DC DIARY: Up, up and away —Zeeshan Suhail

The facility at Goddard was constructed in 1990 and now houses 8,000 employees. NASA’s annual budget ranges from $ 3.4 — $ 4.0 billion — an amount quite close to Pakistan’s annual defence budget! This stark reality made me ponder how misplaced our priorities are

Today has been one of those days when I cannot help but think how fortunate I am to live in a city like Washington, DC. Not only does the city afford a myriad of opportunities to participate in activities that have an impact on the global state of affairs, it affords a chance to enhance one’s knowledge by doing simple things, like visiting a museum or attending a conference. DC is in many ways a microcosm of what the rest of the world should be like, a place where empowerment through knowledge acquisition is the norm — not the exception.

In the light of the above hopes and dreams, my readers will appreciate my recent excursion to the NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre just outside DC. NASA is the branch of the US government that deals with both earth and space science and is charged with research and education about these two issues as part of its mandate. The Goddard Centre is a sprawling complex sitting on hundreds of acres of land and truly feels like a campus. Most NASA staff at the complex dressed informally and were concentrating too deeply on their computers to realise they had 40 World Bank staff in their midst, busy taking photos every chance they got. This was, after all, a rare opportunity, especially for the staff visiting from Country Offices.

We were expecting to only be shown the Visitors Centre (where we saw two short films on the melting of global ice and the other on the largest planet in the solar system, Jupiter), but an acquaintance was kind enough to allow us access to the actual building where the Hubble telescope is assembled and tested. This telescope was responsible for providing insight into not only the age of the universe but the nature of stars and galaxies millions of light years away. Considering how large this telescope is (nearly 40 feet tall), it is not surprising that the building where the telescope is assembled was also fairly large, replete with its own vibration and acoustics testing halls. Another large, circular room allowed for the telescope machinery to be placed in a centrifuge machine that could spin at such a speed that the gravitational force would be nearly 20 times that of Earth’s!

The facility at Goddard was constructed in 1990 and now houses 8,000 employees. NASA’s annual budget ranges from $ 3.4 — $ 4.0 billion — an amount quite close to Pakistan’s annual defence budget! This stark reality made me ponder how misplaced our priorities are. In the US, an entire branch of the government does research and study on the earth and the galaxy we live in, as well as beyond. In Pakistan, instead, our research and study is barely of a level where a prospective student might want to go on for a doctoral degree. At NASA, on the contrary, the organisation will pay for every year of your graduate studies and then offer you employment upon completion, if the research and scientific interests align. This, my friends, is the difference between an industrialised country and a developing country: one understands the power of knowledge, while the other does not.

I left NASA in awe of what this country has accomplished in a field that Pakistan barely has any knowledge of, let alone expertise in. I was empowered by what I saw and learned, yet my heart ached for the path ahead for Pakistan. Miles to go before I sleep, as Robert Frost would say.

I returned to DC to finish up some work in the office but realised it was 8:30 pm when I was leaving. Aside from this city offering you lots of opportunities for professional development, it also leaves you with the feeling that you must always be productive — and busy! Yet when I was walking towards the bus stop, I noticed a lot of security. My usual walk through Lafayette Park, which is right in front of the White House, was disrupted by a yellow “do not cross” tape, which I immediately recognised due to the event about to begin within a few minutes: Barack Obama’s first State of the Union speech! It all came together now. Everyone was in a hurry to get home. Security was tight. A helicopter flew above the city, surveying the area below. It was like being in New York City during the annual UN General Assembly session! Ah, how I miss the protocol, the motorcades, the pomp and circumstance.

All in all, not a bad day, I would say. While many of NASA’s engineers and astronauts would, at some point, be involved in a vehicle that propels them up, up and away, Pakistanis are in dire need of a vehicle that also pushes them up, up and away: education. Aside from healthcare, it is the one true global ingredient for prosperity. All great civilisations moved forward only due to this core ingredient being mixed in with others to create something that had depth, breadth and volume. The people know what the priorities are. Now it is the politician’s turn to show that they do too.

Zeeshan Suhail is a consultant with the World Bank in Washington, DC and Chairperson of the Board of the New York City-based Muslim Consultative Network and a Board Member of the Washington, DC-based Americans for Informed Democracy. He can be reached at seeshan@aidemocracy.org

Source:dailytimes.com.pk/

US govt may hold Hambali trial in Washington

WASHINGTON, Jan 17 — The United States government is mulling over plans to bring Riduan ‘Hambali’ Isamuddin, the Indonesia-born terror suspect linked to the 2002 Bali bombings and several failed plots against Singapore, to Washington, DC for a trial.

The Justice Department is expected to make a final decision in a few weeks’ time, according to the Associated Press which first reported the news.

Attorney-General Eric Holder did not respond to the report, though the news immediately drew fierce criticisms from the opposition Republicans.

They argued that it would be too dangerous to conduct a high-profile terrorism trial in a major population centre like Washington, DC, adding that the costs of maintaining security during the proceedings would be prohibitive.

“Moving terrorist detainees to within a mile of the White House and blocks from the US Capitol for show trials is a mistake,” Congressman Peter Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement posted on his website.

“The American people, already reeling under the debt of crushing federal spending, should not be asked to shell out hundreds of millions more to satisfy the symbolic wishes of the Obama administration.”

The Jakarta Globe quoted a source from Indonesia’s national police force who confirmed that Hambali will be tried in the US.

But Indonesia’s foreign ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah told the newspaper that his ministry has not received any notification from Washington.

A similar outcry also broke out when it was announced that alleged Sept 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would be put on trial in New York.

President Barack Obama, however, has said that he believes criminal courts in the US can handle even the most dangerous terrorists.

His administration’s efforts to try these terror suspects in the US are part of broader plans to close the Guantanamo Bay military detention centre, which still holds hundreds of terror suspects, including “high-value” detainees like Hambali.

Hambali, the alleged leader of regional terrorist group Jemaah Islamiah (JI) and a key lieutenant of Osama bin Laden, was captured in Thailand in 2003. He was kept in secret prisons run by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) before he was transferred to Guantanamo in 2006.

He has been linked to the Bali bombings, which killed over 200 people, as well as foiled plots to attack foreign embassies and other targets in Singapore.

But media reports over the years suggest that the US authorities may not have enough evidence to convict Hambali. His treatment in the secret CIA cells could also raise serious legal challenges that could stop a trial or drag it out for a protracted period of time.

The cost of trying Hambali in Washington, DC could be in the range of US$250 million (RM835 million) a year, according to Republican Congressman Frank Wolf, who said his staff was briefed on the costs of the trial of the Sept 11 conspirators in New York.

“Similar assumptions could be made for security costs for any trial held in Washington, DC,” Wolf wrote in a letter to Attorney-General Holder that was posted online.

“A better solution would be to try these cases at the secure, state-of-the-art courthouse that has been constructed at Guantanamo Bay for this very purpose.” — Straits Times

Source: themalaysianinsider.com/