[Dhaka Tribune] There has been no political party in Bangladesh to have created so much of a storm and rumpus as has Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami ... a Pakistani catspaw remaining active in Bangla politix, loosely affiliated with the Pak religious party of the same name and closely affiliated with most of the terror organizations in Bangla. A member of the BNP's four party governing coalition.... .
Just prior to, and immediately following, the liberation of the country, there were a number of left-leaning parties and underground bully boy groups trying to formulate the impossible in the disconcerted situation of the time.
The leftists' role in 1971 also raised questions in many quarters. But those were not taken into cognisance by the state powers. The leftists ran out of steam, but somehow survived in the sidelines of politics. Meanwhile, ...back at the laboratory the smoke and fumes had dispersed, to reveal an ominous sight... Jamaat stealthily managed to shape them up.
For the majority Mohammedan population of the country, Jamaat was looked upon as the only Islamic platform expected to bring about a change in the socio-political arena as a peaceful Islamic entity.
Meanwhile, ...back at the laboratory the smoke and fumes had dispersed, to reveal an ominous sight... secularists had been either trying to position their causes to cast the religious-minded populace out of mainstream politics, or to enhance their standing by way of maligning the genuine figures that did not belong to the secular stream. Separating religion from politics had been their primary agenda.
Things did not work for them till now. A large number of people with strong religious conviction still believe that there should be Islamic parties to influence the country, if not politically, socially at least.
Bangladesh is a country of peace-loving, religious-minded people. Not only do we see the majority Mohammedans, we also see Hindus, Christians, and Buddhists living in peace and amity.
Maulana Abul Ala Moududi, who was born in 1903 in Hyderabad, founded Jamaat in 1941. His aim was to launch the Islamic movement in India.
After partition, Jamaat split into factions. Workers and activists later became Jamaat leaders. Time, place, and context changed. So did their politics.
After what the Jamaat did during our war of liberation, the party should have been dead and buried with the sunrise of December 16, 1971.
But Jamaat never perished. It came back bit by bit, shaping up into a force. It made its way into mainstream politics and public minds.
That Jamaat was never a peace-loving party is beyond question. It has been gathering strength with the assistance of our own community.
One by one, the collaborators of Pakistain popped out from various corners of the land and dared to raise their political flag. BNP was their first refuge, and at a later period, they also teamed up with the Awami League as a partner in a movement for a caretaker government against the BNP.
Jamaat did not hesitate to go against the BNP to meet its selfish ends. It engaged Jamaat as its partner in its campaign against the BNP in 1996. So the AL also pampered Jamaat as friends in need.
These opportunities gave Jamaat a boost. They thought that since the AL could treat them as friends, they might now be an authentic force in Bangladesh politics.
It again joined the BNP-led front and became partners in government. Posing as an Islamic party, Jamaat expected support in the polls, since the mainstream population was Mohammedan. However, it's easy to be generous with someone else's money... its share of votes did not pass the 3-4% mark at any time.
Jamaat was rejected by the people simply because of their barbaric role in 1971, and the politics of violence that they pursued.
After all these years, war criminals are standing trial and are being sent to the gallows.
Alas! Jamaat is still in the centre stage of our political discourse. The AL demands of the BNP to spurn Jamaat and come to dialogue with it. The BNP is not interested in following AL's directives.
Even the just-concluded national polls centred around the absence or presence of the Jamaat in the fray. Jamaat has been disqualified from participating in any polls by the Election Commission.
There has been demand for outlawing Jamaat. The government, for reasons unknown, is unwilling to oblige.
It is time that we deal with the Jamaat issue. Now is the time to get rid of the violent elements in our politics. Don't we have a finer political vision than Jamaati politics?
Posted by: Fred ||
02/18/2014 00:00 ||
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Legoland has been hired out to a radical Muslim cleric for a Family Fun Day. Maybe thats Fun as in Fundamentalism.
The theme park in Windsor, Berkshire, has accepted a booking from a man said to be among the top 25 hate preachers in Britain.
Haitham al-Haddad leads the Muslim Research and Development Foundation, which is based in Tower Hamlets, and is in favour of turning this country into a Sharia state.
Al-Haddad is an enthusiastic supporter of Taliban policies, believes that Jews are descended from apes and pigs, homosexuals are criminals and those who leave Islam should be killed.
All in all a charming gentleman who should be hung from the nearest lamppost if any legal excuse can be found, or shipped back to the land of his ancestors otherwise.
A curious finding emerged in the latest 13F by Soros Fund Management, the family office investment vehicle managing the personal wealth of George Soros.
Actually, two curious findings: the first was that the disclosed Assets Under Management as of December 31, 2013 rose to a record $11.8 billion (this excludes netting and margin, and whatever one-time positions Soros may have gotten an SEC exemption to not disclose: for a recent instance of this, see Greenlight Capital's Micron fiasco, and the subsequent lawsuit of Seeking Alpha which led to the breach of David Einhorn's holdings confidentiality).
The second one is that the "Soros put", a legacy hedge position that the 83-year old has been rolling over every quarter since 2010, just rose to a record $1.3 billion or the notional equivalent of some 7.09 million SPY-equivalent shares. Since this was an increase of 154% Q/Q this has some people concerned that the author of 'reflexivity' and the founder of "open societies" may be anticipating some major market downside. Make no mistake about it. The Obama regime has been working for this high crimes and treasonous scenario for 5 years now.
#1
You have to notice that G. Soros's idea of social justice (for that matter W.Buffett's as well) doesn't extend to not trying to steal everything that isn't nailed down. (I know, double negative, so shoot me.)
Posted by: ed in texas ||
02/18/2014 7:10 Comments ||
Top||
#2
The poor have nothing. The so-called middle class will soon have nothing, or even less. That leaves only the top ten percent and their IRS's and 401k's. It really was inevitable.
#4
Per Zero Hedge: "... the "Soros put", a legacy hedge position that the 83-year old has been rolling over every quarter since 2010, just rose to a record $1.3 billion or the notional equivalent of some 7.09 million SPY-equivalent shares. Since this was an increase of 154% Q/Q this has some people concerned that the author of 'reflexivity' and the founder of "open societies" may be anticipating some major market downside." <LINK>
In other words, Soros has been betting against the S&P for 3+ years. The news is that he has increased his position - The link also speculates that the trade may be portfolio insurance..
#5
You too can bet against the S&P and get twice the lift with the short ETF SPS. It was recommended just a few months ago by Forbes to have 10% of you portfolio in this type of fund to hedge against a collapse or correction.
If you do not have money tied up in the unfree market system then this is just abet for the inevitable.
#6
But instead of gaining a mighty reputation for his philanthropy, or his investment prowess, Soros is reviled abroad and criticized here in his adopted country. Most everywhere Soros, his foundations or his investing have gone, trouble has followed. Hes helped foment revolutions, undermined national currencies and funded radicals around the world. Soros has been convicted of insider dealing in France and fined $3 million, fined another $2 million in his native Hungary. His foundations have been accused of shielding spies and breaking currency laws and his investing strategy has been targeted for harming several national currencies. Excerpt from: Soros, Godfather to Leftwing Radical Causes. Another piece discusses: Top 10 Reasons Soros is Dangerous. One of the 10 point involves John Podesta who stepped down from Center for American Progress to come on board with Obama. There has also been a revolving door between the White House and the Soros-funded think tank, with Obama staffing his administration with many CAP officials. Podesta joined Priorities USA, the pro-Obama super PAC that is likely to cozy up to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. if she runs. It seems she has been running for some time now.
#7
The fines mentioned that were assessed to Soros are piffle. He spends more than that getting the oil changed in his private aircraft fleet. If you want do check out what the really big boys are doing, look here: Federal and state authorities have chosen not to indict HSBC, the London-based bank, on charges of vast and prolonged money laundering, for fear that criminal prosecution would topple the bank and, in the process, endanger the financial system. They also have not charged any top HSBC banker in the case, though it boggles the mind that a bank could launder money as HSBC did without anyone in a position of authority making culpable decisions.
Clearly, the government has bought into the notion that too big to fail is too big to jail. When prosecutors choose not to prosecute to the full extent of the law in a case as egregious as this, the law itself is diminished. The deterrence that comes from the threat of criminal prosecution is weakened, if not lost.
In the HSBC case, prosecutors may want the public to focus on the $1.92 billion settlement, which includes forfeiture of $1.26 billion and other penalties, as well as requirements to improve its internal controls and submit to the oversight of an outside monitor for the next five years. But even large financial settlements are small compared with the size of international major banks.
--- I disengaged myself from the markets in August 2007 and hold only Treasury paper and cash now. Prefer not to do business with organized crime. I am somewhat surprised the system hasn't yet collapsed.
#8
Given the Fed and Treasury have created out of thin air enough 'quantitative easing' to inflate the market to it present level, it's worth is about a third in 2005 dollars (as is your dollars to buy gas and groceries) already.
#9
Meanwhile, back at the front line: 33-year-old banker leaps to his death from JPMorgans Hong Kong headquarters, latest in string of apparent suicides
#10
it's worth is about a third in 2005 dollars
I have a years supply of TP, paper towels and US "Forever" postage stamps, the value of which is steadily increasing, which is somewhat consoling.
Posted by: Secret Asian Man ||
02/18/2014 18:22 Comments ||
Top||
#13
He did turn in fellow Jews to the Nazis. He is a militant atheist, wants a single language (artificial one like Esperanto), single world government that is all powerful, that kind of crap.
As for now, I wishe he would die in a fire. Slowly. Screaming in pain. He deserves it for all the evil he has done, and the evil he promotes.
I'm not advocating assassination, but if it were to happen, I would applaud the same as I would for Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, etc.
[Pak Daily Times] Bhutto was a symbol of modernity; Zia represented darkness and made Pakistain an entity of hatred where only Moslems of a certain school of thought could live, and where the more illogical one is, the more acceptance and appreciation one receives.
Seeing young Bilawal Baby Bhutto Zardari ...Pak dynastic politician, son of Benazir Bhutto and grandon of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. As far as is known, Bilawal has no particular talents other than being pretty and being able to memorize political slogans, but he had the good luck to be born into the right family and he hasn't been assassinated yet... spearheading the two-weeks long Sindh Festival is refreshing but is this effort enough to revive a Sindhi culture that historically has promoted peace, harmony and diversity among the residents of Sindh, irrespective of differences in faith? In his promotional video speech, Bilawal Bhutto said that the culture was in danger and expeditious acts were needed to protect it.
There is little doubt that after the demise of General Zia, Pakistain remains clearly divided between two distinct blocks, one associating itself with Bhutto, the other linked with Zia.
The block representing Zia is gradually taking hold of Pakistain while the space for Bhutto's mindset is shrinking. The recent threat from the Taliban to the peaceful Kalash community in Chitral to convert to Islam or prepare for elimination, or their stopping students in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. University from celebrating Valentine's Day instead of haya (modesty) day, are manifestations of that disturbing reality.
The incessant attacks on Shias, Hindus and Ahmedis in Pakistain indicate that people belonging to Zia's block hold the strings of our lives in their hands and that the militancy and religious extremism nurtured by Zia are making it impossible for people of other faiths or free thinkers (like me) to live in Pakistain. It seems that the sunlight is receding and the shadows are increasing in this God forsaken country.
The words 'liberal' and 'secular' have become gaalis (insults) in Pakistain. A good example of the dominance of Zia's followers is the weakness of Bhutto's own party on the small matter of unblocking access to the popular video sharing website YouTube, where it could not take on the radical elements belonging to Zia's block. Who could foresee in the time of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto ...9th PM of Pakistain from 1973 to 1977, and 4th President of Pakistain from 1971 to 1973. He was the founder of the Pakistain Peoples Party (PPP). His eldest daughter, Benazir Bhutto, would also serve as hereditary PM. In a coup led by General Zia-ul-Haq, Bhutto was removed from office and was executed in 1979 for authorizing the murder of a political opponent... that one day his own liberal party, after forming the government, would feel so weak and powerless against the forces of darkness that it would dither in its decision to unblock the website?
The PPP also failed to stand up for Salmaan Taseer when he was singled out by the media and religious forces for defending a woman accused of blasphemy. The constant media coverage awarded to Maulana Abdul Aziz, the man responsible for the killing of dozens of innocent people in the Red Mosque incident, is another reminder that Zia's forces are dominating the mainstream discourse.
