Ambassador Patterson leaving. Good riddance

Pakistan has had good US Ambassadors and really bad ones. Ms. Ann Petterson’s tenure in Islamabad cannot be described as a happy relationship. Ambassador Patterson was rude, arrogant and could not eliminate or reduce the friction between the two countries. In fact, judging from her statements, she was part of the problem–and was definitely not the solution.

Ms Patterson unnecessarily antagonized the Pakistanis with public statements, bluster and threats. There is a huge sign of relief that Ms. Patterson is leaving. The rude US Ambassador Patterson in hot soup

It would be nice if the new Ambassador read a book called “The Ugly American” and what the term typifies. Eugene Burdick and William J. Lederer wrote a book called “The Ugly American”. It typified the aggressive Expat American who behaved in an uncouth manner around the world. It is not the good American found on American shores. It is a different person who behaves like a Blackwater thug harassing men in Peshawar and antagonizing women in Islamabad. The “Ugly American” looks down on what he considers “the natives” and forces his/her opinion on the yellow, brown or black races. “The Ugly American” is unable to comprehend the history of Pakistan–the Ugly American only sees US interests and thinks of the “natives” as Kleenex tissues to be discarded after use.

Pakistanis remember Ambassador Wendy Chamberlain with much adoration and fondness. She was a genuine person, very well liked. Unfortunately, she had to leave for personal reasons. Robert Oakley was one of the best Ambassadors Islamabad has had. He developed a really close relationship with the entire government and people of Pakistan. He was the first Jewish-American who was appointed to Pakistan as Ambassador and did a really good job in building the US-Pakistani relationship.

Islamabad had hoped that Ambassador Robin Raphel would take her official position as the Ambassador. Ms. Raphel liked Pakistan and made many friends in and around the diplomatic enclave.  Ambassador Robin Raphel is the right person for the right job in Pakistan

The US administration is thinking  of sending another career diplomat Cameron R. Hume to Islamabad to replace Ambassador Anne Patterson who completes her three-year tenure in May.

“She deserves a less demanding job after three excruciating years in Pakistan,” a diplomatic source told Dawn while confirming that the Obama administration had selected Mr Hume to replace Ambassador Patterson.

In the US system, however, the administration nominates an ambassador but the candidate has to win approval from both chambers of Congress — in open public hearings — before the appointment is confirmed.

All American corporate executives go through sensitivity training about gender, sexual harassment, and racial tolerance. If employees do not conform to the secularist and neutrality of corporate America, they are discarded expeditiously. Those who do not learn, are forced by lawsuits to learn manners. American politicians have somehow escaped the sensitivity training which is mandated by corporate America. Their hubris and arrogance is matched only by inability to grasp the nationalism and geography of the countries that they are visiting.

Most American are usually extremely weak in world history and geography. The CIA fact book and the Foreign Service crash courses are also offered by the products of the system that thinks that the world revolves around the US and Europe. These Copernicus dinosaurs teach history from the Western perspective where the world map shows America in the center of the world, and the Canadian islands larger than most Southern countries. This US centric view perpetuated by bad cartography, and poorly created maps (which show “Northern” countries larger than Southern ones) create a horrid view of the world. Therefore US politicians usually come across as the epitome of “The Ugly American”. US Ambassador In Pakistan Forces A Newspaper To Censor A Known US Critic

This current ambassador never misses an opportunity to put het foot in her mouth. She behaves like a Viceroy and builds alliances with only the elite of Pakistan’s capital city. There have been charges of her offering lucrative contracts to her buddies. There is a lot of discussion about the way the US Ambassador has behaved in Islamabad. Segments of the Pakistani have called for her expulsion from Islamabad.

Mr Hume is currently the US envoy to Indonesia where he presented his credentials on August 1, 2007.

He is a member of the Foreign Service with the rank of a career minister, which is equivalent to a three-star general in the military. Ambassador Patterson enjoys a similar rank.

Her predecessor Ryan C. Crocker, however, as a career ambassador, was senior to both. A career ambassador is equivalent to a four-star general.

Mr Hume’s earlier assignments included Italy, Tunisia, Syria, Lebanon, the United Nations, and the Holy See. More recently he has served as Ambassador to Algeria and to South Africa, and as Charge d’Affaires to Sudan.

He has published three books and numerous articles on foreign policy, and he has been a fellow or guest scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations, Harvard University’s Centre for International Affaires and the United States Institute for Peace.

He is a lawyer and admitted to practice in New York and the District of Columbia. His foreign languages include Arabic, French and Italian.

In 1992, Mr Hume helped negotiate the end to Mozambique’s civil war. He also survived a rocket attack on his apartment in Beirut in the early 1980s, and was booted out of Libya following a 1969 coup led by Moammar Qadhafi. But he has never served in South Asia.

The US administration, however, feels that his experience in Indonesia — the world’s most populous Muslim nation — will help him in Pakistan as well.

Religious extremism is a major problem in Indonesia as well and like Pakistan, the country also has a large middle class, which follows a ‘moderate version’ of Islam.

Few American Ambassador have ruffled Pakistani feathers like the current US diplomat that resides in the diplomatic enclave. Previous American representatives like Robert Oakley and Ms. Wendy Chamberlin brought the countries together, and worked to build bridges between Washington and the people of Pakistan. They were very well respected in the land of the Indus. Ambassador Oakley actually paid with his life for his closeness with the late President Zia Ul Haq.

ISLAMABAD – Army Chief General Kayani protested strongly to General McChrystal about the undiplomatic behaviour of the US diplomats in Islamabad when the later met him in Islamabad on Tuesday. Kayani was particularly angry over the statements of the US ambassador and her deputy over the issue of the so-called “Quetta Shura” and insinuated threats of drone attacks on Quetta. Sources revealed that he gave a strong brush off also on the manner in which private US security concerns are flexing their muscle in different cities of Pakistan.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs had already sent two formal complaints to the US embassy before the incident of the Dutch “diplomats” and this incident has aggravated the situation further and may lead to a direct confrontation between the Foreign Office and the US ambassador.Kayani displays anger over US diplomats’ shenanigans, Published: October 08, 2009

“The Ugly American” refers to perceptions of loud, arrogant, demeaning, thoughtless and ethnocentric behavior of American citizens mainly abroad. The term is usually associated with or applied to diplomats, mercenaries, travellers and tourists, it also applies to US corporate businesses in the international arena.

The good American back home cannot comprehend the behaviour of the “Ugly American” and doesn’t even know about it

It is the “Ugly American” that creates waves of Anti-Americanism.

An FTA and elimination of tariffs on Pakistani textiles would enable Pakistan to export $15 worth of textiles. Better than any aid package this would reverse extremism

In a lopsided policy the US wasted $143 Billion in aid to Afghanistan and gave Pakistan $5 Billion. Egyptian loans of around $38 Billion were forgiven. Pakistani losses due to GWOT calculated by the US DOD were $20 Billion per year in 2001. These losses have quadrupled. Aid to Pakistan is less than aid to Afghanistan. This has to be balanced with need. The US uses Pakistani infrastructure to transport supplies without building or even maintaining the roads

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on Feb 24 2010. Filed under Editorials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry