[THOUGHTLEADER.CO.ZA] In South Africa, the signing man told the world, you don't actually have to know what you are doing in order to get a job. You don't have to have any ability whatsoever, as long as it looks, to most, as though you can go through the motions -- whether you are a teacher, a police officer, a bureaucrat, a government official or (as some have suggested) a state president.
There are those who see through you and complain, but they are ignored. Ours is not a culture of accountability. So one gig leads to the next. You've done it before so you get to do it again, because everyone in a position of power agrees that the emperor's new threads are stylish. You stand there and tell us that the appearance of something becomes more important than the substance of it. Your obvious inability to do your job does not prevent you from getting ahead, until you reach the most prominent stage in the world, and then pretending suddenly isn't enough. Too many people noticed -- too many people who couldn't just be dismissed because of their politics or race, which is how criticism is normally dealt with.
Thamsanqa discovered that eventually, somebody will see what you are doing, and call you out on it, and there will be nowhere to run. And you will be blamed, and the decision makers who allowed a smaller lie to metastasize into this awful mess will escape censure. Because in South Africa, nobody is ever held responsible -- unless you're low enough down the food chain and lack political connections. Then it's all your fault.
In his desperate attempts to maintain a facade of functionality in front of the world, as he heard voices and saw angels, Thamsanqa Jantjie said more about the state of South Africa's current rulers than all the analysts and spin doctors ever could.
He might not have been able to express a coherent word, but the fake signing man turned out to be remarkably eloquent.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/18/2013 00:00 ||
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[Pak Daily Times] The Hangu drone strike on November 21, even before the fallout from the Hakeemullah liquidation had run its course, has further inflamed the drone controversy. Two aspects of the Hangu strike stand out: this is only the second occasion when a US drone has struck outside the FATA region and, secondly, just a day earlier, Sartaj Aziz, the prime minister's adviser on foreign affairs made headlines saying the US had assured that there would be no drone strikes when talks between Pakistain and the Taliban were taking place. While the first aspect marks a dangerous escalation of CIA drone operations outside FATA, the second appears to suggest that any US assurance on the counterterrorism policy cannot be trusted.
Did the Hangu drone strike violate the oral commitment by the B.O. regime to hit the pause button on drone strikes during peace negotiations between Pakistain and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP)? From a legal perspective, the US could well argue that the assurance was only applicable to drone attacks targeting the TTP leadership "when the peace talks were taking place". Since the talks have yet to be initiated given the TTP's refusal to enter into any peace dialogue with Pakistain and the Afghan Taliban, particularly the Haqqani network leadership, rather than the TTP cadre was targeted, the US has not broken its pledge. Such a US stance may be legally tenable but appears to be diplomatic doublespeak, the implications of which Sartaj Aziz failed to grasp.
The escalation of drone operations outside FATA is a cause for serious concern and needs further deliberations. When Obama took over the US presidency he called for a review of the US Afghan war policy. His advisors identified Pakistain's North Wazoo as the sanctuary of al Qaeda and Afghan Taliban forces, and recommended strongly that without neutralising them through concerted military action the US would fail to achieve its war objectives. Sending in US boots on the ground was the leading option and, if this was considered politically unacceptable, resolute and continuous strikes by armed drones was the next alternative. Obama opted for the latter and allowed the CIA to operate armed drones freely over FATA while exercising restraint when engaging targets outside. It appears that drone operations beyond FATA were reserved for very high value targets only. In the drone strikes in Bannu (2008) and Hangu (2013), the targets engaged were considered high value enough, where presidential approval to go beyond FATA was sought and given. If targets of the stature of Mullah Omar
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Posted by: Fred ||
12/18/2013 00:00 ||
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[Pak Daily Times] Chaudhry Nisar is one person in the government who is enormously upset over the hanging of Abdul Qadir Molla and has pleaded with the Bangladesh government to desist from opening up old wounds and inculcate a spirit of forgiveness, especially towards 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... Bangladesh. He chastised his colleagues in the National Assembly, especially the PPP, for not supporting the resolution condemning Molla's hanging.
In the same breath that the minister was asking Bangladesh to let bygones be bygones, he acknowledged that we have not learnt anything from the Fall of Dacca 42 years ago.
Whatever Chaudhry Nisar meant by that, it is true that we have never seriously discussed what mistakes were made then and have been condemned therefore to repeat them.
He asked the house to analyze and weigh the successes and failures the country has accumulated since the parting of the ways with East Pakistain. Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who who convinced himself that playing cricket qualified him to lead a nuclear-armed nation with severe personality problems... , while supporting the resolution, has asked the government to declassify the Hamoodur Rehman Commission report. MQM wanted other issues, such as the extradition of Biharis stranded in Bangladesh, added to the resolution.
The resolution, saying that Molla was hanged for his loyalty to Pakistain, was adopted with the house divided over it. This reflects the gnawing feeling within about the inhuman and shameful treatment we meted out to the Bengalis. Having reduced them to a virtual colony to fulfill the development needs of West Pakistain, the Eastern wing had been deprived of a life worthy of decency and political participation.
Molla and his like are being persecuted not for battling for Pakistain but for their activism to instigate massacre and genocidal killing of the Bengali intelligentsia and citizens. Forty two years after these events, we still lack the moral strength to face the truth.
It is ridiculous that we should be waxing indignant to condemn Bangladesh without so much as a nod in the direction of our own responsibility and culpability. This lends weight to the argument of the PPP that we should not interfere in the internal affairs of Bangladesh, on principle and for our hollow 'morality'.
Even if the government finds it hard to bring into the open the Hamoodur Rehman report, it could at least apologize for the atrocities of 1971 instead of feeding the rage over the hanging of someone who had been found guilty of the mass murder of our Bengali brothers and sisters.
Molla was not a hero, but Chaudhry Nisar and the Jamaat-e-Islami seem bent upon proving him one. Bringing the resolution into the National Assembly and then dissecting it threadbare was wrong. Similarly our penchant for blaming India for aiding the secession of East Pakistain is a convenient way to shut our eyes and close the door on our unacceptable deeds. The facts would not disappear by such gimmicks.
The only appropriate way forward is to own up to the atrocities that the state committed against its own people in East Pakistain.
Pakistain's relative political stability is a recent phenomenon. We have 66 years of tumultuous history dotted with disharmony between the Centre and the provinces, barring Punjab. We turned our heroes into villains. Those who were the flagbearers of Jinnah's ideology grew disenchanted with this state because the power that be considered them second class citizens. We did this to Sindh, to Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... and to East Pakistain. Even today our blame game stops at India.
So much for the desire to learn from history. The Fall of Dacca, as we commemorated the failure of our military crackdown December 16, was turned more melancholy due to Molla's hanging. The two issues were linked and raised to the same intensity, which shows our lack of acumen. Groping in the dark, we cling to anything marked Pak, be it religion or even the mistakes of our own making, without critically going beyond the surface of things.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/18/2013 00:00 ||
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Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria, the misnamed occupied territories, are not the obstacle to peace between Israelis and Palestinians. They are the acid test of peace. To argue that peace is conceivable unless the bulk of the settlements remain in place constitutes stupidity or hypocrisy. Given the nature of Western elites (not just the current Obama circus), why can't it be both?
#1
Just goes to show the Arabs don't want peace, they want excuses for their failure. Otherwise they'd be looking at the settlements as land value improvements paid for by someone else rather than obsticles.
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.
Wazoo
