Braving Out...

The subject article was published a week back by Al-Jazeera & is written by Mr. Robert Grenier, CIA Chief in Islamabad (1999-2001) & former Director of CIA's Counter Terrorism Centre. I found it quite interesting & thought it worth of sharing. The link to full article is as follows:
http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/floodofmisery/2010/08/201081163736786...
"One hears the stories of building frustration, of bitter complaints against a government so often indifferent in the best of times, and simply unequal to the challenge in these, the worst of times.

But this is not what I see in the photographs, in the images of entire families clinging to trucks to gain higher ground, of people stranded on roof-tops or on the raised strips of highways, of those isolated and forlorn, reaching for a bottle of clean water or a packet of sodden food dropped from a helicopter.

In these images one looks in vain for signs of hysteria, or for righteous indignation. What one sees instead is what one always sees in Pakistanis - endurance: Simple, often noble, endurance.

I have lived some years among Pakistanis. I cannot claim to have done them much good. Instead, my preoccupations have been those which animate the game of nations. I have served a great power which hunts its enemies, pursues its interests, and tries to meet what it sees as its responsibilities in distant places, far from home. I make no apology for this; neither do I expect great credit.

But one cannot travel among the Pakistanis, as I have been privileged to do, without developing a great admiration for their decency and their dignity.

I have found the mass of Pakistanis to be honest, hard-working, devoted to their faith and to their families, hospitable and generous almost to a fault, and devoted to the defence of right as God has given them to see it. But more than anything else, I have come to admire their capacity for endurance."