Banned in Pakistan

WordPress notified me that one of my posts from 2015, France is jailing people for the crime of irony, has been banned in Pakistan.   This means that anybody in Pakistan who clicks on the link to that particular post will receive a notice that the post has been blocked by government order.

I assume the reason is that one of the illustrations is a blasphemous (to Muslims) cover of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, many of whose staff members were murdered five years ago because of such blasphemies.

Charlie Hebdo is still publishing, at an undisclosed and secure location, and still giving offense.  The magazine’s target on the anniversary of the massacre was “political correctness.”

LINK

Charlie Hebdo targets “new censorship,” five years after terror attacks, by Zeenat Hansrod for RFI.

China tries to draw Afghanistan into its orbit

China’s ancient Silk Road

China’s modern Silk Road

The U.S. government for 15 years has been trying to pacify Afghanistan, without success.

During these same 15 years, the Chinese government has been extending its power and influence into the interior of Asia by investing in railroads, oil and gas pipelines and other infrastructure across the region at the invitation of local governments..

The Chinese call this the “Belts and Roads Initiative”—the belts being the oil and gas pipelines. Others call it the New Silk Road.

Recently China made an agreement with Pakistan to create an economic development corridor, culminating in a port giving China direct access to the Indian Ocean near the Persian Gulf.   Now China and Pakistan are trying to draw Afghanistan into their economic alliance.

I don’t know how all this will turn out.  Many things can go wrong.

But it seems clear that Beijing has been more effective in extending its power by offering material benefits than Washington has by means of military intervention and economic sanctions.

Furthermore China’s policies have made it economically stronger while U.S. policies have depleted U.S. strength.

China’s new route to the Middle East?

China and Pakistan have announced a new $46 billion project called the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

Click to enlarge.  Source: Express-Tribune, Pakistan

It will include a new railroad connecting the Chinese city of Kashgar with Pakistan’s port of Gwadar, extensive development of the port and construction of new oil and gas lines connecting China, Pakistan and Iran.

Other benefits to Pakistan are highway construction projects, improvements to the Gwadar airport, and a number of coal, wind, solar and hydro-electric plants.  China in return gets to control Gwadar port for 43 years.  Pakistan gets highway construction and energy  reportedly is negotiating with China for purchase of eight attack submarines.

I think this is a good example of how China uses infrastructure investment to expand its power.  Instead of trying to bend countries to its will by economic sanctions and threats of military force, as the USA is now trying to do, China offers projects of mutual benefit but under Chinese control.

Click to enlarge.

The benefit to China is that it gets access to Iranian oil without having to transport it through the Strait of Malacca and the South China Sea, where it would be vulnerable to disruption by India, Japan or the United States.  The new route is 6,000 miles shorter.  Ultimately China may have a direct pipeline connection to Iran, without having to go to sea at all.

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor passes along areas controlled by the Pakistan Taliban.  This gives the Pakistan government a strong incentive to bring its wing of the Taliban under control.

Click to enlarge

The corridor goes through the portion of the disputed territory of Kashmir occupied by Pakistan, which means China thinks this project is important enough to take sides against India.

Previously Pakistan covertly supported the Taliban, and Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai allied with Pakistan’s enemy, India.  But the new President, Ashraf Ghani, has aligned with China and Pakistan, which, I think, is bad news for the Taliban and a good reason to think the corridor plan is feasible.

Afghan civil war predates U.S. invasion

The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was an episode in an ongoing Afghan civil war that began 40 years ago and will probably continue after American forces leave the country.

The basic conflict is between the Pushtu-speaking people of southern Afghanistan and the Dari- and Uzbek-speaking people of northern Afghanistan.

The Soviet-backed government that was installed in 1979 mainly represented Dari and Uzbek speakers.  The rebellion against that government, backed by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United States, was mainly Pustu speakers.  The Taliban are mainly Pustu speakers.  The U.S.-backed government in Kabul represents the same ethnic groups as the old Soviet-backed government.

