Thursday, September 30, 2010

India in Afghanistan and Beyond: Opportunities and Constraints

India in Afghanistan and Beyond: Opportunities and Constraints
C. Christine Fair, The Century Foundation, 9/28/2010
To download the report, click here

The international community has been ambivalent about India’s profile in Afghanistan. While the Afghan government and its international partners welcome India’s constructive role, many also worry about the negative externalities associated with India’s footprint in the country, particularly with respect to Pakistan, which has long feared Indian encirclement and complains sharply about India’s expanding presence in Afghanistan. In this report, Christine Fair outlines India’s current interests in Afghanistan, how it has sought to achieve its aims, and the consequences of its actions for India, Pakistan, and the international efforts to stabilize Pakistan and Afghanistan. She argues that India’s interests in Afghanistan are not only Pakistan-specific but also tied to India’s desire to be seen as an extra- regional power moving toward great power status. This papers details:

India’s role in Afghanistan. India deems Afghanistan’s stability essential to its security outlook, fearing that a resurgent Taliban would provide support for militant groups with an anti-Indian agenda.

 The India-Pakistan-U.S. triangular relationship. The U.S. is in a difficult position, Fair argues, trying to pursue independent relationships with either India or Pakistan.

The way forward for the U.S. Attempts to solve this regional dilemma have not met with much progress over the past decade, and, absent a change in the U.S. approach, the outlook is not promising.

Pakistan's Troubles Stem From Misunderstood Past: Ayesha Jalal Interview with NPR

Pakistan's Troubles Stem From Misunderstood Past
NPR, September 30, 2010

STEVE INSKEEP, host: Now, when the flooding came to Pakistan over the summer, Ayesha Jalal was just finishing an extended visit to the country. She's a Pakistani-American historian and her books have pressed a troubled country to rethink its history. She recently returned from teaching university students in the city of Lahore.

As homes were destroyed and bridges were destroyed and levees burst and other buildings and cities and towns were destroyed, did you did you ever get a feeling that you were in a country that was going backwards in time?

Ms. AYESHA JALAL (Pakistani-American Historian): Oh, absolutely. I think these floods have caused a 20 year hit in terms of infrastructural development, whatever they had. So yes, absolutely. One felt one was drowning. I think it'll take a while before Pakistan can muster the sort of money and the courage to rebuild. It'll take a long, long time.

INSKEEP: It's interesting to think of a country being forced to go back in time, because your profession is looking at the past and you came to Pakistan to encourage some Pakistanis to look at their past in a different way. What brought you to the country?

Ms. JALAL: Well, I was asked to come and help set up the history major at the Lahore University of Management Sciences - that's one of the very prestigious universities that Pakistan possesses. I couldn't say no to that because for years I've believed that Pakistan has not done a good job teaching history. They've been rather more interested in ideology and projecting national or official ideology. So to teach history as a discipline, as a way to learn the methodology of understanding the past, I think is extremely important in a country that's prone to conspiratorial thinking.

INSKEEP: What's an example of the difference between a piece of history and a piece of ideology and how that warps people's thinking today?

Ms. JALAL: Well, I think a very good example is the reasons for why Pakistan was created. The ideologues would argue that it was created for Pakistan to become an Islamic conservative bastion, whereas the history tells you otherwise. The history tells you that Pakistan emerged out of an attempt to win a large share of power for Indian Muslims in India.

INSKEEP: Lets remember that Pakistan was created in 1947 when what was then British India was divided into two countries, India and Pakistan.

Ms. JALAL: That's right. When the British decolonized, they split India into two because the India National Congress, the largest nationalist party in India, and the All-India Muslim League, which was the Muslim largest Muslim party, failed to come to an agreement on how to share power. It's this fact that is not acknowledged and realized. And this, I think, is at the roots of many other problems that Pakistan faces in terms of the sense of identity, the relationship with India, which as you know is a very, very complicated and problematic relationship which accounts for so many of the woes of Pakistan.

INSKEEP: What connection do you see, if any, between this historical confusion and Pakistan's modern trouble with Muslim extremists?

Ms. JALAL: Well, I think there's enormous degree of connection here, because while Pakistan has always claimed to be a Muslim state, the extent to which the state subscribed to a conservative radical version of Islam, that came about largely for strategic reasons in the late '70s, where the quest for identity, or to find their feet, saw Pakistan turning increasingly towards the Arab world.

You see with the onset of the Soviet invasion and the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, Pakistan tilts towards an increasingly more radicalized militant Islam, which was really quite alien to the people of Pakistan, and this was justified by the then-ruler, the military ruler General Zia-ul-Haq, on the grounds that Pakistan was after all created in the name of religion.

INSKEEP: I feel like I'm hearing something of a parallel between political debates in Pakistan, the country where you were born, and political debates here in the United States, because Americans always will try to go back to the founding fathers and what did they intend, and people will raise arguments about what Jefferson said about something and why that means that their modern policy today on some modern issue is in line or totally out of line with the founding fathers. And if you get that wrong, you can create all sorts of problems. It sounds like you're saying that something very similar happens in Pakistan.

Ms. JALAL: Well, absolutely, but I think in the case of Pakistan, beyond debating what the founding fathers intended, there's a fundamental denial of the factors that led to the creation of Pakistan. I don't think the U.S. is as confused about the causes of the formation of the U.S. federation. But I think in Pakistan, where you have a situation where there are more Muslims today in India and in Bangladesh, there is a much greater degree of confusion why Pakistan was created.

INSKEEP: Are Pakistanis actually asking why are we even a country at all? Why aren't we just still part of India?

Ms. JALAL: You know, my book, my first work, which is on this subject, "The Sole Spokesman," came out in 1985 during Zia-ul-Haq's regime. And at that stage there was a good deal of criticism of my work, very few people read the book. But now I think that after so many years there's a much greater willingness to debate this issue. The younger generation is quite promising. They're asking questions, and it could result in something positive for Pakistan.

INSKEEP: If Pakistanis ask that question, why were we created, does it lead to the even more terrifying question, should we even be here, should we go out of business as a country?

Ms. JALAL: No, I think that's not going to happen. But the problem is that the official history does not add up. It does not provide them with explanations, which is what the youth finds frustrating. So I do think that the problem with the Pakistani mindset has a lot to do with the absence of history as a discipline, because history as you may be aware, means to investigate. It's a methodology to know the past. It's the absence of that methodology in their thinking that has made them far more susceptible to conspiracy theory.

INSKEEP: What do you mean by conspiracy theories in Pakistan?

Ms. JALAL: There are those in Pakistan, for your information, who believe that the Americans are behind all manner of attacks that are taking place - in fact, it's the Americans and not the Taliban. There are those who would go so far as to say that even the Americans are responsible for the floods. It's easy to dismiss the mindset, but as a historian I take it very seriously because perceptions matter. There's a reality deficit, which stems from a fundamental ahistorical understanding.

INSKEEP: Ayesha Jalal of Tufts University is the author of books including "Partisans of Allah" and "The Sole Spokesman."

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey


U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey
The Pew Forum; POLL September 28, 2010

Executive Summary

Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons are among the highest-scoring groups on a new survey of religious knowledge, outperforming evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics on questions about the core teachings, history and leading figures of major world religions.

On average, Americans correctly answer 16 of the 32 religious knowledge questions on the survey by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life. Atheists and agnostics average 20.9 correct answers. Jews and Mormons do about as well, averaging 20.5 and 20.3 correct answers, respectively. Protestants as a whole average 16 correct answers; Catholics as a whole, 14.7. Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons perform better than other groups on the survey even after controlling for differing levels of education.

For complete article, click here
Take the Quiz

Pakistan: The Deep State...

The Deep State and technocrats
By Kamran Shafi, Dawn, 28 Sep, 2010

Anyone seen the list being circulated on the Internet containing the names of the ‘technocrats’ who are being touted as our newest saviours in the “national government” that is to take over after the present dispensation is kicked out? Makes your skin crawl, I’ll tell you.


Most of them have been in the various and varied engineered dictatorial/caretaker/lota so-called governments of which we’ve seen more than our fair share; governments that failed in every which way, made a bigger mess of things every single time that they “rescued” us, and after whose failure and subsequent departure the political leaders thrown out came back into the assemblies with larger majorities than they had when they were shown the door.

