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Nigeria military nabs Bokoboy at senator's home
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Page 6: Politix
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India-Pakistan
For and against Malala Yousafzai -- Ishtiaq Ahmed
[Pak Daily Times] The world on the lam and particularly the majority of the people of Pakistain are holding their breath as the 14-year old Malala Yousafzai struggles for her life after suffering grievous injuries at the hands of Taliban gunnies, who on October 9, 2012, stopped her school bus, in Mingora, Swat
...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat...
and shot her in the head and neck. Two other girls in the bus were also injured. Malala received the best medical care that Pakistain could offer, and once her situation allowed, she has been sent to a specialist hospital in Birmingham, UK, where the reports suggest that she is slowly but steadily recovering. Other victims of Taliban terror have not received the same attention. Thus she is lucky because her activities in the international media, beginning with the blog at the BBC in early 2009 that exposed Talban atrocities, had made her famous.

Government and the middle of the road political opposition have been quite vocal in condemning the liquidation attempt. Army chief General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani
... four star general, current Chief of Army Staff of the Mighty Pak Army. Kayani is the former Director General of ISI...
went to the hospital to express his sympathy for Malala. Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf also visited her in the hospital and President Zardari has described her as a symbol of Pakistain's resistance to 'Talibanisation'.

With regard to the Islamists of different varieties, the situation is, as always, full of circumlocutions. Thus for example, 50 holy mans of the Barelvi-Sufi Sunni Ittehad Council have issued a fatwa (religious edict) against those who tried to kill her. They have opined that Islam does not prohibit females from acquiring education. In the same fatwa, however, they have declared the United States as an enemy of Islam and Pakistain.

The logical connection between the two stands is difficult to figure out, but it seems to be a way of saying that all the troubles in Pakistain originate from its alliance with the Americans, who have been firing missiles from their drones, thus killing many innocent Paks. The Jamaat-e-Islami
...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores...
's Syed Munawwar Hassan and the head of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba
...the Army of the Pure, an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is banned, always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI...
and many other Deobandi-Wahabi holy mans have also spoken in similar terms.

However,
a person who gets all wrapped up in himself makes a mighty small package...
the Taliban seem undeterred and unrepentant. They have found support for their vile crime from sacred sources. They have asserted that a female who plays a role in the 'war against the mujahideen' can be and should be killed. They invoke an example of the Prophet Muhammad ((PTUI!)):

"[W]e can see the incident of the killing of his wife by a blind companion of Prophet Muhammad ((PTUI!)) because she used to say demeaning words for the Prophet ((PTUI!)) and the Prophet ((PTUI!)) praised that act."

Moreover, they refer to a Koranic verse, which according to them justifies their decision to eliminate her: "If anyone argues about her young age, then the story of Hazrat Khizar in the Koran (states that) while travelling with Prophet Musa (AS), (he) killed a child. Arguing about the reason for his killing, he said that the parents of this child were pious and in the future he (the child) would cause a bad name for them."

Now, if both sides can refer to the same sources to reach diametrically opposite conclusions then how on earth can such controversies now or in the future be resolved through discussion and consensus? For 1,400 years, this mode of argumentation has effectively killed self-criticism and independent thinking.

However,
the hip bone's connected to the leg bone...
far more worrisome is the Pak ruling class's ambivalence and indecisiveness. Pakistain has been shocking the world by recurring acts of terrorism carried out by the Taliban and their associates and the power elite remaining paralysed and apathetic. Who can forget that when Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer was mercilessly bumped off by his own police bodyguard, Mumtaz Qadri, some of his own colleagues in the federal and provincial cabinets issued statements that seemed to condone the action of that culprit. The presiding judge, Pervaiz Ali Shah, who found Qadri guilty of murder, has since then been on a visit to the holy land, and as far as I know has not returned. The killers of the federal minister for minority affairs, the Catholic Shahbaz Bhatti, have similarly not been punished for their crime yet. Then, of course, gruesome attacks on religious and sectarian minorities have been going on for years. Much worse, the Taliban recently beheaded Pak military personnel and yet nothing decisive happened. One can see on YouTube the shocking execution of these men being carried out in a barbaric manner.

So, how can one explain that a nuclear weapons state possessing one of the biggest and best trained militaries in the developing world is unable to strike and destroy the scourge that brutalises its citizens and has the temerity to kill its military personnel with such unmitigated savagery? I have no answers or explanation. To believe that these demented killers please God through their crimes against humanity and are somehow strategic assets that in a post-US-NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants...
Afghanistan will help restore our ascendance in that country is sheer lunacy. At some point, the whole system will explode. If there is a will not to let this happen, then the Taliban-al Qaeda enclaves in North Wazoo and elsewhere must be destroyed.

It may be noted that on facebook, fans of the Taliban are busy pedalling theories that the army has itself criminal masterminded the assault on Malala Yousafzai in order to justify an invasion of North Waziristan! More ludicrous conspiracy theories cannot be imagined, but in Pakistain, perverted imagination has been having a field day since a long time.
Posted by: Fred || 10/21/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Fragility Of The Pakistani Mind
Malala has caused bifurcation of the Pak mind: now there is a possibility of fighting two enemies instead of just one

Just when Pakistain was completing its conversion of the process of redesignation of enemies, it has been challenged by the need to interpret the attempted liquidation of teenaged Malala Yousafzai by the Taliban. America and its allies had been established as the real enemy after the surrogate violence in the wake of America's act of blasphemy - surrogate because it was actually meant to be used against the terror of Taliban.

The virtual uprising against blasphemy completed the process of reinterpretation of terror. Everyone participated in it: the Army, the government in power, and political as well as religious opposition. This was a consensus in favour of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) and other affiliates of Al Qaeda found in the madrassa network and the non state actors enraged by the abandonment of jihad against India. The media presented this picture in hopes of appeasing hard boyz through a coincidence of 'explication' of terror coming from the trio of Pakistain's real enemies: America, India and Israel.

Malala has caused bifurcation of the Pak mind: now there is a possibility of fighting two enemies instead of just America, both beyond the capacity of Pakistain Army to defeat. There is therefore resistance to moving to a binary of national challenge from the comfort of the consensus of hating America with the not so hidden process of appeasement of TTP-Al Qaeda. The spontaneous anti-TTP demonstration of opinion has benefited the Army chief most of all after his 'unusual' 14th August declaration that the war against extremism-terrorism was Pakistain's war. That however does not mean that he will now attack North Wazoo.

Another dose of targeted acts of terror may soon teach the TV channels to tone down the so-called 'consensual outrage' against the Taliban in favour of the still persisting 'consensual outrage' against America
The 'strategy of fear' was threatened with overthrow by the direct condemnation of TTP even though past experience tells us that the TTP is too powerful inside an internationally isolated Pakistain to rest in retreat for too long. In 2009, another girl, a housewife, was publicly flogged by the Taliban after which a similar trauma had been caused, ending in the ouster of TTP from Swat. According to ANP leader Afzal Khan Lala, 'A boy who had joined the Taliban had a liking for the girl, but the marriage proposal was refused by the family. One day an electrician was called in to repair an electric glitch in the girl's house, and the boy rushed to the Taliban with an accusation that a 'na-mehram' (outsider) had entered the house, which was followed by the flogging of the girl'.

The TTP sorted out Lala Afzal by attacking and wounding him. The rest of Pakistain too was gradually tamed, although the flogging had resulted in Pakistain Army - heretofore a spectator kibitzing daily beheadings in Swat
...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat...
- attacking Swat and ending their rule there. The emotional trauma caused by an unknown girl - through an only video tape in which her face was not shown - resulted in the displacement of 3 million people from Malakand. When the IDPs returned they were so relieved at the removal of Taliban from the scene that they accepted the suffering involved in getting rid of the 'just' system they had earlier welcomed while a religious alliance MMA was ruling in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central...
Is the new national trauma more intense than the one caused in 2009? One analysis says it is many times more intense because of the heavy volume of media coverage. Malala was an international icon and in terms of sheer proliferation of media imagery she was an extraordinary persuader. Does this mean that Pakistain Army will now fight the TTP and Al Qaeda? There are rumours that it is thinking of invading North Waziristan after reversing its policy of sheltering global hard boyz there as an instrument of its Afghan policy. But more sober reflection says Pakistain Army is not ready for it: it is overstretched in other Tribal Agencies, the conditions in Swat today reflecting the reality of these less than successful operations.

The other factor that goes against the possibility of a turnaround in Pakistain's diagnostics of terrorism is Pakistain's foreign policy. The Pakistain Army, which runs the foreign policy, is hardly ready to end the country's isolation in the region and at the global level. The development of the anti-American agitprop is more thorough-going than most people imagine. At a primitive level it has brought the identity of the victim close to the identity of the tormentor. The persuasion of this chemical process is too deep for a civilised man to fathom. It is almost certain that Pakistain will fail even more than in 2009 to confront the hard boyz and end their hold on the country.

The post-Malala debate reflects the crisis of the Pak mind. The Pak protesting against the Taliban in the streets is able to carry the binary threat (America plus Taliban) but not the religious parties, barring the unweaponised and non-jihadi Barelvi clergy that hates America for blasphemy and equally hates the Taliban for striking at their mazar-related centres of power. The Deobandi-Jamaat-e-Islami
...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores...
holy mans are less amenable to post-Malala change of mind and they are the empowered element in Pakistain's gradually dying state. They tend to connect the Malala incident to the transgressions of America through arguments that are difficult to accept. But in Pakistain it is not argument that persuades but the power to hurt people through kidnapping and murder that moulds the mind.

The liberals and 'the NGO types' may see the Malala incident as a precursor of another traumatic return to mental normality in Pakistain. But another dose of targeted acts of terror may soon teach the TV channels to tone down the so-called 'consensual outrage' against the Taliban in favour of the still persisting 'consensual outrage' against America. Since we can't fight the Taliban alone, and we have already isolated ourselves from the world, our ability to carry out the hidden post-Malala pledge is questionable. We can't even repeat what we did after the flogging incident of 2009. We will find it more comfortable to go on siding with the Taliban at the cost of losing the 'idea of Pakistain' to the pre-modern prescriptions on offer from Al Qaeda, the madrassa network and the non state actors.
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/21/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The CIA dropped the ball when it let Jim Jones get to South America. Think of the glorious possible futures if he had managed to get to broody Karachi.
Posted by: Shipman || 10/21/2012 10:09 Comments || Top||

#2  The Pak protesting against the Taliban in the streets is able to carry the binary threat (America plus Taliban) but not the religious parties

Memorizing the Koran in Arabic will do that to you...
Posted by: Pappy || 10/21/2012 15:14 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Violence Along The Texas Border
By a recent commenter at the Burg.
Posted by: Walt || 10/21/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:



Who's in the News
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Two weeks of WOT
Sun 2012-10-21
  Nigeria military nabs Bokoboy at senator's home
Sat 2012-10-20
  Leb: Wissam al-Hasan Assassinated in Beirut Bomb Blast
Fri 2012-10-19
  144 Dead as Syria Jets Blast Maaret al-Numan and Suicide Bomber Hits near Interior Ministry
Thu 2012-10-18
  Iranian-American Pleads Guilty to Plot to Kill Saudi Envoy to U.S.
Wed 2012-10-17
  ROPer arrested for attempting to blow up Federal Reserve Bank in NYC
Tue 2012-10-16
  Pak President Admits Creating Terrorist Groups
Mon 2012-10-15
  Gunmen kill 20 at mosque in northern Nigeria
Sun 2012-10-14
  Israel AF kills head of Al-Q affiliate in Gaza
Sat 2012-10-13
  96 Dead, Including 41 Troops
Fri 2012-10-12
  US names new diplomat to Libya to replace Stevens
Thu 2012-10-11
  US embassy security chief gunned down in Yemen
Wed 2012-10-10
  Turkey Intercepts Syrian Civilian Plane
Tue 2012-10-09
  Taliban bravely shoot Pakistani schoolgirl campaigning for peace
Mon 2012-10-08
  Syria Rebels Advance in North, Pushed Back in South
Sun 2012-10-07
  1 dead, 10 arrested in anti-terror sweep in France

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