This is the analysis of Chris Mason, a military expert familiar with Afghanistan, whose latest book is available free on-line in PDF form from the United States Army War College.

Mason wrote that there are many ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan, such that the English language cannot do justice to their complexity.

There are religious conflicts among the Taliban, moderate Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims.  There are ongoing conflicts the various ethnic groups—Pushtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Turkmen and Hazaras.  There are conflicts between tribes and clans.  If one clan supports the Taliban, the other is likely to look for help from the Americans, and vice versa.

The only time Afghanistan has enjoyed any kind of unity was been under its kings, who exercised a loose authority over diverse ethnic and religious groups.

This unity was broken, Mason wrote, when the Pushtun Afghan King Zahir Shah was overthrown by his cousin, Mohammad Daud, in 1973.  Instead of installing himself as king, Daud abolished the monarchy and tried to rule without traditional authority.  He was overthrown and killed in 1978 by the Afghan army, with the support of Afghan Communists—the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA).

The PDPA had two factions, the predominantly Tajik Parcham faction and the predominantly Pushtun Khalq faction.  With the help of Soviet Spetznaz commandos, the Parcham faction overthrew the Khalq faction.  The PDPA attempted reforms, such as redistribution of land and emancipation of women, which, although enlightened, were resisted by traditional Afghan religious leaders.

An uprising against the Soviet-backed government consisted mainly of Pustuns, Mason wrote.  Members of the other Afghan ethnic groups continued to serve loyally in the government’s conscript army.

From 1979 to 1989, the Soviets fought all-out against the insurgents.  They destroyed thousands of Pustun villages and massacred as many as a million Pustuns, he wrote.

The Soviets were merciless, murderous and went all-out to win.  I think their experience shows that mass killing is not the key to victory..

The Pushtun insurgents were backed by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI), which armed them with weapons provided by the CIA and paid for by Saudi Arabia.

Pakistan supported the Afghan Pustuns partly because many Pushtuns live in Pakistan’s northwest frontier area.  But the main reason Pakistan backed the Pustuns was the fear that their enemies would ally themselves with India, leaving Pakistan will have to face its main enemy on two fronts—Afghanistan and Kashmir.

The Afghan civil war continued after the Soviets withdrew.   Pakistan supported the Taliban, and provided its forces with air support and military advisers.  The opposing Northern Alliance—consisting of Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras and Turkmen—retreated until October, 2001, when the United States entered the Afghan civil war on their side.

The Bush administration authorized Operation Evil Airlift in November 2001 to rescue Pakistan troops trapped in Afghanistan.  Mason said Pakistan’s ISI used this as an opportunity to rescue key Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders as well.  Maybe one of them was Osama bin Laden.  Who knows?

The U.S.-backed government in Kabul is a Northern Alliance government, Mason wrote.  There are hardly any Pushtuns in the government or the army.  Official statistics to the contrary are bogus, he said.

When the United States finally withdraws, Mason expects Afghanistan to divide into a southern part controlled by the Taliban and a northern part controlled by the Northern Alliance, with neither side achieving a decisive victory in the foreseeable future.   Presumably the United States will try to aid the Northern Alliance and Pakistan will aid the Taliban.   It will be up to the various Afghan peoples, not any outsiders, to decide when they want to make peace.

∞∞∞

Click on The Strategic Lessons Unlearned from Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan: Why the Afghan National Security Forces Will not Hold and the Implications for the U.S. Army in Afghanistan for the text of Chris Mason’s book in PDF form.  I thank Craig Hanyan for suggesting it.

 

Glimpses of Asia – September 23, 2015

These are links from my expatriate e-mail pen pal Jack and his friend Marty.

∞∞∞

The Palaces of Memory by Stuart Freedman, review of a coffee table book of photographs of worker-owned coffee houses in India, by Peter Nitsch for The Cutting Edge of Creativity.