So why are these names making it to the lists being “prepared and finalised” when they were such abject failures in their earlier incarnations as ministers and advisers to dictators? It is not as if manna fell from heaven when they were ruling the roost, nor was there a chicken in every pot in the land. So, who are these people that pop up every now and again whenever the Deep State decides democracy has to take yet another setback?

No prizes for guessing, reader, for the matter is a simple one for any Pakistani who knows the shenanigans of the powers that be in the Land of the Pure: they are the handmaidens of the Deep State, who are always waiting in the wings in the ‘sit/stay’ position, ready to leap at the next command. They are the darlings of the establishment, the actual inheritors of this country who can do no wrong, who are pure as driven snow. And whose acts of omission and commission when in (extra-legal) occupation of their offices have never been inquired into, let alone being prosecuted. Never mind that one of them virtually bankrupted Pakistan Railways.

For complete article, click here
Related:

Pakistan's cricket-playing revolutionary: David Ignatius in Washington Post

Pakistan's cricket-playing revolutionary
By David Ignatius, Washington Post, September 27, 2010
Islamabad --

Pakistani politics these days is something of a feudal system, dominated by a tired collection of old-line parties and politicians -- with one notable exception: He's a charismatic former cricket star named Imran Khan, who talks like a Pakistani Robbespierre.

"Pakistan is like France before the revolution," he says. "We are at a historical crossroads. We can't go on this way anymore."

Khan makes a lordly revolutionary, presiding over a hilltop estate that overlooks Islamabad. He's still movie-star handsome at 57, and he discusses politics with the fervor of a man who, in addition to being the top cricketer of his generation, took a degree at Oxford in Politics, Philosophy and Economics.

Khan formed his political party, the Movement for Justice, in 1996, four years after he retired from cricket. Despite his celebrity, the party has been regarded by Pakistani analysts as a high-visibility flop, doing poorly in elections and gaining just one parliamentary seat.

Khan has made something of a comeback this year, organizing one of the most effective private relief efforts to help victims of July's devastating flood. His party has also done better in some recent local elections, especially among younger urban voters. In the barren Pakistani political landscape, he's one of the few players who rouses any excitement among people I've met here.

The Pakistani status-quo, by Khan's account, is the result of democratic political system that has little chance to develop since independence in 1947. Periods of democratic government, marked by corruption and mismanagement, alternated with years of military dictatorship.

Since the 1970s, the same two family dynasties have dominated politics: the People's Party of Pakistan, headed by the Bhutto clan, whose current chief, Asif Ali Zardari, was elected president after the assassination of his wife, Benazir; and the Muslim League, headed by Nawaz Sharif, a former prime minister whose family runs the heartland region of Punjab. Other parties are often little more than local Mafias, vying for power and patronage.

"Our political system never matured," argues Khan, and many independent analysts would agree with that assessment. Corrupt deals have kept the power brokers and political mafias in control. The military has remained a force of stability, but its heavy-handed oversight of the system has also checked the development of modern political parties and an independent judiciary.

Khan argues that a showdown is inevitable because this overburdened system can't pay its bills any longer. Tax collection is so bad that, by his account, government revenues are sufficient only to cover military spending and debt service. To finance its other activities, such as education, the government must borrow money.

"The country is bankrupt," he contends. "We can only save ourselves by changing. Otherwise we will collapse."

Khan's radicalism is least convincing when it comes to security issues. He argues that Pakistan must make a settlement with the Taliban and decouple itself from America's wars in Afghanistan and the tribal areas. When I ask whether this future Pakistan might not be at the mercy of Muslim radicals, as Iran was after its revolution in 1979, Khan insists that the extremists will retreat if they no longer can fulminate against America and its Pakistani "agents."

For complete article, click here
Related:
http://www.insaf.pk/ - Tehreek-e-Insaf Party website

Monday, September 27, 2010

Obama's Wars: U.S. Options in Afghanistan

Military thwarted president seeking choice in Afghanistan
By Bob Woodward, Washington Post Staff Writer, Monday, September 27, 2010

The first of three articles adapted from "Obama's Wars" by Bob Woodward.

President Obama was on edge.
For two exhausting months, he had been asking military advisers to give him a range of options for the war in Afghanistan. Instead, he felt that they were steering him toward one outcome and thwarting his search for an exit plan. He would later tell his White House aides that military leaders were "really cooking this thing in the direction they wanted."

He was looking for choices that would limit U.S. involvement and provide a way out. His top three military advisers were unrelenting advocates for 40,000 more troops and an expanded mission that seemed to have no clear end. When his national security team gathered in the White House Situation Room on Veterans Day, Nov. 11, 2009, for its eighth strategy review session, the president erupted.

"So what's my option? You have given me one option," Obama said, directly challenging the military leadership at the table, including Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen and Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, then head of U.S. Central Command.

"We were going to meet here today to talk about three options," Obama said sternly. "You agreed to go back and work those up."

Mullen protested. "I think what we've tried to do here is present a range of options."

Obama begged to differ. Two weren't even close to feasible, they all had acknowledged; the other two were variations on the 40,000.

Silence descended on the room. Finally, Mullen said, "Well, yes, sir."

Mullen later explained, "I didn't see any other path."

This stark divide between the nation's civilian and military leaders dominated Obama's Afghanistan strategy review, creating a rift that persists to this day. So profound was the level of distrust that Obama ended up designing his own strategy, a lawyerly compromise among the feuding factions. As the president neared his final decision on how many troops to send, he dictated an unusual six-page document that one aide called a "terms sheet," as though the president were negotiating a business deal.

For complete article, click here
For Part 2, Biden warned Obama during Afghan war review not to get 'locked into Vietnam' published on September 27,click here; For Part 3, Obama: 'We need to make clear to people that the cancer is in Pakistan', click here

Imran Farooq murder linked to rows within MQM party: Guardian

Pakistan: Imran Farooq murder linked to rows within MQM party
Politician may have been about to endorse or join new party set up by General Pervez Musharraf, source claims
Vikram Dodd, crime correspondent, Guardian, 

Sunday, September 26, 2010

American Muslims Defend the Freedom of Speech

A DEFENSE OF FREE SPEECH BY AMERICAN AND CANADIAN MUSLIMS
The American Muslim, September 21, 2010

We, the undersigned, unconditionally condemn any intimidation or threats of violence directed against any individual or group exercising the rights of freedom of religion and speech; even when that speech may be perceived as hurtful or reprehensible.

We are concerned and saddened by the recent wave of vitriolic anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic sentiment that is being expressed across our nation.

We are even more concerned and saddened by threats that have been made against individual writers, cartoonists, and others by a minority of Muslims. We see these as a greater offense against Islam than any cartoon, Qur’an burning, or other speech could ever be deemed.

We affirm the right of free speech for Molly Norris, Matt Stone, Trey Parker, and all others including ourselves.

As Muslims, we must set an example of justice, patience, tolerance, respect, and forgiveness.

The Qur’an enjoins Muslims to:

* bear witness to Islam through our good example (2:143);
* restrain anger and pardon people (3:133-134 and 24:22);
* remain patient in adversity (3186);
* stand firmly for justice (4:135);
* not let the hatred of others swerve us from justice (5:8);
* respect the sanctity of life (5:32);
* turn away from those who mock Islam (6:68 and 28:55);
* hold to forgiveness, command what is right, and turn away from the ignorant (7:199);
* restrain ourselves from rash responses (16:125-128);
* pass by worthless talk with dignity (25:72); and
* repel evil with what is better (41:34).

Islam calls for vigorous condemnation of both hateful speech and hateful acts, but always within the boundaries of the law. It is of the utmost importance that we react, not out of reflexive emotion, but with dignity and intelligence, in accordance with both our religious precepts and the laws of our country.

We uphold the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Both protect freedom of religion and speech, because both protections are fundamental to defending minorities from the whims of the majority.

We therefore call on all Muslims in the United States, Canada and abroad to refrain from violence. We should see the challenges we face today as an opportunity to sideline the voices of hate—not reward them with further attention—by engaging our communities in constructive dialogue about the true principles of Islam, and the true principles of democracy, both of which stress the importance of freedom of religion and tolerance.

SIGNATORIES:
Prof. Hassan Abbas, Quaid-i-Azam Chair, South Asia Institute, Columbia University
Anisa Abd el Fattah, Founder and Chairwoman, National Association of Muslim American Women (NAMAW)
Khaled M Abdel-Hamid, MD, PhD, writer
Ammar Abdulhamid, Executive Director, Tharwa Foundation
Imam Johari Abdul Malik, Director of Outreach, Dar-Al-Hijrah Islamic Center
Mehnaz M. Afridi, PhD, Adjunct Professor (Judaism, Islam, and Genocide Studies) Antioch University
Asma Afsaruddin, PhD, Professor of Islamic Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington
Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, PhD, Director, Minaret of Freedom Foundation
Ahrar Ahmad, PhD, Professor of Political Science, Black Hills State University
Prof. Akbar S. Ahmed, PhD, Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies, American University
Osman Ahmed,PhD, President Islamic Society of Essex County, Newark, NJ
Prof. Parvez Ahmed, PhD, Fulbright Scholar & Assoc. Prof. Univ. of North Florida
Barbara Al-Bayati, Co-Founder, Orphan Whispers
Aman Ali, writer, stand-up-comedian
Javed Ali, founder and publisher, Illume magazine
Wajahat Ali, playwright, journalist, and producer of “Domestic Crusaders”
Sumbul Ali-Karamali, JD, LLM (Islamic Law), author of “The Muslim Next Door”
Shaykh al-Hajj Dawud Ahmad al-Amriki, Director, Muslim America
Salam al-Marayati, Pres., Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC)
Shahed Amanullah, Editor-in-Chief, Altmuslim
Patricia Anton, Board member, Muslim Peace Fellowship
M. Saud Anwar, Co-Chair, American Muslim Peace Initiative

For complete list of signatories - updated daily - click HERE.

Related:
Why is Harvard honoring bigotry? - By Nafees A. Syed, CNN
Muslim Nations Call for U.N. to Track ‘Islamophobia’ - CNS News

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Mantra of Change in Pakistan

Mantra of change
By Babar Sattar, The News, September 24, 2010
The writer is a lawyer based in Islamabad.

Pakistan is in dire straits and its decent into chaos needs to be arrested urgently, we hear. Is the Bangladesh model a solution, as some suggest, with the military cleaning up political stables in a short span of time and paving ground for 'true' democracy? But isn't that what all our dictators set out to do and instead multiplied the country's miseries by becoming part of the problem? And then the army is just not interested in an overt role in politics we are told, partly because it is still recovering from Musharraf and partly because such a role is unconstitutional. So then shouldn't the Supreme Court contrive a mechanism to oust the ruling regime -- the devil incarnate and root-cause to all ills in the land of the pure -- and save the skies from caving in upon Pakistan? And should the Supreme Court be unwilling to engineer regime change? Can't alliances within parliament be reordered to bring about an in-house change?

It is indisputable that we crave and need change. But what must this change look like? The Bangladesh model didn't do away the role of politics, political parties or civilian government. Its paramount focus was on reforming the election commission and creating credible electoral lists as prerequisites for acceptable elections. And thus after a brief interregnum the same old mainstream political parties were back in business duelling it out. The fundamental weakness in all reform models involving khakis is that these are transitional arrangements by definition that hope to fix deep-seated institutional and cultural problems within the realm of politics quickly, and with a stick. Even if we accept that formal statutory reform can be instituted in such fashion, behavioural changes and evolution of institutional norms and ethics is certainly not amenable to force.

Even other than this basic structural flaw in khaki-led models for change, expecting the army to cleanse the system amounts to a misdiagnosis of the problem. The civil-military imbalance in Pakistan has been a cause and not a consequence of our ailments. Despite the return of civilian rule, the military remains the most powerful institution of the state as well as the most resourceful political actor. A new army chief can make the institution more or less involved in representative politics due to a change of approach in securing the army's institutional interests. But such change at the top doesn't transform the fundamental nature of the institution's interests or the shared desire of its high command to continue to play a predominant role in defining Pakistan's national interest.

For complete article, click here
Related:
ATP Poll: Winds of Political Change in Pakistan - Pakistaniat.com

'We Do Not Want the Talibanization of Pakistan': Foreign Minister of Pakistan at Asia Society


Qureshi: War on Terror is Pakistan's War
Asia Society, September 24, 2010

NEW YORK, September 24, 2010 - Terrorism affects Pakistan more than any other country and its people have rejected extremism, its Foreign Minister said Friday.

"Pakistan is the greatest victim of terrorism in the world today, although I would never get this message in the US," Shah Mehmood Qureshi told an audience at the Asia Society.

The minister, who was interviewed by Asia Society President Vishakha Desai, was in New York to attend the annual United Nations General Assembly meetings.

“The bottom line is that we do not want the Talibanization of Pakistan, period,” he said, adding that it was in the interests of Pakistan prevent the Talibanization of Afghanistan as well.

“Everything negative that they [the Taliban] could have done, they have done,” he said. “Public opinion has completely changed.”

Last month's flooding, which impacted more than 20 million people in northern Pakistan, has prompted concerns that extremist groups might use the disaster to regain popular support. Qureshi firmly rejected this view, however, insisting that his government had been at the forefront of the relief effort.

"The catastrophe is too huge to be managed by fringe elements," he said. "It is only the government that can take care of its people."

He admitted, though, that there were "gaps" in the government's response.

According to Asia Society Bernard Schwartz Fellow Hassan Abbas, these gaps could provide a recruitment opportunity for extremist groups within the next three to six months if the government does not step in first.

Qureshi underscored the need for economic development to stave off the advancement of extremist groups, who recruit among the poor and unemployed.

"We need trade, not aid,” said Qureshi, inviting more multinational investment in Pakistan. He also said that Pakistan and India need to resume direct trade with one another.

"I feel we both stand to gain by engaging with each other," he said.

Meanwhile, he described Pakistan and India's bitter dispute over Kashmir as "the festering sore of South Asia," saying an escalation in violence in the region proved India's military was using excessive force with more than 100 people killed since June.

"This is a very serious indigenous uprising," he said. "We need a new strategy."

Asked what role the United States should play in negotiations, the minister said that the US can act as a facilitator, but that the onus lies with Pakistan and India.

"We do not need the US if we can do it bilaterally," he said.

Reported by Mollie Kirk
To watch complete program, click here

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Turkey is Rising


At the U.N., Turkey Asserts Itself in Prominent Ways
By MARK LANDLER, New York Times, September 23, 2010

UNITED NATIONS — If the United Nations General Assembly often serves as a stage for ambitious countries to project a new image, none has grabbed that opportunity this year with as much vigor as Turkey.

In a flurry of speeches and meetings — and one meeting that did not happen — the Turkish president, Abdullah Gul, defended his country’s close ties to Iran, proclaimed Turkey’s intention to become a leader in the Muslim world, and spurned an attempt to mend fences with Israel over its deadly raid on an aid flotilla bound for Gaza.

Turkey’s muscle-flexing has left the United States uneasy, with administration officials worried that Iran had obtained access to financing for its nuclear program through Turkish banks, and that Turkey’s rift with Israel could complicate American efforts to make peace in the Middle East.

Israeli officials reached out to Turkey to arrange a meeting this week between Mr. Gul and the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, in New York. But it collapsed amid Israeli claims that Turkey had demanded an apology from Mr. Peres for the flotilla raid and Turkish claims that Mr. Gul had no time — all of which inflamed a sore that the Israelis hoped had been gradually healing.

Turkey’s leaders made no apologies, saying they did not start the fight with Israel. Nor are they shy about Turkey’s ambitions, declaring that its status as a Muslim democracy, its growing economy, and its location at the hinge of Europe and Asia should make it a central player in resolving problems like the Iranian nuclear program and the Middle East conflict. “If you look at all the issues that are of importance to the world today,” Mr. Gul said in an interview on Tuesday, “they have put Turkey in a rather more advantageous position.” Turkey, Mr. Gul said, was the “only country that can have a very important contribution to the diplomatic route” with Iran — a clear reference to its effort, along with Brazil, to head off the last round of United Nations sanctions against Iran. After the United States brushed aside those negotiations, Turkey voted against the sanctions in the Security Council.

Mr. Gul said Turkey would adhere to the United Nations sanctions, but would not allow the measures to constrict its broader trade with Iran.

For complete article, click here
Related:
Turkey to continue efforts in Balkans, says Davutoğlu - Hurriyet
UN's Gaza flotilla probe finds Israeli soldiers committed 'willful killing' - Christian Science Monitor
Turkey planning second nuclear power plant - M&C News
For News Updates about Turkey, click http://www.byegm.gov.tr/

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Egyptian Newspaper Alters Photo To Show Mubarak In Front Of Obama


Egyptian Newspaper Alters Photo To Show Mubarak In Front Of Obama
Huffington Post, September 16, 2010

An Egyptian state newspaper is coming under fire after it was revealed that it altered a photo of President Hosni Mubarak to place him at the front of a group of Middle East leaders meeting President Obama--rather than where he was, at the back of the group.


Earlier this month, Mubarak and the heads of Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan met with Obama at the White House to discuss the Israel-Palestine peace process. Afterwards, photographers snapped this image of the group, with Mubarak walking behind the others:

But, as Egyptian blogger Wael Khalil spotted, the state-run Egyptian paper Al Ahram doctored the image to place Mubarak at the head of the group:

For complete story, click here

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Jim Wallis on the story behind Pastor Terry Jones's change of heart

Jim Wallis on the story behind Pastor Terry Jones's change of heart
By Jim Wallis, Washington Post, September 19, 2010

It is easy to believe that hostility toward Muslims is on the rise in America. Media coverage of the battle over the proposed Islamic community center in New York, together with the hateful rants of Florida pastor Terry Jones, who threatened to burn Korans on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, paints a picture of tension between faiths.

But this narrative of constant conflict doesn't tell the whole story. In my work with religious communities across the country, I have seen interfaith relationships strengthened in recent years, not in spite of 9/11 but because of it. And these connections helped avert a tragic conclusion to the Jones saga last weekend.

Although the media focused on the role that political and military officials, including President Obama and Gen. David Petraeus, played in getting Jones to back down from his plan for a Koran bonfire, the faith community also had a key part. Religious leaders from many traditions condemned Jones's threats, while behind the scenes, a number of us reached out to stop Jones and support Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam behind the proposed Islamic community center in New York.

Even before Jones's threats, I had been in close dialogue for several weeks with the imam and his wife, Daisy Khan. I have been friends with Rauf since a few months after the 2001 attacks, when we participated in a forum on religious fundamentalism at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine in New York. From his words that day, I trusted him and knew that we would be able to work together as peacemakers between faiths.

The storm around the imam, his wife and their proposed community center was already bad enough when, on Thursday, Sept. 9, it threatened to get a lot worse. That afternoon, Jones announced that he would be heading up to the Big Apple to talk with the imam on the 9/11 anniversary. He seemed to think that he could leverage his Koran-burning threat to pressure Rauf to move his center -- in the process getting even more attention. The idea was offensive: It suggested a moral equivalence between burning the holy book of a billion people and building an interfaith center, and it presumed that one of the world's most important and courageous moderate Muslim leaders should bargain with the irresponsible, incoherent pastor of a tiny church.

For complete article, click here
Related:
Message to Muslims: I’m Sorry - Nicholas Kristof, New York Times

Kashmir: The Time Has Come - Steve Coll (New York Review of Books)


Kashmir: The time Has Come

Steve Coll, New York Review of Books, September 2010

Shadow War: The Untold Story of Jihad in Kashmir
by Arif Jamal
Melville House, 303 pp., $26.95

The Limits of Influence: America’s Role in Kashmir
by Howard B. Schaffer
Brookings Institution Press, 272 pp., $34.95

In late October 2008, on the eve of the election that would elevate him to the White House, Barack Obama made some of the most expansive comments about the Kashmir conflict that have ever come from an American presidential candidate. In an interview with Joe Klein of Time magazine, Obama acknowledged that Kashmir’s disputed territory was “obviously a potential tar pit diplomatically,” and yet, he continued:

For us to devote serious diplomatic resources to get a special envoy in there, to figure out a plausible approach, and essentially make the argument to the Indians, you guys are on the brink of being an economic superpower—why do you want to keep on messing with this? To make the argument to the Pakistanis, look at India and what they are doing—why do you want to keep on being bogged down with this particular [issue] at a time when the biggest threat now is coming from the Afghan border? I think there is a moment when potentially we could get their attention. It won’t be easy, but it’s important.

It was refreshing to hear an American politician speak honestly and seriously about Kashmir. Since 1989, when a popular rebellion erupted against Indian misrule, Kashmir’s violence has often been enshrouded by silence. Partly that is because neither the Indian nor the Pakistani government wishes to call attention to its contributions to the conflict. Pakistan’s intelligence service has stoked a low-intensity guerrilla war by funding and arming Islamic radicals and infiltrating them into the Kashmir Valley. India has responded with a brutal counterinsurgency campaign which at its height involved the systematic use of torture and extrajudicial killing. That campaign has lately eased, and the human rights performance of India’s government has improved, but not enough. Protests set off this summer by the shooting deaths of unarmed demonstrators have been the most intense in several years. By mid-August, at least fifty-five people had been killed. Kashmiri rioters have provoked and committed violence this summer, but much of the blame for the high death toll rests with the unprofessional performance of the Indian paramilitaries, whose approach to riot control too often involves indiscriminate firing at crowds.

For complete review, click here
Related:
In the vale of conflict  - By Mustafa Qadri, Dawn
Force no solution - By A G Noorani (pdf - page 77), The Hindu

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Law of the Jungle in Pakistan

Brutalised society
Dawn Editorial, 18 Sep, 2010

VIOLENCE is an expected consequence in a society where want and deprivation are the norm. It is not surprising that deteriorating conditions in Pakistan, amongst them spiralling poverty and a worsening security situation, have rendered society brutal to the extreme. It seems that employing violent means comes almost naturally to a citizenry that has witnessed countless atrocities that include mass killings, suicide bombings, lynchings, beheadings and the stringing up of corpses by groups such as the Taliban. While these grim realities can be used as a route to understanding how Pakistanis have become inured to violence, there are many individual cases where the scale of brutality simply beggars belief, and points to the lava that may erupt at any point from the simmering volcano that is Pakistan. One of these was Thursday’s incident in Gujrat, when a man was bludgeoned to death over a minor traffic row. Eyewitnesses say that the victim, Tariq Mahmood, narrowly avoided a collision with a motorbike. An argument ensued after which the bikers, whose apparel indicated their association with the legal fraternity, started hitting the car driver. Mahmood took refuge in his car but the enraged bikers, joined by three of their colleagues, broke the car windows, pulled him out and beat him with bricks until he was dead.

The tragedy, coming so soon after the lynching of two brothers in Sialkot, makes us wonder how far Pakistani society is from the level of beasts. The incident reminds us that education or even a certain social level — as indicated by the men’s garb and mode of transport — is no bar to brutality. Deplorable too, as in the Sialkot case, was the role played by the police: they stood by and watched. An eyewitness says that he appealed to three policemen present a few yards away but they refused to intervene on the truly shocking pretext that they had been deputed merely to check vehicles. Neither did they make any attempt to apprehend the killers. Quite clearly, matters in Pakistan are rapidly reaching such a pass that the rule of law is being replaced by the law of the jungle.

Afghanistan: It Takes a Village to Raise a School

It Takes a Village to Raise a School
By DANA BURDE, New York Times, September 17, 2010
WHILE Americans are right to be alarmed by the rising numbers of roadside bombs and suicide attacks in Afghanistan, we can’t overlook a more subtle campaign that has been a key element of the Taliban’s strategy for years: disrupting access to schools.

Close to 1,000 schools have been bombed or burned since 2006, and hundreds of teachers and students have been killed. The Taliban, who when they were in power banned education for women, attack girls’ schools disproportionately, and in some southern provinces the proportion of girls attending middle school has dropped to less than 1 percent.

These attacks are made easier when there is a physical school to take aim at. But education is not about four walls and a roof. Many nongovernmental organizations have been promoting schooling without school buildings as the best strategy to increase enrollment quickly in the poorest rural areas of the country.

Thousands of these community-based education programs, housed in existing community structures, are bringing education to girls and boys across the country. According to a report released by CARE last fall, there has been only one recorded physical attack on such a community-based school.

