Originally Posted by bad manners
Why, indeed. Here is a story for you. I got my passport before 9/11. Like in 1996 or something and it is valid for 10 years. So I would use that passport for a couple more years, right? Wrong. Last couple of times I had to travel to the US they gave me hell, real freaking hell, because the passport was not machine readable and because my country was not keen on supporting the US in Iraq. Any visitor is now "assumed terrorist". Now add to that idiocy at the passport control the humiliating procedures all visitors to the US are subject to, and that might give you an idea why I think there must be some reciprocity.