∞∞∞

What we weren’t told about bin Laden’s killing

Almost everything we’ve been told about the killing of Osama bin Laden four years ago is a lie, according to Seymour M. Hersh.  He reported in the current issue of London Review of Books that:

• The raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound four years ago was done with the full knowledge of the Pakistani government.  Helicopters carrying the Navy SEAL team were never in danger of being intercepted as they entered Pakistan.
• Osama bin Laden was no longer in operational campaign of Al Qaeda and the raid did not yield a trove of valuable intelligence.
• His location was disclosed by means of a tip from someone in Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), who wanted the $25 million reward offered by the CIA.   In particular, interrogation and torture played no role.
• President Obama broke promises to the government of Pakistan to keep the raid a secret.
• Almost everything that has been reported about the details of the raid is untrue.   It was more like a gangland-style execution than anything else.
• The SEAL team was ordered to kill Osama, not to bring him back, which would have been feasible.  He knew too much that the governments of the United States, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia could not have afforded to make known.

How much credence does this deserve?  Hersh’s article is based entirely on information from insiders who are not quoted by name.  How can we be sure they’re telling the truth if we don’t know who they are?

It depends on how much you trust Hersh.  You have to believe that he is an honest person, which I do, and that he is an experienced and capable reporter, which he is.  I trust him more than I do the government.  You also have to believe that the people he quoted are honest people who know what they are talking about.

A great deal of leaked information is from people who have an ulterior purpose, but I can’t see how anybody who talked to Hersh has anything to gain except the desire to make the truth known or to disassociate themselves from lies.

The lesson of this is not to assume that anything the government announces is necessarily true, unless it can be independently confirmed.  This is not a new lesson, but it is an easy one—for me, at least—to forget.

LINK

The Killing of Osama bin Laden by Seymour M. Hersh for the London Review of Books.

A Thin Wall

Last night I went to the Little Theater here in Rochester, NY, to see the world premiere of a moving documentary film on the partition of India and Pakistan.

It was directed by Mara Ahmed, a Pakistani-American women who lives in the Rochester area and studied at the Visual Studies Workshop here, and co-produced by Ahmed and Surbhi Dewan, who was trained at Rochester Institute of Technology.  I’ve lived in Rochester more than half my life, and yet never knew about them until now.

The movie is in three parts—interviews with their aging relatives and friends about the peaceful life in India before partition, then interviews about their terrible experiences during the massacres and flight of peoples during partition and a final part about the ongoing tragedy of division Indians and Pakistanis, culturally similar peoples except for religion.

It includes dream sequences, animation and poetry—all of which work well in the film.

The movie is so even-handed that I sometimes forgot whether I was hearing the experiences of a Hindu or a Muslim, their tragedies were so alike.

Blame for partition is put in the British and to an extent the leaders of the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League.  They did virtually no advance planning as to how it would be carried out.  Nor did they ever hold a referendum or consult the people on whether the subcontinent should be partitioned in the first place.

I don’t know enough to say whether Hindus and Muslims would have been able to live in peace in a united India.  There was a history of rioting and violence between the two communities.

In any case, the “two-state solution” did not solve the Indian subcontinent’s minority problems.  There are still 176 million Muslims in India, and their rights are a fraught issue.

The filmmakers said in a Q&A after the showing that Hindu and Muslim emigrants from the Indian subcontinent get along very well, as do ordinary citizens of India and Pakistan when they meet.  As they said, the least that could be done is to allow free travel between the two nations.

LINK

An interview with Mara Ahmed. [Added 4/24/2015]

 

Pakistan horrified by Taliban school attack

The Pakistan Taliban massacred nine teachers and 132 children at a school in Pakistan.

Even other terrorist organizations denounce the murders.

∞∞∞

Will school attacks finally change Pakistani attitudes toward the Taliban? by Shashank Joshi for The Interpreter (Australia).

Problems Pakistani Politics has to Resolve after Grisly School Attack by Juan Cole for Informed Comment.

Something I cannot understand

I’m not well-traveled, and I speak no language other than English.   The way I try to understand why people in foreign cultures do what they do is to imagine myself in their place.  Usually I conclude that if I were in their situation, and had had their life experiences, I probably would do as they did.

But recently I read news stories about people who wanted to kill close relatives because they were of a different religion.  I cannot understand this.

One report was about “Josef,” a Pakistani man who is in hiding in Afghanistan from his Muslim family who want to kill him because he has converted to Christianity.   The other was about Meriam Ibrahim, a woman who was raised a Christian in Sudan after being deserted by her Muslim father.  She narrowly escaped being sentenced to death after her father’s family accused her of “renouncing” Islam—a religion in which she had never believed.

I believe that people have a right to believe in whatever religion they choose, or, to put it more precisely, I believe that people have a right to state openly that they believe whatever they inwardly feel compelled to believe.   I cannot imagine wanting to kill a relative or loved one because they reject my beliefs and values.

Naziism is the most abhorrent belief that I can think of.  But if a relative become a Nazi, my response would be to make him see the error of his ways, as long as I thought this were possible.   I might give up meeting him on a regular basis if all he did was harangue me.  In an extreme case, if he planned a murder or a dangerous act of violence, I would threaten to report him to the police.  But I can’t imagine killing a loved one or relative just because of what they think, however barbarous.

I don’t think these two news articles justify a general condemnation of all the world’s one billion Muslims, who certainly are not all alike.  But they do justify a feeling of pride and gratitude for the religious freedom of the USA.  I can’t imagine the most intolerant American Christian attempting to kill someone for renouncing Christianity and, if such a person existed, they would be put in trial for their crime.

Despite the harassment and prejudice that Muslims sometimes endure in the United States, I think that they not only enjoy more freedom than do Christians in Pakistan, Afghanistan or Sudan, I think they enjoy more freedom here than do Muslims in Pakistan, Afghanistan or Sudan.

LINKS

A Christian Convert, on the Run in Afghanistan, by Azam Ahmed for the New York Times. Hat tip to Rod Dreher.

Meriam Ibrahim freed again after rearrest at Sudan airport by the Associated Press.

Sudan death penalty case reignites Islam apostasy debate by BBC News.

War and peace: Links & notes 11/29/13

‘Aleppo is nothing but hunger and Islam’ by Francesa Borri in The Guardian.

I’m glad that President Obama decided against overt U.S. intervention in the Syrian conflict, but I admit I don’t know what to do to help the poor people of Syria.  It seems as if the only alternatives are continued rule by a ruthless and brutal hereditary dictator, and rule by local militias and warlords.

The United States government, for all our high-tech flying killer drones and all our highly-trained special operations forces, does not have the capability to keep the peace in a country torn by civil war.  Arming one or more of the fighting factions makes things worse.  Bombarding the country makes things worse.  Helping victims is good to do, but it doesn’t solve the problem.  Maybe somebody who knows more about Syria than I do sees an answer.  I don’t see any.

Hollywood ‘Fight Club’ producer was Israeli spy with nuclear script by RT News.   Hat tip to O.

Arnon Milchan, producer of Hollywood movies such as Pretty Woman, Fight Club and LA Confidential, gave an interview about his earlier life as an Israeli secret agent in the 1970s who obtained materials and equipment for Israel’s secret nuclear weapons program.  This helps me understand the Israeli government’s fear of Iran’s nuclear program.  If Israel could develop nuclear weapons without the world’s knowledge, why couldn’t Iran?

Glimpses of Asia: the new, the old, the strange

The world is so full of a number of things
I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.
==Robert Louis Stevenson

Refrigerator for Everest base camp

This collection of links, most of which I got from an American e-mail pen pal who lives in Asia, is a reminder that, despite all the awful things that happen, I live in a world that is so damn interesting.  

Inside Japan’s ‘Suicide Forest’

Gender bending in Japan

Countries within Nations.  The combined populations of China and India exceed the populations of North and South America plus western Europe.  Chinese provinces and Indian states are comparable to well-known sovereign nations, and are becoming increasingly independent.  This article includes interactive maps, on which you can click on an individual province or state and see which country it equals in population.

Chinese man finally meets his Internet crush—and she’s his daughter-in-law.

A festival of eagles in Mongolia

Kim Jong Un’s Luxurious ‘Seven-Star’ Lifestyle Of Yachts, Booze And Food

The highly unusual company behind Sriracha, the world’s coolest hot sauce.  I love Vietnamese hot sauce.

Sriracha chili sauce company under fire for spicing up air around factory. The City of Irwindale filed lawsuit after residents surrounding the California factory complained of burning eyes and headaches.

The Chile Pepper Institute.   Chile peppers originated in the New World, but they’ve become so much a part of the cuisine of many Asian countries that you wouldn’t think so.

The Weirdest and Most Revolting Foods That You Could Actually Eat.  Most of these are from Asia.

Malaysia court rules non-Muslims cannot use ‘Allah‘

Best places to retire abroad. These include Chiang Mai in Thailand and Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.

Singapore Laws. Travelers beware.

Trick or Treat – A look at Indonesia’s horrifying masked monkey trade.

Anoman fight with the dragon Java.   A painter’s beautiful works based on traditional Javanese stories.

De-stressss with a snake massage.

Bizarre, hilarious, disgusting Thai bracelets from a bracelet vendor at the night market in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Thailand racism row reignited by Unilever ad for skin-whitening cream.

Kitchen of the Golden Temple.  This sacred shrine in India feeds up to 100,000 people a day regardless of race, religion and class.

Burka Avenger Episode 01 (w/ English Subtitles).  The Burka Avenger is a children’s cartoon show produced in Pakistan.

Obama’s Worst Pakistan Nightmare

Saudi comedian mocks ban on women driving with viral video

I don’t draw any bottom-line conclusion from all this, except an awareness of how limited my knowledge is, and a reminder to beware of sweeping generalizations about others nations and civilizations.

Glimpses of Asia: the good, the bad, the odd

.

.

.

.

.

.

Unmanned: America’s drone war (the full film)

[Update 12/27/13]  The video below no longer works.  Click on Unmanned: America’s Drone War to view the full film.

The documentary, Unmanned: America’s drone war, was released this week.  You can download a copy from the Internet or view it here.  It was powerful and disturbing on an emotional level, and at the same time made a case that the drone strikes benefit nobody except avowed enemies of the United States, and certain corporations who get billion-dollar drone contracts.

The movie highlights two drone victims.  One is 16-year-old Tariq Aziz, who was selected by his village community to accompany tribal elders to a Grand Jirga, a meeting of village leaders, politicians, lawyers and journalists from all over Pakistan to discuss what to do about the drone strikes.  He was killed while driving a car with another teenage a couple of weeks after the meeting.

The other is 67-year-old Momina Bibi, a 67-year-old grandmother and midwife who was killed while working in her vegetable garden.  Her family testified about the drone strikes before Congress this week.

It has long been known that the killer drones often strike people who are not the intended targets.  But it is also important to note that intended targets are not necessarily terrorists or militants.  The film’s narrator said Tariq Aziz may have been fingered by an informant.

We Americans know little or nothing about the people of Afghanistan or northwest Pakistan.  So our government relies on informants, who by definition are morally doubtful individuals, because what person would spy on his own people for the benefit of a foreign government?

Many prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are there because they were identified as Taliban by bounty-hunters.   The American authorities evidently took the word of the bounty-hunters, without considering the possibility that they were random individuals, or personal enemies of the bounty-hunters, or people to whom the bounty-hunters owed money.

Why does the U.S. government continue a drone killing policy that has been shown to immoral, illegal and counterproductive?  I think it is because the alternative to continuing the policy is for the people responsible for the policy to face the reality of what they have done.  Confession and repentance are good for the soul, and until we Americans are able to do this, we are likely to continue on our bad path.

