eternity,
Anyway I should thank you for at least characterizing as gullible rather than antinational.
I am not arguing a case that 9/11 has not made a difference in American Psyche.
May be the difference of INS is because of economy. One will never know. Historically, INS has always been indifferent. At every juncture, one can give one or the other excuse. About losing jobs, American economy was in recession even before 9/11. In fact job market started tightening with the internet bust in the later part of 2000. It is false argument to say that we are losing jobs because of 9/11. One can argue that because of 9/11 recovery of economy is taking longer. one can argue endlessly on that.
On the contrary, I believe the other way. Any nation in times of aggression or calamity performs better than in normal times. Japan has performed better after losing second world war.
India economy is growing at the rate of 5 to 6 % despite terrorism. Before 1985, Indian economy was growing at the rate of 3% per annum.
Similarly, American economy has shown this much resilence because of strong preservance of its citizens. Historically, American has always done better in times of war. Otherwise, the way the economy grown in 90's, the impact would have been horrible. Japan never recovered in the last ten years after seeing a gigantic growth in 80's.
I think because of 9/11 there has been delay of 2 months in our processing and considering one year period for 485 and considering other processing times, I want to reiterate that this delay is not significant enough to justify every other assumption. Always the last leg of journey is painful and even small delay we tend to see in telescopic glasses.
Sometimes, I wonder about the implicit argument that losing job here and going back to India is the worstest thing that can happen to an Indian . Has our education and our so called empowerment has not given us this much confidence that we can do better in case we go back to India ? If I accept the argument that everything is lost then what self respect we got as an individual or as a community ? This question bothers me further.
Before closing, I want to add one more point regarding the statement "You will not understand this unless you have someone close to you living in Kashmir". Personal suffering or personal depravation is not the qualification in itself to justify ones prejudices and one has overcome this personal depravation through intellectual quest and rational thinking.
thanks,
rajum