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My experience with working with Pakistani people in the ME (15 yrs) was that the normal and acceptable thing to do, when confronted with any situation that might have personal repercussions, is to lie.

Now that sounds ignorant and probably racist (whatever that is today), but I speak from my own personal experience of numerous conversations and working relationships with Pakistanis.

When caught out in an obvious lie there is no remorse or shame. When I caught out an individual in this way I used to almost plead for an explanation, because I could not understand why anyone would lie rather than tell the truth, especially when the lie was so easily discovered.

The explanation went like this: ‘Why tell the truth at first? It is better to lie, then you can perhaps tell the truth later, if necessary. If you tell the truth right away, where else can you go?’ It is a pakistani culture thing, so don’t be surprised at incidents like this.

Even the spokespersons ‘...I am just an ignorant soldier and your are all brilliant, highly intelligent journalists’ line is part of the same communication construct to rationalize/explain/justify the untruth.

I eventually got used to it and adjusted my dealings with Pakistanis accordingly.