Victim’s grandchild: ‘I no longer love blue skies’

The video above is from a documentary film called Unmanned about drone strikes on civilians in Pakistan.  The Rehman family, shown in that video, also is shown below when they came to Washington, D.C., this week to testify before Congress.

The family of a 67-year-old midwife from a remote village in North Waziristan told lawmakers on Tuesday about her death and the “CIA drone” they say was responsible. Their harrowing accounts marked the first time Congress had ever heard from civilian victims of an alleged US drone strike.

Rafiq ur Rehman, a Pakistani primary school teacher who appeared on Capitol Hill with his children, Zubair, 13, and Nabila, 9, described his mother, Momina Bibi, as the “string that held our family together”.  His two children, who were gathering okra with their grandmother the day she was killed, on 24 October 2012, were injured in the attack.

“Nobody has ever told me why my mother was targeted that day,” Rehman said, through a translator. “Some media outlets reported that the attack was on a car, but there is no road alongside my mother’s house. Others reported that the attack was on a house. But the missiles hit a nearby field, not a house. All of them reported that three, four, five militants were killed.”

Instead, he said, only one person was killed that day: “Not a militant but my mother.”

via theguardian.com.

Nabilia, the 9-year-old girl, said she is afraid to go to school because of drones overhead.  Good for Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) for arranging for this testimony to be heard.  It’s too bad that only four other members of the House of Representatives heard it.

Killer drones are justified on the grounds that they are a more precise method of killing than the alternatives—dropping napalm or cluster bombs from airplanes, or invading with ground troops.  But the issue is not the method of killing.  The issue is the killing of civilian bystanders in nations with which the United States is not at war.  The significance of drone technology is that it makes killing so easy and so seemingly free of consequences.

It would be interesting to know whether this 67-year-old grandmother was killed because a drone went astray, or because of mistaken identity, or because some drone operator simply didn’t care.   No matter which is these possibilities is the correct one, they indicate something seriously wrong with the U.S. use of drones.

US opposes Pakistan gas pipeline to Iran

The U.S. government has threatened sanctions against Pakistan if that nation completes a pipeline bringing natural gas from Iran.  The Iranian section has been completed, and the schedule calls for Pakistan’s section to be completed by the end of 2014.

Notice that Pakistan shares a border with China.  The pipeline could be extended to give China direct access to Iran’s natural gas.   China is already Iran’s largest oil and gas customer and an opponent of U.S.-led economic sanctions against Iran.

Iran’s newly-elected President Hassan Ruhani has offered to make peace with the United States.   The U.S. government has said this is contingent on Iran abandoning its nuclear research program, which are for the stated purpose of  deterring Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

I think the Obama administration should take Ruhani up on his offer, rather than doubling down on sanctions.  The only way the problem of nuclear weapons proliferation will ever be solved for good is a comprehensive nuclear disarmament program and strong international inspections system.  Any country whose government feels threatened by a nuclear power will want its own nuclear weapons as a deterrent.

The Burka Avenger, a Pakistani superheroine

The Burka Avenger is the superheroine of a new animated cartoon series for children in Pakistan.  A mild-mannered school teacher by day, she dons the burka costume by night to fight the enemies of freedom and knowledge, using books and pens as her weapons.

This program is sure to enrage the Pakistani Taliban, who shut down girl’s schools in the areas they control and attempted to murder 16-year-old Malala Yousafzai for promoting education for girls.

It is an interesting twist that the heroine’s costume is the burka, a garment that covers the face and the whole body, and is considered a symbol of repression of women, because its purpose is to shield women from the gaze of men other than their husbands.

High-risk truck driving in Pakistan’s mountains

This Al Jazeera documentary follows a Pakistani truck driver along 145 miles of what may be the most dangerous road in the world, the Lowari Pass in the northwest border area of Pakistan and Afghanistan.  A slice of life most Americans wouldn’t otherwise get to see, it is part of a series broadcast in 2011 called Risking It All , about people around the world who risk their lives to earn a living.

Imran Khan and the arrogance of U.S. power

Imran Khan, a former Pakistan cricket star, has gone into politics and may well be the next Prime Minister of Pakistan.  HE was interviewed in August by The Economist about his political views in the video above.