Bhutto was a symbol of modernity; Zia represented darkness and made Pakistain an entity of hatred where only Moslems of a certain school of thought could live, and where the more illogical one is, the more acceptance and appreciation they receive. He turned Pakistain into a laboratory of Islam, the kind that religious forces dreamed of: a laboratory that is under the control of bully boy groups and their sympathisers, who silence any voice remotely connected with modernity and liberalism. What crime did hundreds of Hazara Shias commit that they were killed by the scores in Quetta? What crime did Salmaan Taseer, Shahbaz Bhatti and others commit that they were killed?
Meanwhile, ...back at the comedy club, Boogie was cracking himself up, but nobody else seemed to be getting the non-stop jokes... Salmaan Taseer's killer was garlanded with flowers, not by people in the tribal belt, but by people in Rawalpindi, in the heart of Pakistain.
The gangs -- the Sipahs and Lashkars -- are so numerous that at times it feels like we have outsourced security matters to them.
When I see campaigns and banners demanding Jinnah's Pakistain, I ask myself: is today's Pakistain not, in fact, Jinnah's Pakistain, despite the confusion and disorientation of the founding leadership? The leadership lacked a clear vision of what kind of Pakistain it wanted: a theocratic state or a liberal democratic state, of the kind Jinnah advocated in his speech just before the birth of Pakistain. Unfortunately, his decision to declare Urdu the national language gave the oppressors a tool that set the ground for alienation and separation. The language was later used by the Punjabi dominated ruling elite -- led by Pakistain's military -- against the smaller ethnicities like the Pashtuns and Baloch. What could be more ironic than the fact that the millions who were uprooted from their villages, cities, their hearths and homes, their friends and dreams, the people who actually steered the Pakistain movement, are, to this day, called Mohajir and more derogatively Biharis?
Because of the poor vision and shortsightedness of our founding fathers, in our first constitutional document, the Objectives Resolution set the foundations of a state that would later embrace a particular group of oppressors like Zia who left no stone unturned in their quest to shrink the space for people belonging to other sects and religions, and free thinkers.
Bhutto can never be more relevant than today. When I say Bhutto I do not refer to the person of Bhutto or his party but the philosophy of modernity, liberalism and secular beliefs that existed in pre-Zia Pakistain. With the arrival of Zia, shadows descended on Pakistain. If change is the only constant in nature, then the time for change has come. What the shrinking majority of Pakistain wants is the Pakistain of Bhutto, clear in its direction and outlook, a modern, democratic and secular Pakistain that is, unfortunately, losing its ground to the onslaught of Zia's followers and sympathisers.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/18/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
So true and sad.The vocal right led by the likes of Hamid Gul,General Beg and JI/JUF have too much power.I see the current PM as a fan of Zia/Saudi too!
DPC is a prime example of whats wrong with Pakistan.
The military-mullah axis is alive and well unfortunately.
WOT=Pakistan/Saudi and Iran.
Posted by: Paul D ||
02/18/2014 7:13 Comments ||
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[Pak Daily Times] The narrative that the Pashtuns, especially the rustics, crave sharia has been mainstreamed in Pakistain to the extent that even the most knowledgeable and liberal are falling for it.
The political shura (council) members of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) have now met with their intermediaries, 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 (JI's) Professor Ibrahim Khan and the Jamaat-e-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) Samiul Haq ...the Godfather of the Taliban, leader of his own faction of the JUI. Known as Mullah Sandwich for his habit of having two young boys at a time... faction's Maulana Yusuf Shah. The TTP reportedly gave a laundry list of demands to its intercessors who had been ferried to, no marks for guessing, the North Wazoo Agency (NWA), in a government helicopter. The TTP's demands, whether interim or final, include the imposition of sharia, reparations for their losses, release of their prisoners and a halt to US drone strikes. No surprises there either. However, some people cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go... what is alarming is the government's condition that "the scope of the talks should remain confined to areas affected by violence, not the whole country".
It is unclear how the government is defining the affected areas when three provinces reel under terror continuously. The government's functionaries and at least one member of the committee appointed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... , and a Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaaf (PTI) man, Mr Rustam Shah Mohmand, have been zeroing in on FATA only. It looks like the Punjab-based ruling and opposition parties have put only FATA and possibly Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... on the chopping block. The problems with this malicious move are twofold: a) it implicitly pins the blame for TTP terrorism on the Pashtuns only, and b) it ignores the plight of the common people, especially the Shias and the Hanafi-Barelvi Sunnis, being slaughtered on a daily basis elsewhere in Pakistain by the TTP and its allied thugs. An ominous media campaign that combines an orientalist view of the Pashtuns being 'noble savages' and a fanciful reading of the sharia seems to be setting the stage for sacrificing the Pashtun 'appendage' areas on the altar of the presumed 'core' Pak state, i.e. Punjab.
