visas during the last couple of months. After assessing their information, the authorities found the applications incomplete. In some cases bogus information was provided that led to the refusal of visas.

The problems affected military attachés, C.I.A. officers, development experts, junior level diplomats and others, a senior American diplomat said. Washington Post.

When contacted, spokesperson of Foreign Office did not confirm it. However, when this correspondent shared the details, he did not deny it also.

It is pertinent to note here that Pakistan Embassy in Washington had issued scores of visas to American nationals from different walks of life after Hussein Haqqani joined the embassy as ambassador about nine months ago.

The higher authorities of Ministry of Foreign Affairs began thorough checking of the visa applications of US nationals after it was found that some of the visa seekers had provided misinformation. During assessment of the documents, the authorities found the applications of 137 visa seekers incomplete and rejected their cases.
The authorities rejected the impression that the visas refusal is a reaction to the widespread anti-American sentiments in the country saying it was purely on merit.

“Had the visa seekers provided accurate information, there applications would not have been rejected,” one of the officials of the Ministry told this correspondent requesting not to be named.

The report of visa refusal surfaced at a time when a high-ranking official of Obama Administration, Chairman US Joint Chief of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, is busy meeting higher government authorities in Islamabad.

Sources in US Embassy in Islamabad, quoting American diplomats, said that refusal of visas seems to be a reaction to the widespread anti-American sentiments in Pakistan.

This correspondent has repeatedly attempted to get official version of the US Embassy over the issue, however, no body attended the phone call.

Pakistani officials acknowledged the situation but said the menacing atmosphere resulted from American arrogance and provocations, like taking photographs in sensitive areas, and a lack of understanding of how divided Pakistanis were about the alliance with the United States. Washington Post.

However the issue goes beyond visas. It is the arrogant hubris versus the viceral suspicion of American motives that is at the root cause of the problem.  

A snapshot of a traffic jam at a Military Police checkpoint in Lahore in the evening of Dec. 8, 2009.  Hours after a terrorist blast at a market that killed more than 50 women and children, two US Consulate Land Cruisers refused to allow Pakistani Military Police officers to check their cars from the inside. The ‘diplomats’ [suspected private security contractors] locked themseves in for three hours and were released only after Pakistani intelligence officers took them to an undisclosed location.

Special AHMEDQURAISHI.COM Report, Friday, 11 December 2009. WWW.AHMEDQURAISHI.COM

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—A young Pakistani Assistant Superintendent of Police [ASP] chased a fleeing US embassy car for two kilometers after it sped through a police checkpoint on the outskirts of the Pakistani capital on Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2009.   

When the diplomats refused to stop, the ASP drove past them and then sharply turned his car to force the US embassy vehicle to screech to a halt. He and his senior police officers insisted the US diplomats return to the police picket, apologize to the Pakistani police officers and submit to a security inspection of the inside of the car like all cars passing through the checkpoint, according to the exclusive report published by Lahore’s The Nation newspaper. 

The incident is significant because of the meteoric rise in incidents of public bullying by US diplomats and privately armed security contractors in Pakistani cities. At least three incidents have been registered by Islamabad police this year where armed Americans in plainclothes assaulted Pakistani citizens. 

There is growing evidence that Pakistan’s pro-US government has let tens of Blackwater-type private US security contractors into the country without taking the Pakistani public opinion into confidence. The Pakistani ambassador in Washington, who is strongly backed by US government and military, is suspected of having leaked confidential documents to the Indian media in September 2009 in order to embarrass Pakistan’s military intelligence community. 

Hours after a terrorist blast at a busy market in Lahore killed over 50 women and children on Dec. 8, two US Consulate Land Cruisers caused a traffic jam because US diplomats locked themselves inside to prevent Pakistani Military Police officials from inspecting the cars. The military did not release the cars without first taking them to an unidentified location for questioning. 

In October, Pakistani media reports said ISI Chief Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha told CIA chief Leon Panetta during his secret visit to Islamabad that Pakistanis have evidence that implicates CIA operatives in Afghanistan in supporting terrorism inside Pakistan. 

