[DAWN] ENIGMATIC and reclusive in life, his death is no less mysterious. Since his famous escape on a motorbike from Kandahar after the US invasion in October 2001, very little was heard of Mullah Omar except for occasional audio messages. Those too went silent few years ago.
Well-crafted Eid messages posted on the Afghan Taliban website attributed to him remained the only hypothetical communication with his supporters. The last such message appeared just a week before the breaking of the highly kept secret about his death, which it seems occurred some two years ago.
The circumstances and place of Mullah Omar’s death are still not known. The belated disclosure was bound to fuel all kinds of conspiracy theories. But the news of the death of a man with a bounty of $10 million on his head did not stir the world. Rather, there is concern over the possible unravelling of the radical Islamic movement.
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Posted by: Fred ||
08/05/2015 00:00 ||
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#3
Let's phrase that another way - the weakness of NATO allows Russia to become a major threat. 50 years of military welfare has a price when the Magic Money Tree to the West starts to dry up and withdraw.
[DAWN] It would be wrong to say that all madressahs preach terrorism and extremism. Yet enough of these institutions indulge in myrmidon indoctrination and play host to bandidosturbans or their sympathisers for the state to take action where their registration and monitoring is concerned. For example, it was recently reported that 115 individuals linked to banned outfits were 'teaching' at madressahs in the Rawalpindi district. If this example of the garrison city is anything to go by, it can be well imagined how many bandidosturbans or their sympathisers 'teach' at the thousands of madressahs spread out across this land. Secondly, unregistered seminaries are a clear security risk, for the state has no reliable idea about the students or faculty at these institutions. Looking at two urban areas alone -- Rawalpindi and Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... -- based on reported figures, it seems that there are 1,300 unregistered madressahs. Again, magnify this to the national level and it is not something that can be ignored by the government.
Madressah reform is difficult but not impossible. It is difficult because for decades, the state ignored and even encouraged the mushroom growth of seminaries for its own strategic ends. Also, it is believed that the government fears a backlash from not only the mainstream religious parties, which have a power base within the madressahs, but more ominously from the bad boy groups which have a support network in hard-line seminaries. Yet despite the difficulties, the state must march ahead with the reforms process. All madressahs must be registered and those found preaching hatred against any sect, religion or group, or providing fronts for banned outfits, must be closed down. Does the state have the wherewithal to do what needs to be done on this crucial front?
Posted by: Fred ||
08/05/2015 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] LAST week, a news crew was permitted access to a "de-radicalisation" centre in Bara, in the now long embattled northwest of the country. It was a supervised tour, in which officials of the Pak military who run the centre, shared information about how 400 former murderous Moslem soldiers are being de-radicalised. After taking the youngsters out of the battlefield, the facility provides them with psychological counseling and an education in Islamic history among other subjects, as well as training in technical skills such as tailoring, mobile phone repair and the welding of furniture. The last, it is hoped, will allow them to avail of options other than militancy once their time at the centre is over.
The effort at rehabilitating snuffies by the Pak military is a commendable one; as the military spokesperson quoted in the report said, the boys that are housed at the facility were fighting the Pak military mere weeks before they ended up at the centre. They are in this sense a rare bunch: those who have willingly put down arms and are choosing now to pursue an education. When they leave, they will still face many enemies who are angry at them for putting down their weapons and taking up with the government forces.
Bringing the concept of de-radicalisation, a process whose theorising and study commands many millions in the industrialised West, to Pakistain -- the continuing target of terrorism-related violence -- is an interesting one. In the years since 9/11 and the commencement of the 'war on terror', a vast number of think tanks and policy centres staffed by ever-growing battalions of terror and radicalisation experts have proliferated in the West. As countries like Somalia, Pakistain and Nigeria suffer the weight and casualties of terror's terrible cost, these centres have from afar and at times via enterprising expatriates from terrorism-struck countries come up with varying theories of de-radicalisation. The larger the budget afforded by the government of this or that industrialised state, the more extended the theory explaining what exactly happens to the naïve recruit taken in by this or that terror group. The success of actually being able to predict terrorist inclinations is not crucial to their task; more important is cashing in on an ever lucrative industry borne of a suspicious West looking eastward on the wanting rest.
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08/05/2015 00:00 ||
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[TIME] In which the author presumes to bitch at an entire nation for the sins of a few, which are being handled through the normal criminal justice system..
Posted by: Fred ||
08/05/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
Playing the devil's advocate:
The West, Israel included has created an immoral incentive structure during the last decades.
Bad behavior that is rewarded will be repeated, and additionally it will be emulated by others.
Self-examination is necessary. However honest self-examination will lead to conclusions that TIME won't like.
I am a Gold Card member of Starbucks. I love your products and have for many years, specifically the grande mocha with coconut milk, no whip, extra hot. That's my drink. I am two stars away from receiving a free drink on my Gold Card. I worked hard for that. It's not easy to earn your rewards and your coffee ain't cheap. But I almost have a free mocha out of it and I was looking forward to it.
Then I discovered that Starbucks is subsidizing Planned Parenthood, which has recently been caught on video tearing apart the bodies of fully formed human beings and selling off their organs to the highest bidder. So, not only does my tax money go to fund these inhuman butchers, but now my coffee money does, too. Not anymore. I don't usually support advertising boycotts because it hurts businesses that are just trying to market a product, but this time I can't wrap my head around why on earth Starbucks is giving money to Planned Parenthood. Don't you want more customers? Do you realize Planned Parenthood is killing off millions of potential Starbucks customers and selling them off for spare parts? Nothing on this yet from Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, other than reports that indicate he might be thinking of running for President of the United States...guess that party.
#3
IMO its both ludicrous + immoral for Planned parenthood to argue that Human embryos + fetuses do not constitute de facto human life until after the nine-month birthing process, but then proceeds to sell aborted fetuses to big research companies for profit instead of incinerating them.
Abortion patients are arguing that they would never had undergone the procedure iff they knew what PP was doing.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[DAWN] ENIGMATIC and reclusive in life, his death is no less mysterious. Since his famous escape on a motorbike from Kandahar after the US invasion in October 2001, very little was heard of Mullah Omar except for occasional audio messages. Those too went silent few years ago.
