This Times Square thing has got me furious. I can't stop refreshing webpages about the jerk who attempted it. I feel like I'm cyber-stalking him so that whenever I finally get my hands on him, I can do the most damage. He's screwing with MY LIFE HERE.
My life includes a Pakistani-born man. One that will hopefully, very soon, become a US citizen. We already spend so much time in little border patrol & customs rooms, and now we'll have even longer wait time, even more questions to answer and hoops to jump through. Even AFTER citizenship, we will still be suspect because of this guy. On paper, this jerk and my Mian don't have a lot of distinguishing characteristics. Both born in Pakistan, both came to the U.S. on student visas, both married American citizens and will get a fast (-er) track to citizenship on that basis. Both travel to Pakistan frequently and recently. Customs & Border Protection officials (or for that matter the guys down at CIS) don't care that my husband is truly excited about his upcoming citizenship opportunity, or that he believes America is the best place in the world to practice his religion because of its tradition of personal liberty and diversity. My husband is actively involved and contributing to our American community. He is, to me, could not be more different than this idiot Faisal Shahzad.
We travel to Pakistani frequently. We do it to visit family, to visit my husband's favorite places. To instill in our son the history from where he comes, for the same reason we visit my family very often. He has two sides, it's important that he know both of them so that he doesn't one day make an independent movie about his struggle to "find himself." This is a net positive thing for everyone in the world, that my son have a strong sense of identity, that money is spent in the travel industry, that bridges be built between these two sides, even if its just my family's tiny rope bridge. We hope, one day, that we might get to go even MORE frequently that we already do. I'd love to travel around Pakistan more than I already have, especially to see the beautiful sights of the northern areas of Pakistan. They have a lake there called Saiful Maluk that looks like it might be the most beautiful place on earth. And it has a story about it of a fairy princess who lives in the lake and comes out at night. I want to go fairy princess hunting! But now, I fit a profile because of my suspicious travels. Any more or more frequent travels only make these suspicions more objectionable.
I don't know what I would do to this guy if I could get my hands on him. If he is the reason I never see Saiful Malook, I might wish bad things upon him over and above whatever jurisprudence he deserves for his crimes. It's like he was custom made to screw with my life. Of course all of these concerns would be trivial if he'd been successful in his terrible plans, but it's okay to think more trivially sometimes, isn't it? I just desperately want to be able to live my life without having someone else's bad deeds affect us. Effect my son. And they do affect us. Our life is ALREADY more difficult because of people like him. Unfortunately, it's likely to get even more difficult now.
