Sunday, November 30, 2008

Mumbai Terror: Pointing fingers

analysis: Pointing fingers — Dr Hasan-Askari Rizvi
Daily Times, november 30, 2008

The blame game between India and Pakistan serves the political agendas of both hard-line Hindus and hard-line Muslims, who have always opposed normalisation of India-Pakistan relations

The Mumbai terrorist attacks, the worst suffered by India, have drawn attention to, once again, the growing menace of terrorism against state and society in South Asia. The magnitude of this attack was far greater than the suicide attack on the Marriott in Islamabad on September 20. These attacks have shaken India just like the Marriott blast jolted Pakistan, and have spread insecurity throughout India. They have also embarrassed the Indian government for the security lapses that made it possible for a group of terrorists to launch such a coordinated attack.

The Mumbai attacks do not fit into the pattern of terrorism witnessed since 9/11. Normally, militant Islamist groups planted or lobbed bombs, sent suicide bombers, or launched quick assaults on their targets. Such attacks lasted for a few hours, if not less. There were instances of hostage-taking, but invariably the terrorists would take the hostages to their camps or hideouts.

For complete article, click here

Also See:
Delhi’s Three Fatal Flaws - Sumit Ganguly, Newsweek
Mumbai Attacks, the Aftermath - New York Times
Israelis mourn rabbi and wife slain in Mumbai - International Herald Tribune
Pakistan pledges to look into any militant role in Mumbai attacks - Los Angeles Times
Mumbai fallout tests govt-military ties - Zaffar Abbas, Dawn

Saturday, November 29, 2008

India-Pakistan Cooperation in Mumbai Investigations?

Pakistan U-turns on sending spy chief to India
By MUNIR AHMAD – AFP, November 29, 2008

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan demanded evidence Saturday for Indian charges it was involved in the Mumbai attacks and reversed its decision to send its spy chief to aid the probe, muddying efforts to avert a crisis between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

Deep mistrust between the South Asian rivals, who have already fought three wars, endangers efforts by the U.S. and its Western allies to battle al-Qaida and Taliban, thought to be hiding out along Pakistan's western border with Afghanistan.

Rising tensions on Saturday prompted Pakistani security officials to warn that the government would pull its troops from the antiterror fight along the Afghan border in order to respond to any Indian mobilization.

But Washington, which is fighting an increasingly deadly insurgency in Afghanistan, issued a reminder of Pakistan's failure to eliminate militant strongholds in its lawless northwest with a missile attack that reportedly killed two people.

Pakistan's government on Saturday reinforced its pledge to help India identify and apprehend those behind the attacks, which left more than 190 people dead in the financial hub of Mumbai.

"We stand shoulder to shoulder with the Indian people to defeat this common enemy," Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told a news conference in Islamabad.

However, Qureshi insisted that Pakistani authorities — including intelligence agencies that New Delhi has long accused of sponsoring terrorism — were not behind the carnage.

"If they have evidence they should share it with us," Qureshi said. "Our hands are clean."

His government also backed off a pledge made on Friday to send the chief of its Inter Services Intelligence agency in person.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari blamed the about-face on a "miscommunication" with India. Zardari said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had asked in a telephone call on Friday only that a "director" of the agency — not the chief — go to India.

But the reversal followed sharp criticism from some Pakistani opposition politicians and a cold response from the army, which controls the agency and jockeys with India for influence in the region.

Two senior Pakistani security officials said the Indians were pointing fingers at Islamabad in order to divert attention from its failure to avert the attacks and radicalization among its own Muslim minority.

One of the officials, both of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, said a further ratcheting up of tension could prompt India to move forces toward the Pakistani border.

Asked how Pakistan would respond, the second official said it would pull all its troops from the hotspots along the border with Afghanistan to its already highly militarized eastern frontier.

"All troops from our western border would be withdrawn to redeploy them at the eastern border," the official said. "Not a single soldier will remain there, and the coalition partners know about it."

He acknowledged that there was no indication of India mobilizing its forces. However, he claimed that India's air force has been put on "red alert."

Indian Air Force spokesman Sq. Ld. Mahesh Upasani declined to comment.

Hassan Abbas, a Pakistan expert at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, said the army was probably riled by Indian and U.S. media reports suggesting that New Delhi was considering a military response, including air strikes on suspected militant training camps in the portion of Kashmir controlled by Pakistan.

Indian saber-rattling was inevitable as parties pander to nationalist sentiment ahead of general elections due next year, Abbas said, though he estimated the risk of war as slim.

For complete article, click here

Also See:
Pakistan vows to investigate groups' possible role in Mumbai attacks - Los Angeles Times
Too early for blame in Mumbai attacks - The Star, Canada

Impact of Mumbai attacks on India-Pakistan Relations

Mumbai attacks inflame India-Pakistan tensions
Saeed Shah | McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: November 28, 2008

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — India on Friday charged that militants with links to Pakistan were involved in the terrorist attack on major tourist sites in Mumbai, in which more than 160 civilians died. Pakistan denied the allegations but agreed to send an intelligence official to discuss them.

The rapidly rising tensions could scuttle a tentative peace process between the two nuclear-armed countries and even lead to a military confrontation, and some experts said they thought this might've been the aim of the terror operation.