Last week, on his way to a political meeting in New York City, he was detained by U.S. immigration officials and interrogated for about 30 minutes concerning his opposition to U.S. drone attacks in the tribal areas of Pakistan.   He missed his flight, but was allowed to continue.

A couple of things strike me about this.  First, Imran Khan’s political opinions are no great mystery.  Anybody with access to Google or YouTube can find them in a hurry.  Second, what was did the immigration official think he was accomplishing by harassing and insulting a foreign leader?  Did the official think he had the power to make Imran Khan mend his ways?  I don’t know which is worse—to think that this reflected some high level decision in Homeland Security, or that some low level official thought that this was within his discretion, and nobody called him to account.

In the total scheme of things, there are many worse violations of human rights than Imran Khan being questioned at the Toronto airport.  But it is an example of an attitude by American officials toward the rest of the world that has generated a bad backlash, and is certain to create a worse backlash in the years ahead.

Click on Imran Khan detained and ‘interrogated over drone views’ by US immigration for Glenn Greenwald’s report for Britain’s The Guardian.

Click on Outrage over CIA’s deadly ‘double tap’ drone attacks for a report in Britain’s The Independent.

 

Pakistan’s Taliban targets a brave schoolgirl

Last Tuesday members of Pakistan’s Taliban boarded a school bus and shot a 14-year-old girl, Malala Yousafzai, in retaliation for speaking out in favor of education for girls and against the Taliban’s campaign to suppress women’s education.  At last report, she was in critical condition in a Pakistan military hospital.  The documentary above, produced three years ago, tells the story of Malala and her father, the principal of a girl’s school.

The shooting was condemned by people all over the world, including Pakistan’s Muslim clergy.  A joint fatwa, or religious edict, was issued by at least 50 scholars associated with the Sunni Ittehad Council, condemning the shooting and appealing to worshipers to observe a “day of condemnation” on Friday.

 I think it is telling that the Pakistan Taliban targeted Malala rather than her father, Ziauddin Yousafzia, who operated a network of private girls’ schools.  It shows how afraid they must be of the idea that their own wives and daughters might desire education, which would be the first step toward independence and self-determination.

I have no first-hand knowledge of Pakistan, but I am familiar with the type of people whose self-esteem depends on being able to despise, humiliate or control someone less powerful than themselves.

News reports indicate that many and maybe most Pakistani people repudiate the Taliban’s terrorism.  Pakistan’s Parliament has women members, and Pakistan once had a woman prime minister.  The video below shows the thoughts of some enlightened Pakistanis.   Unfortunately a small group of dedicated fanatics can sometimes have more power than a non-fanatic majority.

Click on Clerics declare Malala shooting ‘un-Islamic’ for an Al Jazeera report.

[Added 10/15/12]  Click on The fight for education in Pakistan’s Swat for another Al Jazeera report.

Life under the flying killer drones

Faculty of the New York and Stanford university law schools have come out with a report, Living Under Drones, about the use of flying killer drones in the border area of Pakistan, where members of the Taliban are believed to hide out.  Based on interviews with eyewitnesses and people familiar with the region, they concluded that the drones have (1) killed a lot of civilians, including children, (2) killed very few identifiable leaders of the Taliban or Al Qaeda and (3) made a lot of new enemies for the United States.

President George W. Bush initiated the use of flying killer drones to kill people identified as leaders of Al Qaeda or the Taliban.  President Barack Obama has stepped up the use of such “targeted killings” and initiated the use of “signature strikes,” which kills people whose patterns of behavior are suspicious.  Another Obama practice is the “double tap,” where a second strike is used to kill rescuers or mourners.

Drones as such are not worse than other weapons of war.  They are a more precise means of killing than carpet bombing or napalm bombing or dropping of land mines or a full-scale invasion.  The problem with drones is that they make killing all too easy.  They make it easy to commit acts of war by creating an illusion that this can be done with impunity.

