Why do we pick such useless heroes? During the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein. During the present crisis, Osama bin Laden. Osama t-shirts, Osama posters, Osama as David to the US's Goliath. As counterpoint to the glorification of Osama is the demonisation of the US. Then we complain about being branded as a nation of fanatics.

The Taliban at least are consistent about word and action. What they say is what they do. It is not so with us. Although there is no shortage of people here who deify Osama as a hero, the paradox remains that all these rooters for Osama would not put their money where there rhetoric is. The anti-American protests are confined to the religious parties. So they are likely to remain even if the attacks on Afghanistan stretch into winter and beyond.

Time was when Pakistanis were good at agitation. Not any more. They may be anarchic in their general behaviour but ever since Bhutto's fall they have lost the habit of protest. The agenda of protest has passed from the left and the centre - where it was once securely lodged - to the extreme right.

The left has ceased to exist. The centre has been represented by such incandescent figures as Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto. Any fire and passion that exists is only on the right. But the religious right does not inspire most Pakistanis. Hence the picture we see in Pakistan today: professionals and other members of the middle class capable of great verbal extremism but keeping their indignation confined to the rooms in which they watch television. Chocolate subversion: that's what these armchair agitators are good for. On the streets, meanwhile, march the cadres of the religious parties - striking figures on television but nowhere near strong enough to make things really hot for Musharraf and his fellow-generals.

This is not a case for mass agitation or for saying that we should rise from our couches and man the barricades. If the premise is accepted that we have a talent for choosing useless heroes, it follows that any agitation which has Osama as its central figure is equally useless. Since when was Osama's ideology ours? Since when have we espoused such a narrow brand of incendiary Islam?

We do ourselves no favour by placing ourselves in an extremist corner. The attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were an act of frenzied madness. There is no way to justify them, much less to see them in an ennobling light. Just as there is no way to justify the slaughter of Jews in the Second World War or the killing of Palestinians at the hands of Israeli soldiers. There are some things which lie not just beyond the pale of civilization - a word in danger of being misused in these trying times - but beyond the pale of human acceptance.

It is no good therefore for Muslims, wherever they may be, to get into the game of accusing the US of double standards or of trying to explain why the US evokes negative feelings in many parts of the globe. This is not the time for it. For to indulge in such an exercise now is to play into the hands of the very forces which are trying to demonize the Muslim world and suggest connections between Muslim anger and the attacks on the US. There are many charges that can be levelled against the US. Just as there are many things that can be said about the Muslim world. But the attacks on the US have to be seen on their own terms and not against the backdrop of any wider discontent.

Why then the Osama t-shirts and the accompanying hero worship? The religious parties live in a world of their own. Much before the present troubles began they believed that the Taliban had brought true Islam to Afghanistan. Supporting the Taliban is therefore entirely consistent with their world view. But what about the rest of Pakistan? Pakistanis cannot be expected to applaud the bombing of Afghanistan. But between this and the glorification of Osama lies a world of difference.

Who should have taken the lead in pointing out this distinction? Why, the government of Pakistan. But this was hardly possible when the government was playing as much of a mug's game as the mullahs. If the mullahs are at one extreme, glorifying Osama, the government is at another, succumbing to US pressure and accepting every last American demand without being sure what the quid pro quo will be for all this scraping and bowing.

That hesitation of any sort would have spelt Pakistan's ruin is an insidious myth spread as much by the Americans as our own government. True, we were not asked for help, no such courtesy being extended to us. We got what was little better than an ultimatum. Still, if we had said, "We are with you but let us discuss the details and what all you expect Pakistan to do" - would we have qualified for punishment by Tomohawk missiles?

The Americans could not have done without the use of Pakistani facilities. An offer to discuss options would have enhanced, not diminished, our importance. It could certainly not be read as refusal. Nor was there any danger of India taking advantage of the situation and ganging up with the US to flatten our cities (and our precious nuclear facilities). But like so often before, we sold ourselves cheaply this time too: throwing away our geographic indispensability for vague promises of future assistance. Even streetwalkers, the readiest of them, haggle.

On this occasion we fell below the level of the accredited streetwalker. Now we are hoping for a major financial bail-out but having put a low value on ourselves to begin with, we can blame no one else if the US is taking us for granted. We are in the eye of the storm but with little control over the action. Does the Pentagon consult us or give advance warning of its military plans? Do we have any control over the airbases we have given to the Americans? We said these would not be used for offensive action. What are the Americans using Jacobabad, Pasni and Dalbandin for? Not to lift mineral water into Afghanistan.

There may be some refuge for the wicked, none for the weak or faint-hearted. What we have been reduced to is to plead our various concerns: that the war against Afghanistan should be short and focused; that the Northern Alliance should not be given a free run to Kabul; that hostilities should end before Ramazan. As if our reservations matter. As if the Pentagon loses any sleep over them.

Granted these are strange times. The men who carried out the September 11 attacks may have been infected by a peculiar frenzy but in what may yet turn out to be their biggest success; they have passed on a portion of their frenzy to the US as a whole.

Bad as those attacks were, they do not come close to the scale of so many other tragedies the world witnessed in the last century: the first great war, the second, the Holocaust, Stalin's purges, the Chinese dead in the Korean War (nearly half a million), the American atrocities in Vietnam, the destruction of Cambodia because of American intervention, Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians. But because it is the US which is at the receiving end of this particular tragedy, the entire world is expected to behave as if the Apocalypse has been at hand.

At Stalin's rallies audiences went on clapping forever, for to be the first to cease clapping meant a trip to the Gulag. In America's hour of grief the world is expected to forget history and weep endlessly, for not to do so risks incurring imperial displeasure. Just consider why American officials hinted at the possible bombing of Iraq after the September 11 attacks: because Iraq had not been sufficiently clear in its condemnation.

In its undoubted grief and agony the US is in danger of forgetting what the Greeks taught: that hubris, or excessive presumption, invites retribution. While there is no denying America's distress, it will only help America's cause if this distress is not clothed in too excessive an arrogance.