Yet these schools have received little attention. Most attention and money has gone to the “Three Cups of Tea” strategy of constructing schools. While shiny new schools make for great photo ops, they are very expensive and some provide the Taliban with easy targets. In the short term, we should de-emphasize that approach in favor of more flexible, cost-effective approaches in community-based education.

It works like this: Villagers provide a space for the school, usually in a large house or mosque, and choose teachers from the community. An aid organization delivers government-approved textbooks and stationery, and provides training for the teachers and parents who help oversee the schools. The Afghan government integrates the community-based schools into the larger educational system, certifying teachers and, eventually, paying their salaries.

Each community-based school serves only the village in which it is situated; schools are widely dispersed, making attendance more practical for children spread across remote regions. Many aid workers have long favored such schools since they are quick and inexpensive to set up, and because communities develop a sense of ownership. Parents visit classes regularly, checking attendance and observing lessons.

With aid from Washington, nongovernmental groups have started approximately 3,000 community-based schools in roughly 1,400 communities in more than a dozen provinces in Afghanistan. In a study I carried out with Leigh Linden of Columbia from 2007 to 2009, we found that children in rural Afghanistan are almost 50 percent more likely to attend classes if there’s a community-based school available. Most important, when a community-based school is an option, the rate of girls’ attendance in most communities goes up by 15 percentage points more than that of their male counterparts, virtually eliminating gender disparities in primary education.

Community-based education is not a panacea: rural teachers may not have much in the way of training, and most schools offer only the early grades. Still, it is a practical medium-term solution to the lack of conventional schools in Afghanistan.
Despite impressive increases in enrollment since in 2001, some 60 percent of young Afghans are not in school; two-thirds of them are girls. Conventional schools are scarce, expensive and likely to remain under threat of attack. To best help Afghanistan, we need to support safer, cheaper and more effective ways to educate all its children.

Dana Burde is a professor of education at New York University.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

US drones are pounding Pakistan's North Waziristan. Here's why...

US drones are pounding Pakistan's North Waziristan. Here's why
US drones have stepped up bombing raids to combat new alliances cropping up between disparate militants coming to Pakistan's North Waziristan region.
By Owais Tohid, Christian Science Monitor, September 16, 2010

Karachi, Pakistan —
After a CIA Predator drone fired a missile in the village of Issori in North Waziristan last month, Jamshed Khan and other tribesmen rushed to the mud home that was the target. Mr. Khan recalls that as the tribesmen started to remove bodies, a group of men drove up, offered prayers for the victims, and left.

The tribesmen say the visitors were well known: Some belong to Al Qaeda and some are the followers of powerful leader Hafiz Gul Bahadur, who once had ties to Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the main Taliban umbrella group there.

Thousands of TTP militants fled here after last year’s military crackdown in South Waziristan, adding to the already mixed crowd of militants seeking shelter there post-9/11. And despite diverse nationalities, they appear able to work in sync.

“Our bonding force is our common cause of waging jihad in Afghanistan,” says Azam Tariq, TTP spokesman. Their ultimate goal, he says, is to implement sharia law. “Then why wouldn’t we be united?”

That unity has prompted the United States to urge Islamabad to again crack down – this time, on North Waziristan. But Pakistani security officials are hesitant to get involved there.

For complete article, click here
 
Related:
5 key players in Pakistan's tribal belt - Christian Science Monitor
The Year of the Drone - New America Foundation
 
  

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Why I Came Back to Pakistan? - By Samad Khurram

Why I Came Back
Samad Khurram, The Express Tribune, September 15, 2010

The writer graduated from Harvard University this spring and is now running Khushal Pakistan, an organisation to help the flood victims samad.khurram@tribune.com.pk

“But, why did you come back?” asked our guard as we off-roaded near Golial Bachaband to deliver relief goods to the flood affected people of Thatta district. As a worker of the PPP he was familiar with Harvard, the alma mater of Murtaza Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto. “Wasn’t life so much better there?” he asked, and continued “You have an opportunity, go and make your life. Why are you back in Pakistan? Nothing works in Pakistan; everyone is corrupt, incompetent and indifferent.”

I was in the process of replying, “I want to join politics, and do my part…”, when I got interrupted by the MPA from the area sitting in the front seat of his Vigo. “Beta, this is Pakistan” he advised supporting an unwelcoming sneer, “Politics here is dirty. You have no idea how difficult it has been for me to remain clean.”

Of the many villages, cities and camps I have visited over the past month, despair has eclipsed hopes and dreams. In Mingora, my guide told me that he came back to Pakistan because of a love interest. It didn’t work out and now he regrets his decision to return from England. “Please help me get out of here” he begged, “You came from America, you can find a way to get me there. Why did you come back? Did you return for a girl too?”

I replied: “I came back for my motherland. I have a few dreams, a few aspirations I want to work towards.” He replied: “The system will kill your dreams” he said, still in disbelief over my answer. “You will soon want out too.”

The ‘system’ is crippled, as I learned first-hand over the past month, but not beyond mending as is commonly believed. It is slow but work does get done. Overhaul is only possible through structural reforms initiated by those already in power. To facilitate change, one has to join politics or the civil service. The general tendency to not try to fix the ‘system’ while cursing it and the country in every breath is not helpful. Utopian dreams of massive, overnight structural changes through a “bloody revolution” are counter-productive. Pakistan needs a gradual evolution of the system by active civic engagement. One small step in this regard is to vote responsibly and put pressure on your elected representatives to work in the right direction.

For complete article, click here

Kashmir’s Forever War - Basharat Peer

Kashmir’s Forever War
Basharat Peer, Granta 112: Pakistan, Autumn 2010.

On an early December morning in 2009, I was on a flight home to Kashmir. It doesn’t matter how many times I come back, the frequency of arrival never diminishes the joy of homecoming – even when home is the beautiful, troubled, war-torn city of Srinagar. Frozen crusts of snow on mountain peaks brought the first intimation of the valley. Silhouettes of village houses and barren walnut trees appeared amid a sea of fog. On the chilly tarmac, my breath formed rings of smoke.

The sense of siege outside the airport was familiar. Olive-green military trucks with machine guns on their turrets, barbed wire circling the bunkers and check posts. Solemn-faced soldiers in overcoats patrolled with assault rifles at the ready, subdued by the bitter chill of Kashmiri winter. The streets were quiet, the naked rain-washed brick houses lining them seemed shrunken. Men and women walked quietly on the pavements, their pale faces reddened by the cold draughts.

In Kashmir, winter is a season of reflection, a time of reprieve. The guns fall silent and for a while one can forget the long war that has been raging since 1990. In the fragile peace that nature had imposed, I slipped into a routine of household chores: buying a new gas heater for Grandfather; picking up a suit from Father’s tailor; lazy lunches of a lamb ribcage delicacy with reporter friends; teaching young cousins to make home videos on my computer. Yet I opened the morning papers with a sense of dread, a fear of seeing a headline printed in red, the colour in which they prefer to announce yet another death – the continuing cost of our troubled recent history.

For complete article, click here

Monday, September 13, 2010

Political Climate in India Today

The Trickledown Revolution
By Arundhati Roy, Dawn, 13 Sep, 2010

The law locks up the hapless felon
who steals the goose from off the common,
but lets the greater felon loose
who steals the common from the goose.
Anonymous, England, 1821

In the early morning hours of the 2nd of July 2010, in the remote forests of Adilabad, the Andhra Pradesh State Police fired a bullet into the chest of a man called Cherukuri Rajkumar, known to his comrades as Azad. Azad was a member of the Polit Bureau of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist), and had been nominated by his party as its chief negotiator for the proposed peace talks with the Government of India. Why did the police fire at point-blank range and leave those telltale burn marks, when they could so easily have covered their tracks? Was it a mistake or was it a message?

They killed a second person that morning—Hem Chandra Pandey, a young journalist who was traveling with Azad when he was apprehended. Why did they kill him? Was it to make sure no eyewitness remained alive to tell the tale? Or was it just whimsy?

In the course of a war, if, in the preliminary stages of a peace negotiation, one side executes the envoy of the other side, it’s reasonable to assume that the side that did the killing does not want peace. It looks very much as though Azad was killed because someone decided that the stakes were too high to allow him to remain alive. That decision could turn out to be a serious error of judgment. Not just because of who he was, but because of the political climate in India today.

