Category Archives: Pakistan

On Islam, Romney Doesn’t Have the Slightest Idea What He’s Talking About

Obama Administration, Osama Bin Laden, Pakistan


by Juan Cole, History News Network, May 7, 2012

Mitt Romney said Monday that of course he would have taken out Osama bin Laden and that “even Jimmy Carter would have made that call.”

Since Jimmy Carter ordered a brave and risky but failed military mission into Iran, that was a cheap shot on the part of someone who has never had anything to do with the military. Moreover, Jimmy Carter made peace between Egypt and Israel and played a major role in reducing the number of Africans stricken by the Guinea worm from 3.5 million to 1,100. So Romney, who has mainly been sending our jobs overseas, isn’t good enough to shine Carter’s shoes.

Moreover, Romney is forgetting what he said about Obama when bin Laden was killed:

“I think the president deserves credit for approving a relatively high-risk entry into the country with helicopters and special operations personnel, Navy SEALs,” Romney said. “That was the thing that proved to be successful.”

So at the time, Romney acknowledged that Obama made the decision, and that it was a high-risk strategy that he approved (advisors such as Joe Biden preferred a missile strike). Continue reading On Islam, Romney Doesn’t Have the Slightest Idea What He’s Talking About →

Letters from Abbottabad

Osama Bin Laden, Pakistan, Teaching Resources


The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point has just issued a report on the letters found at Bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan. This is: Letters from Abbottabad: Bin Ladin Sidelined?
The authors are Don Rassler, Gabriel Koehler-Derrick, Liam Collins, Muhammad al-Obaidi, and Nelly Lahoud. Here is the description and it can be downloaded here.

This report is a study of 17 de-classified documents captured during the Abbottabad raid and released to the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC). They consist of electronic letters or draft letters, totaling 175 pages in the original Arabic and 197 pages in the English translation. The earliest is dated September 2006 and the latest April 2011. These internal al-Qa`ida communications were authored by several leaders, most prominently Usama bin Ladin. In contrast to his public statements that focused on the injustice of those he believed to be the “enemies” of Muslims, namely corrupt “apostate” Muslim rulers and their Western “overseers,” the focus of Bin Ladin’s private letters is Muslims’ suffering at the hands of his jihadi “brothers”. He is at pain advising them to abort domestic attacks that cause Muslim civilian casualties and focus on the United States, “our desired goal.” Bin Ladin’s frustration with regional jihadi groups and his seeming inability to exercise control over their actions and public statements is the most compelling story to be told on the basis of the 17 de-classified documents. “Letters from Abbottabad” is an initial exploration and contextualization of 17 documents that will be the grist for future academic debate and discussion.

“My Name is Khan” déjà vu

Film and Video, Islamophobia, Pakistan, Terrorism Issue


Shah Rukh Khan as sex symbol

Someone really needs to read the riot act to The Patriot Act. Yes, the threat of terrorism is real and we millions of passengers dutifully take off our shoes and spread out our arms for see-through scanning or pat-down frisking in airports. But screening does not have to be irrational. How many times must a world-famous actor like Shah Rukh Khan be detained by security when he enters the United States? This is not the first time. What status is there to check out? Does the image above look like a serious threat? Would Salman Rushdie be rushed into detention?

Here is the report on Al-Jazzera :

He is one of the most famous men on the planet. Adored by millions. His films are almost always box office smashes. But when Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan travelled to the US on Thursday, he was detained by security for two hours while they checked out his “status”.

Ironic, considering his biggest hit film was the story of a man determined to visit the US president and give him a very simple message: My Name is Khan and I’m not a terrorist.

The film is a powerful look at what it means to be Muslim in the land of the free and the home of the brave. I wonder if he told Homeland Security that he wasn’t a terrorist.

He says he feels angry and humiliated. I know how he feels. In the last three years I have travelled to the US six times. Each time, bar one, I was stopped. I was asked to go to a holding facility and my passport was taken. You are asked to sit down by a polite but hostile official. Continue reading “My Name is Khan” déjà vu →

For Whom the Death Toll tolls

Afghanistan, Anthropology/Sociology, Ethics, Iraq, Iraq War, Libya, Mali, Pakistan, Palestine, Syria, Terrorism Issue, Yemen


“John Donne and 1664 Dutch map of the world

“No man is an iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee….”
John Donne, Meditation 17, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, 1624

What was true some four centuries ago for the English metaphysical poet John Donne is timeless, even if his writ shows its linguistic age. Today it can also be said that no country is an island unto itself, no matter where or how you spin the globe. This is certainly the case for the United Sates, with our military still on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, targeted drones over Pakistan and Yemen, the smoldering aftermath of the bombs that brought down Qaddafi in Libya, the stench of made-in-the-USA arms just about everywhere. If, as Donne eloquently reflects, the death of any man (or woman or child) diminishes us, then why are we so hell-bent on adding to this diminishing by arming thugs and sending our military to die in other countries?

First, it is important to realize how much the death toll drones on daily. Take today, for example. On Al-Jazeera we learn there are “many dead in Afghanistan suicide blasts,” 18 dead and 45 wounded by the numbers. As the nominal peace part still fails to protect the dictator-weary people of Syria, reports are that some 9,000 have been killed so far by the Assad regime, including refugees over the border in Turkey. There are also “Pakistanis dead in apparent sectarian attack,“adding six more to the thousands who have been killed in the ongoing violence that plagues Pakistan. The see-saw fighting in Yemen’s troubled south leaves “Dozens killed in attack on Yemen army base.” And a few days ago “Hamas hangs three Gaza prisoners“. Continue reading For Whom the Death Toll tolls →

Saving Face

Gender and Sexuality, Pakistan, Terrorism Issue


HBO is rebroadcasting the documentary “Saving Face” today (8:45 am) about the attacks in Pakistan on women. It will also be available in their on-demand service.

Every year in Pakistan, many people – the majority of them women – are known to be victimized by brutal acid attacks, while numerous other cases go unreported. With little or no access to reconstructive surgery, survivors are physically and emotionally scarred, and many reported assailants, typically a husband or someone else close to the victim, are let go with minimal punishment from the state.

This year’s Oscar winner for Best Documentary Short, SAVING FACE chronicles the arduous attempts of acid-attack survivors Zakia and Rukhsana to bring their assailants to justice, and follows the charitable work of Dr. Mohammad Jawad, a plastic surgeon who strives to help them go beyond this horrific act and move on with their lives. Directed by Oscar and Emmy nominee Daniel Junge and Emmy-winning Pakistani director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, SAVING FACE debuts THURSDAY, MARCH 8 (8:30-9:15 p.m. ET/PT), exclusively on HBO.

Tabsir Redux: Apocalypse Watch: The Man Who Knows Squat

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Bible and Holy Land, Contemporary Art, Islam and Christianity, Islamophobia, Pakistan

Most people find it hard to take cartoons seriously, apart from political satire and that can become a deadly issue, depending on the target. Given the recent Danish cartoon controversy it would seem that comics and religion do not mix well or at least settle well for the believers who see themselves as the target. But what about comic relief for the political struggle between Israel and the Palestinians? Fundamentalist tract artist Jack Chick, whose comic empire is dedicated to winning souls for Christ by drawing on God’s hate, has been using his pen to spread a rather sinister version of the fundamentally reduced Gospel for over 40 years. One of his more recent offerings is called “The Squatters” and it provides a virtual roadmap to apocalypse. Continue reading Tabsir Redux: Apocalypse Watch: The Man Who Knows Squat →

Why are the Gods absent?

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Israel, Pakistan, Palestine, Terrorism Issue

There are times when I think that the most compelling reason for atheism, or perhaps belief only in a malevolent deity, is the action of those who claim to do outrageous acts in the name of some God. Last Friday a suicide bomber walled amidst some 300 Pakistani Muslims in the town of Khyber and set off a bomb laden with ball bearings that ripped through the bodies of perhaps as many as 80 Muslims who had just finished Friday prayers in the holy month of Ramadan. In the report today by al Jazeera, one local man was quoted as saying, “Whoever did it in the holy month of Ramadan cannot be a Muslim,” he said from a hospital bed in the main northwest city of Peshawar. “It is the cruelest thing any Muslim would do.” Sadly, history shows that acts of Muslims killing Muslims, Christians killing Christians and indeed members of any one religion killing those of their own faith are rampant in our species. Religion may not be the cause of the violence, but it is often the justification on the surface. There are perhaps no more odious words than “my God told me to do this” for acts of violence and hatred directed towards others indiscriminately.

These days the Middle East is a killing field in which dictatorial regimes propped up by outside powers even after the thawing of the Cold War turn arsenals of weapons against their own people. Muslims are killing Muslims in Libya, Syria and Yemen as they have been at times in Egypt, Tunisia and Bahrain. The numbers are chilling, especially in Libya and Syria, and in some cases the overt rationale is so political that religion is merely the background. In other cases Muslims are killing non-Muslims, such as the recent bus bombing in Israel, and non-Muslims killing Muslims, such as yesterday’s bombing raids by Israel in Gaza.

One of the most challenging questions for religion is why bad things should happen to good or at least innocent people if indeed there is a loving and merciful God out there who cares about the creation he (be it Yahweh, Jehovah or Allah) or she (Kali is hardly Mother Teresa) oversees. Continue reading Why are the Gods absent? →

Drones down the drain

Afghanistan, Pakistan, Terrorism Issue, Yemen


Former Intel Chief: Call Off The Drone War (And Maybe the Whole War on Terror)

by Noah Shachtman, Wired.com, July 28, 2011 |

Colorado — Ground the U.S. drone war in Pakistan. Rethink the idea of spending billions of dollars to pursue al-Qaida. Forget chasing terrorists in Yemen and Somalia, unless the local governments are willing to join in the hunt.

Those aren’t the words of some human rights activist, or some far-left Congressman. They’re from retired admiral and former Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair — the man who was, until recently, nominally in charge of the entire American effort to find, track, and take out terrorists. Now, he’s calling for that campaign to be reconsidered, and possibly even junked.

Starting with the drone attacks. Yes, they take out some mid-level terrorists, Blair said. But they’re not strategically effective. If the drones stopped flying tomorrow, Blair told the audience at the Aspen Security Forum, “it’s not going to lower the threat to the U.S.” Al-Qaida and its allies have proven “it can sustain its level of resistance to an air-only campaign,” he said. Continue reading Drones down the drain →