I don’t know anything about the people who live in the drone kill zones of Pakistan, Yemen and other countries.  I’d guess that the majority of people in those areas are more concerned about living their lives and going about their business than they are about the conflict between the United States and its far-flung enemies.  I suspect that there are a lot of people in these areas who don’t necessarily support Al Qaeda, the Taliban or “militant Islam” (whatever that is), but are still friendly with relatives and neighbors who do.

What is the intended end result of the drone strikes?  Does somebody in Washington think that that some point flying killer drones will have killed all the enemies and potential enemies of the United States, and we Americans will then be safe?  When U.S. forces leave Afghanistan, they will leave behind more sworn enemies of the United States than there were at the time of the invasion.

Neither Republicans nor Democrats object to President Obama’s use of flying killer drones.  We Americans complain about the deadlock in our government caused by extreme partisan conflict, but our worst policies have bipartisan support and are never discussed.

Click on Drone attacks on Pakistan are counterproductive, report says for an article in The Guardian about the report.

Click on ‘Every Person Is Afraid of the Drones’ for Conor Friedersdorf’s discussion of how people in the kill zones live in constant fear.

Click on Living Under Drones for the web site for the report.

Click on Living Under Drones: Stanford / NYU Report for the text of the report.

Hat tip to Oidin.

Correction: Photo’s terrorist, not drone, killing

About a year ago, I put up a post about the killing of innocent people in Pakistan by U.S. flying killer drones.  I linked to photos by Noor Behram, an intrepid Pakistani photographer who traveled to the tribal areas of Pakistan and documented the deaths caused by the drones.  But the photograph with which I led the post was apparently not taken by Noor Behram and was not of drone victims, but was a news photo of innocent victims of a terrorist attack in the city of Peshawar.

Click on “Not a single collateral death” for the post with correction.

“Pakistan a hired gun to kill US enemies”

Julian Assange interviewed Imran Khan, the elected front-runner in Pakistan’s general election to be held later this year, for his The World Tomorrow TV program.  Imran Khan was a cricket star in Pakistan and then a lonely anti-corruption fighter, but now is a leader of the opposition to Pakistan’s government.

He said that, if elected, he will alter Pakistan’s relationship with the United States to a more equal one, in which U.S. forces do not have free rein to launch drone missile attacks in Pakistan.  He said the U.S. “war on terror” is counterproductive, and has inspired more terrorists than it has eliminated.

Although Assange is under house arrest in London, he manages to interview interesting and varied people all over the world, which I would never expect to see on the major U.S. TV stations.  He often, as with Imran Khan, draws on Wikileaks cables as backgrounds for his interviews.

Click on Imran Khan: Next man in? for background on Imran Khan from Al Jazeera English.

Click on Digital Journal for a written summary of Julian Assange’s interview with Imran Khan and links to previous episodes of The World Tomorrow.

The World Tomorrow is broadcast by the RT (Russia Today) network, which was started by the Russian government.  Assange said he has complete freedom to broadcast what he wishes, without checking with RT.

[Later]  Julian Assange has asked for political asylum in Ecuador to avoid being extradited from Britain to Sweden on sexual misconduct charges.  Click on Wikileaks founder seeks asylum in Ecuador for the Al Jazeera report.  Click on Assange asks Ecuador for asylum for Glenn Greenwald’s report.

The legacy of Osama bin Laden

This two-part video series by Al Jazeera told me things I hadn’t known.  Osama bin Laden was the one behind the destruction of the Buddhist statues in Afghanistan.  The notion that he suffered kidney failure or was on dialysis was an urban legend.  Bin Laden was taken advantage of by the government of Sudan, but had a tight relationship with the Taliban’s Mullah Omar, whom he helped defeat his internal enemies.  More than any detail, it opens up a world to which I wouldn’t otherwise see.

It is a mistake to think of Osama bin Laden as yesterday’s news.  He is dead, but his example lives on and, unfortunately, will continue to inspire for some time to come.