Pakistan is facing a deadly and sophisticated wave of terrorism targeting civilians in public places. The wave coincides with US attempt to shift its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to Pakistan on the unsubstantiated ground that Islamabad is responsible for the looming US failure in Afghanistan.

Ahmed Qureshi, Pakistan’s Sy Hersh describes certain incidents which are being denied by the US Embassy, however the Pakistanis beleive Qureshi and Shireen Mazari rather than the denials by Ambassador Ann W. Paterson.

The searching of American diplomatic vehicles at the many checkpoints in the cities has become one of the biggest irritants.

Because diplomatic license plates registered to the embassy would provide an easy target for militants, the Americans reached an agreement some time ago with the Pakistani government that their official plates would be carried inside the car, the spokesman said.

But the absence of plates left the American cars vulnerable to searches at checkpoints, he said. Under international diplomatic conventions diplomatic cars are not subject to searches, and American diplomats were instructed not to permit searches beyond opening the trunk, the spokesman said.

The Pakistani security official said, “We are in a state of war that calls for extraordinary measures.” His vehicle is searched every morning he goes to the office in Islamabad, and Americans should expect the same, he said.

Pakistani diplomatic personnel traveling through US airports and security points are not spared the searches, howevere US diplomats expect to be treated like VIPs.

The searching of American diplomatic vehicles at the many checkpoints in the cities has become one of the biggest irritants.

Because diplomatic license plates registered to the embassy would provide an easy target for militants, the Americans reached an agreement some time ago with the Pakistani government that their official plates would be carried inside the car, the spokesman said.

But the absence of plates left the American cars vulnerable to searches at checkpoints, he said. Under international diplomatic conventions diplomatic cars are not subject to searches, and American diplomats were instructed not to permit searches beyond opening the trunk, the spokesman said.

The Pakistani security official said, “We are in a state of war that calls for extraordinary measures.” His vehicle is searched every morning he goes to the office in Islamabad, and Americans should expect the same, he said. Washington Post.

It used to be the US officials were treated with spectacular friendliness everywhere they went–shops gave special discounts, and the people gave the Americans free gifts and smils. After the undiplomatic language used by US diplomats on National TV, during Congressional debates, and while visiting Pakistan–the American face a wall of silence and suspicious looks.

Much of the heightened suspicions about American diplomats appears to revolve around persistent stories in the Pakistani press about the presence of the American security company Blackwater, now called Xe Services, in Pakistan.

The embassy has denied that Xe operates in Pakistan. But those statements have collided with reports from Washington that Xe operatives are employed by the C.I.A. to load missiles onto drones that are used to kill Qaeda militants in the tribal areas.

The public distrust toward American officials has led many American diplomats to keep a low profile, and adopt a bunker mentality, American diplomats acknowledge. Americans are rarely seen in restaurants or shopping areas, and are in fact warned by security advisers to steer clear of such places. Washington Post.

Eight years of war, and Anti-Pakistanism in the US media has taken its toll. When Hillary Clinton blames Pakistan, when President Obama threatens Islamabad, when Admiral Mullen speaks ill of Quetta, and when General Patreaus backbites–all this creates Anti-Americanism throughout the world. The people of Pakistan are not oblivious to the happenings in Iraq and Gaza–all this is reflected the way behave on the streets of Pakistan.

ISLAMABAD: US Ambassador Anne W Patterson said on Wednesday that the Obama Administration was going to release direct budgetary support of $175 million hard cash to Pakistan besides giving $350 million in shape of Coalition Support Fund (CSF) out of the total outstanding amount of $1.1 billion before December 31, 2009.

“I don’t think that the travel advisory imposed by USA on its citizens for visiting Pakistan is hurting investment opportunities in Pakistan,” the US ambassador said while briefing a selected group of journalists along with Chairman Board of Investment Saleem Mandviwalla here at US Embassy on Wednesday. The News.