Little Jack Horner sat in a corner eating his Christmas pie. He put in his thumb, pulled out a plum and said: What a good boy am I Childrens nursery rhymes, particularly those of western origin, were, quite often, blatant political satire, as was that famous childrens story Gullivers Travels by the Irish writer Jonathan Swift. It is, however, Little Jack Horner who concerns us here. Why he was satisfying his gluttony in a safe corner I have no idea; nor have I any idea why he was attempting to consume his pie with his thumb; but I do know that if this rhyme had been penned today, instead of somewhere in the 16th century, then Little Jack Horner would have been waving the stars and stripes, and the proverbial plum would be coloured green and stamped with a crescent moon. Obesity affects approximately one out of every three Americans these days yet their legendary greed knows no boundsnot only on the food front either as they have developed, out of paranoid insecurity, an insatiable appetite for other peoples countries and what they can squeeze out of them. Struggling, despite Obamas promised heath care reforms, to cope with rising levels of heart disease and other obesity related illnesses, America, the purported 'Land of the Free currently appears to be more determined than ever to gobble up this 'Land of the Pure and, when its finished masticating, will spit the indigestible gristle against whichever wall it sees fit as it did in Vietnam, some South American nations etc etc, and continues to do in Iraq and Afghanistan. America, in the relatively short span of its existence, has poked its sticky fingers in so many other peoples pies that it is now suffering from a dangerous form of internal indigestion that will, eventually and with a bit of luck, totally wreck its operational systems but, it will not fragment without putting up a fight. As its own internal combustion engine revs in overdrive, it is more determined than ever to throw up smokescreens intended to blind its own citizens to the un-sustainability of their lifestyles, dreams and desires which is where we, overly vulnerable Pakistanis, enter the fray. There being more ways to skin a cat than inveigle the said animal to leap at the 'paid for bait of a 'war on terrorism, America has, in conjunction with the aforesaid method of divide and conquer, apparently launched an undercover modus operandi by which it intends exploiting, then draining away, absolutely anything they can find a use for and are utilising strategic forward planning - something our consecutive governments cant even spell. Statements of intent echo through the airwaves on an almost daily basis now: America plans to revive our ailing economy, improve our educational sector, invest in our power dilemma, help us overcome water shortages amongst other unlikely programmes and last, but by no means least, totally revamp our agricultural systems with American expertise. Nowjust ask yourself.W-hy should America do any of these things for a country and a people their own citizens have been taught, increasingly, to revile? Okay. Now lets examine one of them a little closer: Agriculture, the backbone of our osteoporosis riddled skeleton, does, unquestionably, require an emergency injection of medication which, supposedly, government bodies such as NARC and PARC have been cooking up for decades and, if not, then fire the cooks and empower the farmers to get their act together themselves, something they are now quite capable of doing without foreign intervention if, a very big 'If, equitable land reforms are imposed as the biggest bugbear working against agricultural improvement is feudal lords continuing to fatten themselves on the carcasses of impoverished tenant farmers. American agricultural expertise cannot, or shouldnt be able to, do anything about this other than advise feudal lords to kick their peasants out, lock, stock and barrel, handing 'clear land over for American exploitation with the subsequent crops, in all probability, being marked 'Export only and destined to feed not the starving, now homeless and landless peasants here, but obese Americans 'back home. Water will naturally be required to nurture these crops to fulfilment as will a certain amount of power in one form or another. Before you can say 'Boo let alone think up a satirical nursery rhyme for future generations of malnourished children, Pakistan will be relegated to nothing more than an American backyard producing edible and other consumer goods for an increasingly sick American citizenship until, that is, we are all used up, fit for nothing and nobody by which junction, more likely well before it, our own government will scramble towards their overseas bank accounts, skipping merrily off to the 'Land of the Free or the like, leaving 'The Land of the Pure to stew in its own juice. It doesnt take a science fiction writer, which I am not, to see the writing on the wall and if none of the above seems real to you then give education a thought: Why does the American government insist that it must provide educational institutes here as, if it intends indoctrination of our future generations, then surely it shouldnt turn the present ones away from its 'hallowed shores. America created, to a very large degree, the spectre that haunts them now yet, even though we all, every single one of us who are, lets get this straight in the eyes of the law, innocent until proven guilty, frighten them to death yet, like a rabid dog with a bone, they refuse to let go. The writer is a Murree-based freelance columnist.