For complete article, click here

The U.S - Pakistan Relations after 9/11 - In the light of newly declassified US documents


"No-Go" Tribal Areas Became Basis for Afghan Insurgency Documents Show

U.S. had "Absolutely No Inclination" to Negotiate with Taliban September 2001; Pakistan Disagreed, Claimed "Real Victory" Only Through Talks; Washington's Immediate 9/11 Demands to Islamabad

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 325
The National Security Archive, The George Washington University, Posted - September 13, 2010

Washington, D.C., September 13, 2010 - Pakistani tribal areas where Osama bin Laden found refuge were momentarily open to the Pakistani Army when "the tribes were overawed by U.S. firepower" after 9/11, but quickly again became "no-go areas" where the Taliban could reorganize and plan their resurgence in Afghanistan, according to previously secret U.S. documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by the National Security Archive and posted today at http://www.nsarchive.org/

The declassified documents describe the consequences of these events. According to U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ronald E. Neumann, the 2005 Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan was a direct product of the “four years that the Taliban has had to reorganize and think about their approach in a sanctuary beyond the reach of either government." This had exponentially increased casualties as the Taliban adopted insurgency tactics successful in Iraq, including suicide bombings and the use of IEDs. Ambassador Neumann warned Washington that if the sanctuary in Pakistan were not addressed it would "lead to the re-emergence of the same strategic threat to the United States that prompted our OEF [Operation Enduring Freedom] intervention" in 2001.

As current U.S. strategy increasingly pursues policies to reconcile or “flip” the Taliban, the document collection released today reveals Washington’s refusal to negotiate with Taliban leadership directly after 9/11. On September 13, 2001, U.S. Ambassador Wendy Chamberlin “bluntly” told Pakistani President Musharraf that there was “absolutely no inclination in Washington to enter into a dialogue with the Taliban. The time for dialog was finished as of September 11.” Pakistan, as the Taliban’s primary sponsor, disagreed. Pakistani Intelligence (ISI) Chief Mahmoud told the ambassador “not to act in anger. Real victory will come in negotiations… If the Taliban are eliminated... Afghanistan will revert to warlordism.”

Regarding the apprehension of Osama bin Laden, the ISI Chief said it was "better for the Afghans to do it. We could avoid the fallout.” Mahmoud traveled to Afghanistan twice, on September 17, aboard an American plane, and again on September 24, 2001 to discuss the seriousness of the situation with Taliban leader Mullah Omar. Ambassador Chamberlin said that the negotiations were pointless since Mullah Omar “had so far refused to meet even one U.S. demand.” Chamberlin told Mahmoud his meetings with Omar were fine, but they “could not delay military planning.”

For complete report, click here

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Turkish Reform Vote

International backing given to Turkish reform vote
BBC, September 12, 2010

The US President Barack Obama and German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle have issued statements commending the vote.

Voters in Turkey gave strong backing to a package of changes to the country's military-era constitution. The changes are aimed at bringing Turkey in line with the European Union, which the government wants to join. With nearly all votes in the referendum counted, about 58% had voted "Yes" to amending the constitution.

Prime Minster Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the result meant the country had "crossed a historic threshold toward advanced democracy and the supremacy of law".

The opposition argues that the governing party, which has its roots in political Islam, is seeking dangerous levels of control over the judiciary.

For complete article, click here
Related:

What will the constitutional changes mean for Turkey? - Hurriyet, Turkey
Turkish voters approve amendments in referendum that indicated confidence in nation's leader - Washington Post
Turkey poised for major shakeup as voters back constitutional reforms - Guardian
Q&A: Turkey's constitutional referendum - BBC
Turkey voters appear to favor constitutional changes - Los Angeles Times
Turkey's Vote A Popularity Contest For Democracy - NPR
Backgrounder: Constitutional Crisis - Foreign Policy

Thank You Kathleen Parker - "let's all agree to reject hatred" in all its forms and manifestations

Dear Muslims, let's all agree to reject hatred
By Kathleen Parker, Washington Post, September 12, 2010

Dear Muslim World,

I am writing you today as an American citizen who is deeply embarrassed by current events in my country.
First, let me say that I am not representing anyone. I can't claim to speak for anyone but myself, though I am certain that many others feel as I do.

I want to address the current controversy over the proposed Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero and the so-called "pastor" in Florida who had been threatening to burn a Koran.
I'll begin with the easier of the two: Please ignore Pastor Terry Jones. I wish we had. He may live in the United States. He may have a building with a cross on it and call it a church. And he may know 50 or so people who care what he says, but he's nobody. His threat to burn a Koran was a desperate attempt to get attention and nothing more.

Anyone can call himself a pastor, but there's a reason Jones leads such a tiny congregation. We have a long tradition in this country of letting people speak their thoughts in public, but we don't take many of them very seriously. We laugh at characters like Jones but figure it's better to let fools reveal themselves in the light of day than to let them fester in the dark.

I know this is hard to understand. We have trouble with it sometimes, too. Freedom is a messy affair, and sometimes people get their feelings hurt but we think the trade-off is worth the aggravation.

What we hope you understand is that most Americans were appalled by Jones's proposal, too. Many of us would like for him to crawl back under his rock and stay there, never to be heard from again. Alas, our laws do not forbid stupidity. A few decades ago, Jones would be standing on a fruit crate on a street corner, where children would point at him and be scolded by their parents: "It's not nice to make fun of crazy people." Today, thanks to the miracle of mass communication, he can command a broad, if undeserved, audience.

What our laws do not require, of course, is that we give him our attention, and that's where we have failed each other and ourselves. As a member of the news media, I am sorry that we handed him a megaphone, and I apologize. Please be patient. In a few days, he will be forgotten.

Of more pressing concern, and less easily resolved, is the controversy in this country about the proposed Islamic cultural center in Manhattan. I understand the sensitivity, as I'm sure many of you do. When we were attacked by terrorists nine years ago, our hearts were broken. They still are.

Nevertheless, we don't hold all Muslims responsible for what happened any more than all Christians should be held responsible for what Pastor Jones has been saying. Muslims also died when the World Trade Center towers collapsed. To say that an Islamic center can't be built near Ground Zero is to say that all Muslims are to blame. I don't think that most Americans believe this, even though a majority now say that they would prefer the center be built elsewhere.

This can't be explained rationally because this is purely an emotional response. Obviously, Muslims have the same right to worship when and where they please, just as any other group in America. The same rules of tolerance that allow a Florida pastor to preach his message also allow Muslims to preach theirs.

We may never be able to agree on some things. That is life. But let us all agree to some terms. Let's agree not to tolerate hatred -- toward Muslims, Jews, Christians, atheists or any others. Let's agree not to use inflammatory language. Let's agree to call out and condemn those who would incite riot, whether it's an imam who orders the death of a cartoonist or the preacher who wants to burn another man's holy book.

Let's agree that sometimes we will disagree but that none of this makes any sense if worshiping the creator means we must destroy each other in the process. Anyone who believes in God can't also believe that his divine plan included his creation's mutual destruction.

Peace be upon us all. Or as we say around here, God bless.

Sincerely,
An American
kathleenparker@washpost.com

Related:
A Harsh Thing I Should Have Said (Martin Peretz Dept) - By James Fallows - The Atlantic Monthly

The Talibanization of America ?

The Talibanization of America
Viewed from Pakistan, the rise of U.S. Islamophobia looks depressingly familiar.
BY MOSHARRAF ZAIDI, Foreign Policy, September 10, 2010

 One of the lessons from the Quran-burning circus in Florida, whether it ever actually takes place or not, is that the labels we use to make sense of the world are becoming more and more complex. This is bad news. Labels are supposed to simplify life, not make it more complicated. Nine years to the day since al Qaeda attacked New York City, murdered nearly 3,000 people, and changed the world we live in, our labels seem to be leading us down some strange paths.

In Pakistan, "Talibanization" is a label used to describe regressive and parochial conservatism, not just the political ascendancy of Mullah Omar and his extremist disciples. When we use the label "mullah," it is not the same thing as honoring someone by calling him "Father" or "Reverend." Instead, we're most likely referring to a person's narrow-mindedness, bigotry, and possible racism. So when we try to explain to fellow Pakistanis how the United States is much grander than the pettiness of Quran-burning circuses or mosque-defying extremists, we don't use the same labels that Americans would. Describing the ideological kith and kin of opponents of the Park51 project -- including the fringe element of folks like Terry Jones and his flock at the Dove World Outreach Center -- with terms like the moral majority, far-right evangelicals, or even neocons is useless.

