Bombing Members of Parliament

Syed Akhunzada Chattan is a member of the Pakistan parliament, in the PPP, the ruling party lead. We meet in a huge complex which provides small apartments for each MP. Half a dozen constituents are sitting in his living room when I arrive, but he has agreed to share his views on the drone campaign in his native Waziristan.
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Syed Akhunzada Chattan is a member of the Pakistan parliament, in the PPP, the ruling party lead. We meet in a huge complex which provides small apartments for each MP. Half a dozen constituents are sitting in his living room when I arrive, but he has agreed to share his views on the drone campaign in his native Waziristan. Chattan is a tall man, well built, dressed all in black to match his bushy moustache. His eyes smile frequently. But the subject is deadly serious.

Chattan is vehemently opposed to drones. He has been outspoken since the first missile fell. It is surprising since his leaders, President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani, have been accused of hypocrisy on the secret CIA missile campaign in the Afghan border region - pretending opposition in public while winking at the Americans behind closed doors.

The Bajur Agency, Chattan's constituency, is in the FATA, the Federally Administered Tribal Area - a name left over from colonial times. There has not been a direct American attack in his town since 2008, when a Hellfire missile killed a number of children. Yet still the drones buzz around overhead every day. Chattan was there just four days back, and he witnessed it himself. Not far away, some other MPs were so close to being hit by one drone strike that they were on the scene in minutes.

While the Pradator drone flies high, the Pashtun civilians below know they are always armed. Even when nobody is targeted, the result is predictable. "Children wake up with nightmares of drones, all the time," he said.

"Once there was a time, in the 1980s, when the Americans were respected in my country," he recalled. "They were Kafirs, but they were Kafirs of the Book, not the Kafir-Kafirs who came from Russia."

Now all has changed. The Americans are the most hated of all people. His neighbours are all presumed to be terrorists. Missiles rain down seemingly at random. "Ten people from one house will replace the one person you call a terrorist," he predicts, bleakly. "Whether the original person was a terrorist or not, you just create more terrorists."

Chattan is worried about what all this does to the democratic process. "In the US, as in my country, the military and intelligence agencies are too strong for democracy to flourish. If the Americans listen to those who preach war, they will end up in only one destination, which is an inevitable decline around the world."

It is summed up, Chattan says, by his recent visit to the US. The tour was arranged by the State Department to foster goodwill, but Chattan came home early. When they were due to fly from Washington to Philadelphia (the City of Brotherly Love), he was told that he - as a citizen of one of thirteen listed Muslim countries - had to go through the new body scanner that reputedly projects a photograph of the traveller, technologically stripped naked, to the nearby security officer. Other dignitaries were allowed the alternative option, a metal detector and a pat down search. He said he would rather take the next plane back to Pakistan than submit to such discriminatory indignity.

"When there were floods, the US gave more aid than any other country, including China," he says. "But this generosity makes no difference when there are drones and such disdain for Muslim life; the US is now the most hated nation on earth."

Sadly, unless there is a change in attitude, so it may remain.