Tag Archives: Pakistan

FTAC – Islam – A Voice From Islamabad – “The Question of Dhimmis is Over With”

10 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Philology, Philosophy, Politics, Religion

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 . . . as we are advancing towards one Global Humanity in which all religions and faith(s), irrespective need to be respected and respected with the greatest of dignity, therefore, the question of Dhimmis is over with. Islam believes in the equality of one global humanity and not to enslave humanity because of their different religious backgrounds, and faith. Islam protects the weak against the strong, who do not know how to absorb Power and to Practice Power in form of good and credible Justice to be done to humanity, irrespective of their backgrounds in religion and faith. Today’s Muslims or the so called Muslims who have taken Law into their own hands, and violate the law of ONE GOD ALL-MIGHTY of how well to treat ONE GOD’s humans on this earth, are perhaps far and very far from the Principles of Islam. Such violent Muslims, may call themselves Muslims a hundred times, makes no difference, because their hypocrisy has grown so much on them, that they cannot think aright. Their minds have been corrupted to the core and their hearts have been blackened by the demons’ spell, so how can such so called Muslims in name, be the Worshipers’ and followers’ of ONE ALL-MIGHTY GOD, Who, Loves HIS Creation, and then Humans being HIS Most Creative Creation. Islam is Peace, Love for humanity and a crave for Universal Justice among’st all humans.

The bold italics are mine.

The writer is Muslim, vigorously so.

The awesome conversation continues.

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. . . but I will suggest this much: every human has an interior life, some kind of life of the mind, and the images in that mind float around in there with language. Where there’s abundance and any ability to distribute that, fighting involves something in the head, and we can discern what that is when the head talks and out of its mouth come its attitudes and beliefs, some about the universe, and those entertain us, and some about others, and those words are the ones that may comfort or terrify everyone who hears them.

That voice is my narcissistic own.

🙂

We can experience a great many things in our own heads, but we cannot share them without the creation of sign and symbol, and we do that most often with the words we speak (this not discounting the effects of aural, culinary, and visual fine art).

What we have in our heads too may be put there by language, the “cultural tool”, a powerful one with which each generation of sufficient mien and reach must be careful with in service to themselves and others.

When a Muslim gentleman in Pakistan tells me through the awesome conversation — a term of art on this blog — that “the question of Dhimmis is over with” it is a little like hearing Spielberg’s Lincoln say, “Slavery, Mr. ____, it’s done.”

Of course, it is different when a Lincoln says it, but even from out of the sea of more than a billion voices, the one voice confirms his faith in submission to God but not through himself or others submission to himself or others.

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Stop It! Pakistan’s Recent Bombings

02 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by in Asia, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Pakistan

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When a militant core develops somewhere down deep in the middle of Pakistan’s middle or middle-elite and modernizing middle classes — business, landowners, and military — there may come a more vigorous battle against the miscreant forces throwing bombs at them.

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AP reports two bombings today in Baluchistan — two soldiers killed in one attack; six people in the other (plus 11 wounded).

Having scratched through the surface of the Baloch Conflict — start looking up nouns if you’re enthused about solving this one of the world’s problems — I could not find the noble figure of a people’s leader who was not himself above it all in the now familiar narcissistic pattern, self-aggrandizing, self-enriching, not quite so truly egalitarian and magnanimous.

That fighting is going to go on until someone runs short of either ammo or manpower.

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Also, in the same piece, AP tells of other recent deadly violence related to the ferrying relief to the victims of a recent earthquake in the region.  Rather than tally the count, which is one way of removing and sanitizing what is happening — by turning humans into numbers — I’d rather readers used their imaginations for two minutes.

A terrible earthquake has taken place somewhere.  Homes have been destroyed; roads have been damaged, perhaps; communities and families have found themselves cut off from others, the economic ecology of their lives — getting food, having a place to sleep — has been suddenly altered and they’re exposed to both malevolent human and natural forces. Military troops — good young men, every one of them — have been summoned to get in aid and for that expression of compassion and good deed doing have been attacked and killed with bombs or gunfire.

Of and for the dead we ask whether their murderers were Baloch separatists or Islamic militants when, in fact, the answer is irrelevant to the ethics and humanity of the situation.

Whoever the killers are, it seems they could not discern the difference between a combat mission and a humanitarian one, much less between a soldier and a civilian — and if the history of this fighting affords any clues, they never could.

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Start with the end of the story: “At least 20 people were killed and nearly 40 were injured when another bus carrying government workers was bombed in the same area in June 2012.”

Same time, next year?

Add a couple of months: 17 dead is the count from the bus bombing that took place a week ago in Peshawar.

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“Police and hospital officials say most of the dead and injured were women and children.  The diocese of Peshawar says several were Sunday school students and choir members.”  — from the video heading Suicide bombers kill 81 at church in Peshawar, Pakistan – CNN.com – 9/23/2013.

Imran Khan who has promised to talk with the Taliban (I cannot but imagine that a “see here, old chum, this is just not acceptable . . . .” is not going to get very far) and Nawaz Sharif may be figuring out that not only is talk cheap in the face of such an onslaught of mayhem and murder, it may also no longer suffice for calming crowds and placating the bereaved.

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Shafqat Malik, the head of the local bomb squad, said the bomb was planted in a car parked in front of a small hotel in the Qissa Khawani bazaar, the city’s oldest and one of its biggest. The device used about 440 pounds of explosives and was detonated by remote control, he added, leaving a crater 5 feet deep.

Car bomb kills dozens at bazaar in Peshawar, Pakistan – latimes.com – 9/29/2013.

Toll: 43 dead, 100 wounded, “in a crowded market about 350 yards from where a memorial service was being held for the victims of last week’s church bombing.”

Zulfiqar Ali and Mark Magnier’s piece in the Los Angeles Times makes mention of the recent series of attacks as possibly intended by Taliban to discredit peace talks with the government.

If it’s true, job well done, I’d say.

Reference

At least 10 dead in suicide bombing in Pakistan | Fox News Latino – 10/2/2013.

Bomb kills 2 Pakistan soldiers in quake-hit region – 10/2/2013.

Car bomb kills dozens at bazaar in Peshawar, Pakistan – latimes.com – 9/29/2013

BBC News – At least 17 die in Pakistan bus bomb – 9/27/2013.

Suicide bombers kill 81 at church in Peshawar, Pakistan – CNN.com – 9/23/2013.

Special force to be raised for tackling heinous crimes: PM | PMLN Official – 9/6/2013

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Pakistan – (Perhaps) Overshadowed – The Bombing of a Church in Peshawar

23 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Kenya, Pakistan, Psychology

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Such extreme violence against minorities tends to be perpetrated by the country’s many and various militant organisations. The group that claimed responsibility for this latest attack has links to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and said it was acting in retaliation for drone strikes. Yet the problem runs far deeper than a few rogue elements. Disturbingly, these extremist groups, which have been allowed to operate by successive governments, do have an impact on the national debate. This has contributed to increasing intolerance across society.

Peshawar church bombings show the deadly outcome of religious intolerance | Samira Shackle | Comment is free | theguardian.com 9/23/2013

In south central Pennsylvania this afternoon, the news on the television mounted in a corner beneath the ceiling of the diner where I was enjoying a late lunch hung on the tragedy playing out in Nairobi’s Westgate Mall.  This other story involving a death toll greater than Westgate — 85 as opposed to 68 — and targeting a Christian community and its sacred space may have had a different presence, less visceral, less important for having taken place in Muslim-majority Pakistan and having involved a less affluent and cosmopolitan community.

Perhaps.

Or perhaps we are more used to hearing of Islamist outrages in Pakistan — something in the realm of Islamic arm twisting and terror happens every day or every other day in Pakistan’s part of the Islamic Small Wars — and then, again, it’s a Muslim state and one with an outlook very different from Christian Kenya’s with its historic and decent relationship with Israel.

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Their 52-year-old father had been looking forward to it, particularly the period after the service when the congregation spills out into the enclosed courtyard to chat.

“He was looking forward to seeing his friends,” said Joel.

Pakistani Christians mourn 85 killed in suicide bombings at Peshawar church | World news | theguardian.com 9/23/2013

It’s convenient, I suppose, for this old bleeding heart to bleed for everyone at the desktop: in my pseudo-solopsist online existence, all of the Islamic Small Wars (and a few others) occupy the same space, about 24-inches from eyes to screen.  In real space, are they not on just one planet?  Are they not coinciding, if not colliding, in time?

Is there anything that would make the murder of a 52-year-old father returning to church in Peshawar any less horrific and tragic than that of his doppelgänger gone shopping for a few hours in a mall in Nairobi?

Perhaps Pakistanis who now must admit the state’s declared religion has been hewed to, commandeered, perverted, or merely exploited (choose any option) by those “who would fly planes into office building” or blow up wedding processions, funerals, or parishioners gathering after services at church should lend attention to the more harmonious and tolerant values of the west and of the Christians.  And of the Jews.  And, perhaps, infidel others ever so much more at peace with the wide, wide world and themselves.

Until provoked.

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▶ Dr Qanta Ahmed – Israel TV’s Foreign News Magazine – Roim Olam – YouTube 9/23/2013

Additional Reference

Kenya Westgate mall hostage standoff continues; death toll hits 68 – CBS News 9/22/2013

Why Israel is advising Kenya in mall attack response – CSMonitor.com 9/23/2013:

Israeli interests in Kenya run deep. According to the website of Israel’s embassy in Nairobi, Israel has provided technical assistance in areas such as agriculture and medicine for decades, in some cases going back to the days before Kenyan independence in 1963.

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Islamic Small Wars – A Few Days Toll in Death

22 Sunday Sep 2013

Posted by in Islamic Small Wars

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▶ Westgate survivor: Ben recounts his narrow escape at Westgate mall – YouTube 9/22/2013

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From the following compilation alone, I tallied reports to 246 dead (rebels included) by way of Islamist violence in recent days.  I’m sure if I have miscounted, the figure is on the low side.  

Let’s round up: should “250 dead” in recent days prove high, somehow, we may wait half a day or a day, seldom more than two, and reality will catch up with it and overtake it.

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AL SHABAAB HITS KENYA, HOLDS HOSTAGES

From a report on the heavily armed assault on the very dangerous civilians shopping (like the one in the above video) at Westgate Mall, Nairobi, Kenya:

Gunmen stormed the mall about noon local time armed with grenades and assault rifles. They asked cornered victims if they were Muslim or non-Muslim, witnesses told the Associated Press. Non-Muslims were held, while Muslims were allowed to go free.

The al-Shabab group said the attacks were in response to a Kenyan military push into Somalia in 2011.

Americans injured in deadly Kenyan mall attack – POLITICO.com 9/21/2013.

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Earlier reports —

Nairobi, Kenya (CNN) — Fifty-nine dead. At least 175 injured. About 30 hostages still inside, as well as perhaps a dozen gunmen.

Those are the grim numbers, a day after attackers stormed an upscale Nairobi mall, spraying bullets and holding shoppers captive.

Kenya mall attack: About 30 hostages still inside, sources say – CNN.com 9/22/2013

Related: Al-Shabaab Attack Fulfills Threat in Kenyan Support for Somalia – Bloomberg 9/22/2013

Americans injured in deadly Kenyan mall attack – POLITICO.com 9/21/2013

Hostages Trapped Inside Nairobi Shopping Mall : The Two-Way : NPR 9/21/2013

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Afghanistan “Insider Attack”

KABUL, Afghanistan — An Afghan wearing a security forces uniform turned his weapon against foreign troops Saturday, killing three in eastern Afghanistan, NATO and Afghan officials said, in another apparent attack by a member of the Afghan forces against their international allies.

NATO: 3 troops killed in Afghan insider attack – Worcester Telegram & Gazette – telegram.com 9/21/2013

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In Peshawar, Pakistan Today

A TWIN suicide bombing has killed more than 70 people at a church service in northwest Pakistan, the attack believed to be the deadliest on Christians in the country.

The bombers struck at the end of a service at All Saints Church in Peshawar, the main town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province which has borne the brunt of a bloody Islamist insurgency in recent years.

More than 70 killed at Pakistan church | The Australian 9/22/2013

The death toll figure has risen to 78 in many reports:

(Reuters) – A pair of suicide bombers blew themselves up outside a 130-year-old church in Pakistan after Sunday Mass, killing at least 78 people in the deadliest attack on Christians in the predominantly Muslim South Asian country.

Suicide bombers kill 78 Christians outside Pakistani church | Reuters 9/22/2013

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Reports from the Philippines

Five rebels and a 71-year-old woman were killed Saturday as fighting dragged on in a southern Philippine city between government troops and Muslim insurgents holding out with about 20 civilian hostages, officials said.

6 More Die as Fighting Drags on in Philippine City – ABC News 9/20/2013

Related: Philippine leaders says Muslim armed challenge over soon | GlobalPost 9/22/2013

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Near Azaz, Syria

Hundreds of fighters under the command of the opposition Free Syrian Army (FSA) have reportedly switched allegiance to al-Qaeda-aligned groups, in a move described as a huge blow to moderate rebel forces.

Activists and military sources have told Al Jazeera that the 11th Division – one of the biggest FSA brigades – has switched allegiance to the al-Nusra Front in Raqqah province, a border province with Turkey.

FSA brigade ‘joins al-Qaeda group’ in Syria – Middle East – Al Jazeera English

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A Pool of Blood in Iraq

Two suicide bombers, one in an explosives-laden car and the other on foot, struck a cluster of funeral tents packed with mourning families in a Shia neighbourhood in Baghdad, the deadliest in a string of attacks around Iraq that killed at least 96 people on Saturday.

Iraq violence: suicide bombers kill at least 72 at Baghdad funeral | World news | theguardian.com 9/21/2013

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Iraqi officials say two separate bombings, including a suicide car bomb attack, have killed two security force members and wounded 37 people in the country’s north.

Bombings in Northern Iraq Kill 2, Wound 37 – ABC News 9/22/2013

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Yemen

(CNN) — Militants killed 18 soldiers and eight police officers in south Yemen Friday morning, security officials said.

The attacks targeted installations in Shabwa province on Friday morning, the officials said. They said the attackers used car bombs and heavy artillery.

Yemen: Militants attack military, police installations, kill 26 – CNN.com 9/20/2013

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Abuja, Nigeria

The shoot out took place near the main residential compound for lawmakers in Abuja on Friday and was the first clash involving Islamist militants in the capital this year.

Boko Haram fighting Nigerian troops in Abuja – Telegraph 9/20/2013

Related: BBC News – Nigeria’s ‘Boko Haram’: Abuja sees security forces targeted 9/20/2013

Additional Reference

BBC News – General killed as Egyptian forces raid pro-Morsi town September 19, 2013.

Kurds push jihadists from Syria village: NGO – Region – World – Ahram Online September 18, 2013

Has Syria Got a Prayer? Attacks on Christian Churches Near Damascus | National Review Online Interview with Raymond Ibrahim, September 7, 2013.

Syrian troops storm central village, killing 15 | Boston Herald September 22, 2013.

Syrian Christians may get pulled into war September 21, 2013.

FNS — Two Notes on Islam — From Islam

29 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by in Fast News Share, Free Speech, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Politics

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For the biggest form of blasphemy that we all almost always commit is to force another to live in fear for believing, speaking, thinking and sometimes even existing, as we justify it in the name of our faith or stand silent as we bear witness.

No videos, sketches or hate speeches have hurt Islam more than the reckless army of blood thirsty goons justifying vandalism in the name of religion.

Saleem, Sana.  “In Pursuit of Clarity.”  Dawn, July 29, 2013.

As I have said in previous articles, a devout government must always support such principles as libertarianism, modernity and valuing women, beauty, art and science. It must not allow the slightest pressure or measure or reference reminiscent of pressure. It must turn its back on the possibility of radicalism and, as a “devout” administration, must apply democracy in the most perfect manner. We must admit that Mohamed Morsi and Recep Tayyip Erdogan have made errors on this.

Kocaman, Aylin.  “A simple but burdensome word: Islamist.”  Al-Ahram Weekly, July 23, 2013.

The World Wide Web has turned out a global mirror.  Signal sent — signal returned: in language, we see ourselves as others (not always remote) may see us.

If the latest sentiments out of Pakistan and Turkey prove sustained, that thing called “The West” may have to resign itself to following rather than leading in the realm of ethical and moral investigation and righteousness, no doubt, however, while welcoming the competition.

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Malala’s Sweet Tough 16th

12 Friday Jul 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share, Islamic Small Wars, Pakistan, Politics

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Thanks to Al Jazeera:

In less than 20 minutes, Malala Yousafzai has done what few to none of Pakistan’s politicians have ever done: pushed Pakistan to the forefront of ethical and moral progress in the world.

Additional Reference

A World at School.  “The text of Malala Yousafzai’s speech at the United Nations.”  Transcript.  July 12, 2013.

Ellick, Adam B.  “Class Dismissed: Malala’s Story.”  Video.  (Back Story).  The New York Times, October 9, 2012.

Imam, Zainab.  “Malala and the lague of extraordinary Pakistani women.”  The Express Tribune, July 13, 2013:

But on July 12, when a young Pakistani woman wowed the entire world by her simple yet powerful views, I let go of trying to look logically at the other view — I saw the tear that fell out of Malala’s mother’s eye and I felt what had caused it. Malala’s mother, purported to be a CIA agent, was crying because the little girl who she had carried in her womb for nine months and nurtured for 15 years was finally able to speak with her characteristic vigour after surviving a bullet to her head.

Johnston, Ian.  “Malala Yousafzai: Being shot by Taliban made me stronger.”  NBC News, July 12, 2013.

Plank, Elizabeth.  “9 Best Quotes From Malala’s United Nations Speech.” Policymic, July 12, 2013.

Reuters.  “Pakistan’s Malala celebrates 16th birthday with emotional U.N. speech (1:32), July 12, 2013.

Spiegal Online Staff.  “Girl Rising: Malala Fires Up a New Generation.”  Spiegal Online, July 12, 2013.

The Globe and Mail.  “‘They thought that the bullet would silence us’: Malala addresses UN Youth Assembly.”  July 12, 2013.

FTAC – CIA, Pakistan, Taliban – It Ain’t Charlie Wilson’s War No More!

10 Monday Jun 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology

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Let’s access some empirical method and policy on this: I believe U.S. officials know that when Pakistan received domestic and military aid funds, those moneys are then managed by Pakistanis, and they may go where they’re supposed to go, or they may go where they shouldn’t. Is that aspect of Pakistani corruption America’s problem?

The CIA is one of a number of the world’s shadowy intelligence compartments — as long as the lingo “Secure Compartmentalized Information Facility” is in use, I’m inclined to use “compartment” too (and, for the record, I ain’t paid by nobody!). It has therefore been easy for the injudicious and paranoid to cite the “usual suspects” — but not from the side intended in the film _Casablanca_ — without having to resort to verifiable records or reports.

Asif Irfan — Americans are not against Pakistan, and by extension, the CIA, State Department, Department of Defense, the whole shebang, isn’t “against” Pakistan either. To place the “locus of control” in the creation and myth of a “Great Satan” may comfort the fearful, but such comprises a false comfort. The truth is people like me, truly just another human being on the planet, speaking English, and hoping to prove more decently so than not over a lifetime, to partner with and provide Pakistan, as need, if needed, with access or insight into every kind of development or ecological knowledge available. We want to help with good things — health, longevity, quality of life, security — not bad ones.

At 9:29, Pakistan becomes an aggressor against all others.

My rabbi notes, “Some people are in a hurry to get to the end of the story.” He was referring to apocalypse. I don’t want to get there? Do you? Does the CIA want to get there?

How about the FSB?

MI5?

Ah, but there’s another to include in this question: ISI?

If you were to feel the energy-developed wealth of the privileged states of the Arabian Peninsula was contributing to mischief in Pakistan at at least sub-state levels — private money, also poppy money, also _diverted_ money — to the literal immediate expression of Islam in the modern world, including the imposition of 9:29 on all others, I might agree with you.

I may also agree that western military hardware manufacturing interests may have interest in continuous conflict, but those especially know they lose if lobbying — or working in underhanded ways — to perpetuate conflicts. The American Fourth Estate — my fellow journalists — would have a field day, and the American people would shut them down by way of elections.

Where else in the world — in cyberspace too — can one have a conversation like the one implied by the above posted fast chatyping?

No one but their overseers or owners know what state secret services may be up to, but that is no cause to fill in the gaps with emotionally-driven suspicions and, worse, assumptions!

At the moment (well, around the moment, lol), I am reading The New Nobility: The Restoration of Russia’s Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB by Andrei Soldatav and Irina Borogan.

Thank God for highest-integrity investigative journalism and the immensely nervy people who work at it!

In any given nation state, constituents may not need nor wish to know operations undertaken on their behalf, but the same have every need to know — and the moral requirement to know — the state policies driving operations.  Without that knowledge, or less than true knowledge, their freedom comes to an end, leaving only ruthless narcissists to fight about who might be prettier in God’s eyes, even if all such may be as unclothed as the famous fairy tale emperor and equally as ugly.

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Abbas Zaidi Comments on The Future of the Taliban in Pakistan

04 Tuesday Jun 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology

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Leaving aside the false binary of good-bad Taliban, one must understand the inter-textuality of the Taliban and their supporters. One cannot understand the Taliban phenomenon in 2013 without understanding that they are financed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE, apart from the Pakistani diaspora in various countries. In turn, one cannot discount the significance of these four factors in the economic survival of Pakistan. And one cannot underestimate the support for the Taliban within Pakistan itself.

You will be absolutely wrong if you thought that the Taliban, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ) are three different outfits, and not three incarnations of ‘Islamofascism’.

Zaidi, Abbas. “The Future of Taliban.” Viewpoint, May 30, 2013.

Sociolinguist Abbas Zaidi, knows the Pakistani character and its politics with keen sensibility, and so I thought to pass the above link into the BackChannels information stream.

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