Instead, when we try to explain what is happening in America, we simply say that a great country is going through a kind of Talibanization -- led by mullahs like Newt Gingrich, Pamela Geller, and the occasional Terry Jones.

On the ninth anniversary of the atrocities of September 11, 2001, applying these labels to right-of-center America may seem provocative and harsh. After all, even the most grotesque Islamophobia in the United States is not guilty of the horrors enacted by the Taliban, in Afghanistan and beyond. More than any other sin, the Taliban tolerated Osama bin Laden, defended his right to stay among them, and refused to hand him over after he boastfully acknowledged his role as the chairman and CEO of al Qaeda's war on America.

For complete article, click here
Related:
On Sept. 11 Anniversary, Rifts Amid Mourning - New York Times
Is this America? - By Nicholas Kristof, NYT
Colin Powell Says Ground Zero Mosque Should Go Forward - Politics Daily
Cordoba House: A Strategic Analysis - Dr. Robert Crane

Inside America's Mosques


Inside America's Mosques

From tie-dyed hippies to hard-line radicals, they're not all the same -- and they're not what you think.

By Akbar Ahmed, Foreign Policy, September 9, 2010

The ninth anniversary of 9/11 is almost upon us, and the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims in the United States is as fraught as ever. Witness Florida pastor Terry Jones, whose planned "International Burn a Koran Day" held the nation shocked and riveted for weeks until he finally agreed to cancel the event.

In this environment of heightened intolerance, people focus on symbols, and no symbol is more representative of Islam than the mosque. But most outsiders have no idea what actually goes on inside mosques. Some have let their imaginations -- and their mouths -- run wild in depicting these places of worship as nurseries of homegrown terrorist plots against America, as the recent controversy over the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero in New York revealed.

But the conversation about mosques doesn't need to be so ugly. Long before the latest controversies erupted, I, along with a team of young American researchers, traveled throughout the country studying U.S. mosques for the book Journey into America: The Challenge of Islam. From fall 2008 until fall 2009 we visited over 75 cities and over 100 of the estimated 1,200 mosques in the United States, some of which are little more than a room or two. And we were reminded that Muslims in America are as diverse as Americans overall. There is no one pattern that can describe them all, and any generalities fail to cover the whole picture.

For complete article, click here

Friday, September 10, 2010

Planned Koran Burning Drew International Scorn: NYT

Planned Koran Burning Drew International Scorn
By JACK HEALY and STEVEN ERLANGER, New York Times, September 9, 2010

Before a Florida pastor canceled his plans to burn copies of the Koran on Sept. 11, the international outcry intensified Thursday, drawing vocal condemnations from world leaders and touching off angry protests in corners of the Muslim world.

Although some protests in Afghanistan and Pakistan rippled with scenes of burning American flags, the outrage in the streets seemed largely isolated. Officials in Muslim countries urged restraint, seeking to head off any violent reactions if the Florida church went ahead with its plans to set fire to several copies of the Koran on the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks this Saturday.

President Obama joined a litany of high-ranking American officials to condemn the Koran burning, saying that the act, amplified by a global media, would put American troops at risk and fan anger against the United States. Mr. Obama called the planned event “a destructive act” and said it would be a “recruitment bonanza for Al Qaeda.”

American embassies and consulates were reviewing their security policies, and several diplomatic missions in the Muslim world posted statements prominently on their Web sites condemning the planned event. The State Department issued a travel alert on Thursday saying the burning could catalyze violent anti-American demonstrations.

For complete article, click here
Related:
Indonesia says Koran burning threatens world peace - AFP
Florida Minister Cancels Quran Burning Protest - VOA
Obama Decries Quran Burning - WSJ
London condemns 'extreme' Koran burning plan - AFP
If Rauf "threaten[ed] America," then so did Gen. Petraeus - Media Matters

Sectarian Terror in Pakistan

Sectarian Violence Rises Amid Floods in Pakistan
Written by Rafaya Sufi on September 8, 2010, Asia Society

On September 1, 2010, at least 35 Shiite Muslims were killed and 160 others injured in a suicide bombing during a procession in Pakistan's cultural capital, Lahore. Two days later, 55 Shiites were killed at a rally designed to call for solidarity with Palestinians in the western city of Quetta, followed by another suicide bombing at a mosque killing a member of the Ahmadi sect in the northwestern city of Mardan. Bloomberg reported that this series of killings has been the latest rounds of sectarian violence out of Pakistan, taking place over the span of a week carried out by the Pakistani Taliban movement.

When the military government of General Zia-ul-Haq came into power during the 1980s, Sunni hardliners' violence slowly mounted, as they targeted minorities such as Shiites, Ahmadis, Christians, Hindus, and mystical Sufis. In that decade, Zia secretly promoted the growth of Sipah-e-Sahaba, a Sunni guerilla movement, and its allies, according to Hassan Abbas, Asia Society Bernard Schwartz Fellow.

In an interview with the BBC's Newshour, Abbas explained that the Pakistani Taliban's attacks on Shiites would not weaken their campaign against the army or Nato. "The reason is that the militant groups related to Al-Qaeda or the Taliban, their attacks against sectarian groups...are all different layers of the same strategy."

Amid heavy flooding causing destruction on a mass scale, Pakistan has suffered billions of dollars worth of damage, also rumored to have diminishing the power of Pakistan's Taliban.

"The Taliban have been impacted by (the flooding)," Abbas said. "In some cases, the Punjabi militants have been reported to have been leaving their weapons behind and escaping the floods. In Swat Valley, everything has been destroyed, but in the tribal belts, militants have not been affected because of the mountainous region."

However, there has not been much backlash from Shiites and other majorities.

"There has been violence from the Shia side in the form of protests on the streets like burning government buildings," Abbas said, "but there has been no coordinated militancy."

To listen to Hassan Abbas speaking with the BBC's Owen Bennett Jones click here

Wednesday, September 08, 2010

Playing for Peace: South Asian Tennis Dynamic Duo Advances


South Asian Tennis Dynamic Duo Advances

Written by Rafaya Sufi on September 7, 2010 for Asia Society
 
Sixty-three years since gaining independence in 1947, India and Pakistan have succumbed to three wars, numerous arguments, and several border clashes breaking the countries into ideological

opposites. But none of that has stopped tennis stars Aisam-ul-haq Qureshi of Pakistan and Rohan Bopanna of India from achieving high levels of success in the US Open, currently being held in New York.

Qureshi, a 30-year-old Muslim hailing from Pakistan's cultural capital Lahore, has been playing professionally since 1998. He is the first Muslim player to enter the mixed and men's doubles of the US Open in Flushing Meadows, New York. However, the remarkable thing about Qureshi is not his nationality or religion, but his unlikely partnership with Bopanna.


The doubles pair have been using their friendship, on and off the court, as a call for the resolution of the conflict between their two countries. Their recent campaign, "Stop War, Start Tennis," which was first introduced in Wimbledon, has created a stir amongst Indians and Pakistanis who want to see more peaceful times between the two countries.

Between the duo, the complicated web of theological, military, and intellectual differences place as much importance on perception as it does performance, making their pairing controversial to begin with, according to The Star-Ledger.

Updates: Aisam Qureshi reaches US Open men’s and mixed doubles finals - Dawn;
Qureshi bids for titles in tribute to flood victims - AFP

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Cordoba House in New York: Building on Faith - By Feisal Abdul Rauf

Building on Faith
By Feisal Abdul Rauf, New York Times, September 7, 2010

AS my flight approached America last weekend, my mind circled back to the furor that has broken out over plans to build Cordoba House, a community center in Lower Manhattan.I have been away from home for two months, speaking abroad about cooperation among people from different religions. Every day, including the past two weeks spent representing my country on a State Department tour in the Middle East, I have been struck by how the controversy has riveted the attention of Americans, as well as nearly everyone I met in my travels.

We have all been awed by how inflamed and emotional the issue of the proposed community center has become. The level of attention reflects the degree to which people care about the very American values under debate: recognition of the rights of others, tolerance and freedom of worship.

