Dirty American Hippies Love Lahore

Last Friday, the law enforcement personnel impounded in the Lahore Cantonment a vehicle used by American nationals and which bore a fake registration number. They stopped the vehicle for a routine check near Sherpao Bridge, but the American citizens, including a woman, refused inspection, claiming they were Americans and were not subject to snap checking.

Can you believe this arrogance? Such snap answers in aggressive nasal American accent normally unnerve weaker nations. Perhaps our security forces need to read the same rights that the American police routinely recite while arresting criminals. But let us not blame our own country in a hurry; perhaps our security-men only wanted to check if the foreigners had the right tools (for an inside job) in their toolkit. As we know already, American Dollars, American arms and American men-in-blackwater work fulltime to improve how God made this planet.

Anyway, the argument between our side and the suspected Americans side went on for a long time, the law enforcement personnel called senior officials to the scene for further action. This provided our side with a great opportunity to shake the white hands of the aggressive visitors.

Further questioning revealed that the vehicle bore a bogus licence number plate while the passengers allegedly indulged in a prohibited activity: taking pictures of the cantonment area.

One might say that questioning such folks is poor diplomacy but maybe our side, overcome with joy, only stopped them to enquire about the wellbeing of their families, a gesture which the other side reciprocated by not enquiring about the wellbeing of the families on our side and instead dialling the phone number of a globally unpopular uncle: Sam.

Sources said, an official of the American embassy also arrived at the spot and secured the release of the passengers, but the police refused to let the vehicle go as it carried a fake number plate.

Such was the loving embrace the two sides indulged in that they went on arguing in public for a long time. A colonel of the ISPR said the vehicle was ‘stopped for routine checking and only the police could comment on any further details.’ By this comment, he meant they wished to check the car’s oil level and wipe its windscreen without taking a dime or a nickel worth of aid from the guests.

The cantonment’s supervisory police officer said ‘the police had impounded the vehicle, but its passengers had been allowed to leave. So far, it is not clear if the vehicle bore a fake number plate, and hence no case has been registered against any one; things would be ascertained after thorough investigations.’

The eastern mode of police investigation will surely make the New Scotland Yard invent a new yardstick. Never one to be left behind, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif told reporters that he had asked for a report on the incident involving American nationals since it was the second such incident in four days at the same place. On December 8, law enforcement officials stopped two vehicles carrying officials of the American consulate, holding them for about three hours when they refused to subject their vehicles to an oil check and cleaning of dirty windscreen.

The Americans always spread themselves too thin. It is a fact that the American embassy staff members goes to great lengths to rescue citizens who cause troubles in foreign lands, for example, the numerous rapes committed by American troops in Okinawa, Japan. Please read my blog U.S. Military in Japan

They believe in rescuing their own citizens no matter what they are up to, while taking extraordinary measures to extradite foreign nationals to notorious far-flung camps for illegal incarceration and torture.

I remember the good times when dirty American hippies roamed Lahore’s streets without ever being bothered. With this silly G-WOE (global war of error) all around us, Lahorites are vigilant enough to spot ‘stupid white men’ (to borrow Michael Moore’s term) wearing dark shades and expensive clothing, travelling in black cars and unwilling to stop when asked. Perhaps the suspected Americans were the same dirty hippies who grew up to become employees of even dirtier covert agencies. Everyone knows that is true.