The narrative that the Pashtuns, especially the rustics, crave sharia has been mainstreamed in Pakistain to the extent that even the most knowledgeable and liberal are falling for it. Never mind that the venues of political and religious decision-making, the hujra and mosque, have traditionally been separate in Pashtun tribal society. The tribal jirga (court), which had lost its usual effectiveness a few decades ago, is being touted as the conflict resolution institution of choice in the second decade of the 21st century without realising that the Talibanisation imposed from above has decimated the societal structures that could support the jirga. More importantly, even at the turn of the 20th century, the jirga was not exactly the jury of peers it used to be in an egalitarian acephalous Pashtun tribal society that conceived it a millennium or so ago. The British, and then Pak governments had, as a policy, consistently tempered with the jirga system and handpicked Maliks who were awarded stipends and titles (maajab and lungi) to remain pliant.
Whether good or bad, those tribal elders were slaughtered wholesale by the Taliban. According to The New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... news hounds Carlotta Gall and Ismail Khan, 200 tribal elders were killed in the NWA in just 2005 to 2006. That violent spree has never ended. How could then one go about determining whether the TTP "enjoys the trust of the people of FATA" to grant them those hapless lands? Indeed, how could the tribal people let out even a whimper, let alone freely express their scorn for the TTP when the state, and sadly the intelligentsia, appear on the verge of abandoning them? The TTP's relentless assault on the Awami National Party (ANP), killing its leaders and cadres, was a major factor in its electoral rout, as the state stood by idly. The ANP's replacement by the pro-Taliban PTI has provided the TTP the same ideological, political and operational space as its antecedents enjoyed during the 2002-2007 rule of the religious conglomerate Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal. Mr Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who who convinced himself that playing cricket qualified him to lead a nuclear-armed nation with severe personality problems... continues to insist that the TTP respects the constitution despite the terrorist front man, Shahidullah Shahid, consistently deriding it on the record.
The TTP remains an ideologically anchored outfit keen to spread its brand of sharia across not just provincial but state boundaries as well. The tactical restraint the TTP and its allies have shown in Punjab helps it bide time till things become clearer in Afghanistan, ward off a potential military action and perhaps bag sections of FATA in the interim. However, some people cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go... in this sordid saga, the grand prize remains the Pak state, which the TTP may never get but, in its mind, deems imperative for helping and waging the global jihad. The Punjab-based rulers can try to encapsulate the TTP within the Pashtun lands but they are sitting on the powder keg of jihadism with assorted 'jaishes' and 'lashkars' headquartered in their province. The reprieve bought at the expense of the Pashtuns will run out in years, not decades.
The Pashtun politicianship, as bruised and battered as it is, has to get its act together. The Pashtun leaders, especially those in parliament, have a massive, historic responsibility at a time when those rulers who love highways, underpasses and flyovers in Lahore appear set to throw the Pashtuns under the sharia bus.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/18/2014 00:00 ||
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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.
Legoland has been hired out to a radical Muslim cleric for a Family Fun Day. Maybe thats Fun as in Fundamentalism. 
A curious finding emerged in the latest 13F by Soros Fund Management, the family office investment vehicle managing the personal wealth of George Soros.
...the creepy-looking former dictator of Pakistain. Zia was an Islamic nutball who imposed his nutballery on the rest of the country with the enthusiastic assistance of the nation's religious parties, which are populated by other nutballs. He was appointed Chief of Army Staff in 1976 by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whom he hanged when he seized power. His time in office was a period of repression, with hundreds of thousands of political rivals, minorities, and journalists executed or tortured, including senior general officers convicted in coup-d'état plots, who would normally be above the law. As part of his alliance with the religious parties, his government helped run the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, providing safe havens, American equipiment, Saudi money, and Pak handlers to selected mujaheddin. Zia died along with several of his top generals and admirals and the then United States Ambassador to Pakistain Arnold Lewis Raphel when he was assassinated in a suspicious air crash near Bahawalpur in 1988...
Nawaz Sharif