Many people wondered why I did not speak out more, and sooner, about this project. I felt that it would not be right to comment from abroad. It would be better if I addressed these issues once I returned home to America, and after I could confer with leaders of other faiths who have been deliberating with us over this project. My life’s work has been focused on building bridges between religious groups and never has that been as important as it is now.

We are proceeding with the community center, Cordoba House. More important, we are doing so with the support of the downtown community, government at all levels and leaders from across the religious spectrum, who will be our partners. I am convinced that it is the right thing to do for many reasons.
Above all, the project will amplify the multifaith approach that the Cordoba Initiative has deployed in concrete ways for years. Our name, Cordoba, was inspired by the city in Spain where Muslims, Christians and Jews co-existed in the Middle Ages during a period of great cultural enrichment created by Muslims. Our initiative is intended to cultivate understanding among all religions and cultures.

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9/11 widow: The media duped us - Salon.com

The Muslims in the Middle!

The Muslims in the Middle
By WILLIAM DALRYMPLE
New York Times, August 16, 2010

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S eloquent endorsement on Friday of a planned Islamic cultural center near the World Trade Center, followed by his apparent retreat the next day, was just one of many paradoxes at the heart of the increasingly impassioned controversy.

We have seen the Anti-Defamation League, an organization dedicated to ending “unjust and unfair discrimination,” seek to discriminate against American Muslims. We have seen Newt Gingrich depict the organization behind the center — the Cordoba Initiative, which is dedicated to “improving Muslim-West relations” and interfaith dialogue — as a “deliberately insulting” and triumphalist force attempting to built a monument to Muslim victory near the site of the twin towers.

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A Prayer for Laylat al-Qadr

Sattar Edhi is Pakistan's Mother Teresa

Aging philanthropist is Pakistan's Mother Teresa
By CHRIS BRUMMITT, The Associated Press, August 29, 2010

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- The aging man in mud-splattered, frayed clothes has barely lowered his body onto the sidewalk when the money starts piling up. Heeding his call for donations for flood victims, Pakistanis of all classes rush to hand over cash to Abdul Sattar Edhi, whose years of dedication to the poor have made him a national icon.

He thanks each donor, some of whom ask to have their photo taken next to him. Four hours later, the crowd remains - and the equivalent of $15,000 is overflowing from a pink basket in front of him.

Edhi has been helping the destitute and sick for more than 60 years, filling the hole left by a state that has largely neglected the welfare of its citizens. Part Mother Teresa, part Gandhi, with a touch of Marx, he is the face of humanitarianism in Pakistan.

Funded by donations from fellow citizens, his 250 centers across the country take in orphans, the mentally ill, unwanted newborns, drug addicts, the homeless, the sick and the aged. His fleet of ambulances picks up victims of terrorist bombings, gang shootings, car accidents and natural disasters.

Pakistan's corruption-riddled government acknowledges Edhi and other charities do the work that in other nations the state performs. The country has no national health service, insurance program or welfare system, and few state-run orphanages or old people's homes.

The foundation offers an alternative to charitable work performed by hardline Islamist groups in Pakistan, some with alleged links to terrorism. The spread of these organizations has triggered concerns in the West, including their work in the aftermath of this summer's floods.

Edhi is a devout Muslim, but critical of Islamic clerics in general, not just extremists. He says they focus on ritual, preaching hellfire and defending the faith against imagined enemies, rather than helping the poor - which he says should be the cornerstone of all faiths.

The 80-something Edhi - he and his children disagree on his exact age - lives with his wife, herself a charity worker, in a tiny room in one of his welfare centers in Karachi, a bustling port city. His bed is a one-inch thick mattress on a piece of wood.

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Support: http://www.edhifoundation.com/
Nominating Abdul Sattar Edhi for a Nobel Award - Pakistaniat.com

Thank you Mr Achim Steiner for donating your $ 70,000 award money (from Tallberg Foundation Prize) for Pakistan Flood Relief

Thank you, Mr Steiner
Taj Khattak, The News, September 7, 2010

A news item which has received scant attention in Pakistan is the donation by Mr Achim Steiner of his entire prize money ($70,000) for the benefit of flood relief victims in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK). He is currently the head of the United Nations Environment Programme and was recently awarded a 2010 Tallberg Foundation Prize in Stockholm.

This noble gesture is both significant and praiseworthy since, like the donation of Angelina Jolie, it surpasses the combined personal donations by the two richest sons of the soil; one currently the president, and the other aspiring to be the next prime minister of Pakistan for the third time.

The Tallberg Prize is given to an individual who has consistently applied humanistic, social and ecological values to his/her endeavors. The prize encourages and supports leadership traits and articulation of consistent values, which in all, is the essence of principled pragmatism.

Not long ago, Mr Steiner spent over three years in Swabi, Pakhtunkhwa as an environmentalist. It is that period which Mr Steiner remembers with fondness when people of the region, themselves with meagre resources, opened their hearts to their guest from a land far away.

It is humanity at its best and transcending all geographical, national and ethnic frontiers when Mr Steiner, in his hour of glory at Stockholm, remembered the poorest of the poor in KPK in their hour of grief and distress.

Mr Steiner indeed went far beyond that personal gesture when, in his acceptance speech at the award ceremony, he called for a spirit of solidarity and generosity to assist the people of Pakistan in this crisis.

He aptly emphasized that while the immediate response and needs of people should be the focus of our attention, the nature and scale of this disaster also provided a stark reminder of the need to address the causes and consequences of environmental change on our planet.

The fact that he chose to express these sentiments with the full knowledge that Pakistan's powerful elite have been far less sensitive to the miseries of their own people, is a sad commentary on any value that we may attach to the wellbeing of the downtrodden.

If widespread perceptions, that at some places the dykes were breached for self-serving interests with complete disregard for the lives and meagre ownerships of the poor, are correct, it would be nothing short of an inhuman and criminal conduct, worthy of exemplary punishment under the law.

While this deluge may be over, there is always a danger of other such natural disasters looming around the corner. Mr Steiner has therefore correctly sounded the warning that vulnerability of societies - particularly the poor ones - to impacts of these changing phenomena such as climate change and degradation of our ecological life-support systems, continues to grow.

This is a warning which we would be hard put to ignore for our collective national wellbeing. The people of Pakistan deserve better answers for the future and at a time when we have a fairly good idea of what happened to us and how we responded to these challenges.

It says something about the power of the media in Pakistan and the Herculean effort by camera crews from various channels, when Mr Steiner observed that, 'no one can be left untouched by the looks of despair, confusion and fear in the eyes of trusting children being carried by their parents through flooded landscapes in the desperate search for a safe place. Our responsibility to reflect and act has never been greater.'

The fact that he chose to transfer the funds to a Pakistani NGO in the province rather than the federal government, is yet another blow to the credibility of our rulers. But it is futile to touch upon this subject any more since change for the better in the government's policies is as unlikely, as to expect the mighty Indus to start flowing upstream.

The inhabitants of Swabi remember Mr Steiner as a kind and sensitive person who wished to see a change in the identity of the poor with whom he shared mutual experiences in their hujras (Guest Houses) and mudflat houses. He understood the deep pain and deprivation of the Pakhtoon people.

He wanted the Pakhtoons to be identified differently than being associated with the hardest and lowest social hierarchical trades, which they are constrained to adopt in the search for livelihoods all across Pakistan.

One wonders if the current rulers of KPK would spare a thought to Mr Steiner's desires to bring about a meaningful change in the lives of the people of their province, and not merely play around with their sentiments and emotions.

Another aspect which someone noticed during Mr Steiner's long stay in KPK was his concern for its youth drifting away into drugs, as helpless mothers and wives crooned an anti-drug song by an unknown Pashtu singer in their sad voices : 'Woi guttey khey pravezey, che bhang cha kareloo wu naa' (Cursed be those who sow this despicable crop).

As always, emotions stemming from the inner sanctums of the heart are extremely difficult to translate; this being no exception. Would the KPK rulers be moved by the sadness in the voices of these unfortunate women, who are symbols of honor of course, but not much else.

Thank you Mr Steiner for the gesture which will always be remembered in the same vein in which it was made. KPK's mudflats and hujras, not to mention the hearts and hearths of the poor, will always remain open to you should life ever bring you again to these wonderful people.

The writer is a retired vice admiral of the Pakistan Navy. Email: tajkhattak@ymail.com
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UNEP head donates Tallberg prize money to Pakistan flood victims - UNEP