"Preliminary reports point towards Karachi," Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told his Pakistani counterpart, Yousaf Raza Gilani, Gilani's office said in a statement.

"Preliminary evidence indicates elements with links to Pakistan are involved," Indian foreign minister, Pranab Mukherjee said. He added, however: "Proof cannot be disclosed at this time."

Gilani accepted Singh's request to send the head of the Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan's premier spy agency, Lt.-Gen. Ahmed Shujaa Pasha, "for exchange of information." Later, Pakistan decided to dispatch a more junior ISI official instead, news reports said.

"When we're not involved, and we have nothing to hide, we should not fear about this," Gilani said at a news conference, defending the move.

Indian naval officials said the militants came by boat from the Pakistani port of Karachi, while the home (interior) minister, Jaiprakash Jaiswal said that a captured gunman had been identified as a Pakistani. Vilasrao Deshmukh, the head of the provincial government, said two British-born Pakistanis were among gunmen arrested by Indian authorities.

A U.S. counterterrorism official said preliminary information indicated that the terrorists may be from the Kashmiri separatist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, or Army of the Righteous, the armed wing of an extreme Pakistan-based Sunni Muslim missionary organization blamed for numerous attacks in India. The group has close links with Pakistan's intelligence services.

He said that the group is known for staging highly coordinated attacks by skilled fighters who are prepared to die. He also noted, however, that there are differences between the group's previous attacks and the assault on Mumbai, which singled out foreign nationals. The official asked for anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the issue openly.

Other experts suggested that India-based militants were involved in the attacks.

"This is beyond the capability of Lashkar-e-Taiba and beyond Pakistani intelligence," said Hassan Abbas, a research fellow at Harvard University and author of "Pakistan's Drift Into Extremism."

"This is a new brand of radical Muslim group, a modern face, which is more similar to attacks in London (in 2005) and Madrid (in 2004) than with the Kashmiri cause."

Abbas pointed out that the clean-shaven young assailants, captured in photographs, who clearly knew their way round luxury hotels, didn't appear to be the products of an education at a madrassa — an Islamic school — in Pakistan, which would be typical for members of Lashkar-e-Taiba and similar groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammad.

Wilson John, a senior fellow at Observer Research Foundation, a New Delhi based policy group, said Lashkar-e-Taiba was "the prime suspect." John, a critic of Pakistan, said the "modus operandi is the same as their past attacks, an attack with assault rifles in a public place."

Lashkar-e-Taiba was involved, by its own admission in the 2000 armed attack on the Red Fort in Delhi and the assault on the Indian parliament in 2001, and a temple in the Indian city of Ahmedabad in 2002. However, those strikes were amateurish compared with the well-organized and large-scale terrorist operation in Mumbai this week and weren't directed against Western nationals.

A former Pakistani security official, in contact with figures associated with Lashkar-e-Taiba, who could not be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue, said that the group appeared to be "totally stunned" by the Mumbai attacks. The militant outfit also issued a formal denial on Thursday.

Al Qaida has strongly influenced Pakistani extremist groups, including Lashgar-e-Taiba, and many Pakistani militants were trained in Osama bin Laden's camps prior to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

Lashgar fighters are known to have trained "from time to time" at bases belonging to bin Laden's terrorist network in Pakistan's remote tribal area bordering Afghanistan, the U.S. counterterrorism official said. However, al Qaida has shown little interest in India.

While Lashkar has had close ties with ISI, the U.S. counterterrorism official said it wasn't believed that there was any official Pakistan government involvement in the Mumbai assault.

Meanwhile, groups claiming to be Indian have taken responsibility for a series of terrorist attacks in India over the last 18 months, including the latest in Mumbai.

Experts said the Indian groups could be linked to a home-grown extremist organization, the Students Islamic Movement of India, which was banned in 2002. The younger generation among India's 150 million Muslims are being radicalized as a result of economic and social exclusion in the Hindu-majority country.

Some experts said that the group behind the Mumbai assault could be a hybrid of foreign and local radicals, including al Qaida. The city's criminal underworld, blamed for terrorist attacks in the past, could also be involved, especially a group called D-Company headed by fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim — who's believed to be hiding in Pakistan.

"I distinctly see the hand of Dawood Ibrahim's gang, in the knowledge of Mumbai we witnessed," said Maloy Krishna Dhar, a former joint director of India's Intelligence Bureau, a spy agency, "But the executors of the program were not local boys."

(Shah is a McClatchy special correspondent. Jonathan S. Landay contributed to this article.)

Also See:
‘Smoking gun’ to harm Pakistan-India ties, fear US experts - Dawn
Mumbai May Derail India-Pakistan Peace Progress - Postglobal, Washington Post
What They Hate About Mumbai - By SUKETU MEHTA, New York Times
U.S. Intelligence Focuses on Pakistani Group - New York Times

Friday, November 28, 2008

Behind Mumbai by Robert D. Kaplan

Behind Mumbai by Robert D. Kaplan
Atlantic Monthly, November 2008

Robert D. Kaplan offers insight into the Hindu-Muslim tensions festering within India

Heavily armed, hooded gunmen have killed more than 100 people and wounded more than 300 in Mumbai in coordinated attacks against two five-star hotels, the city’s largest train station, a movie theater, a hospital, and a Jewish center. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a televised address that the attackers had “external linkages,” an indication that Pakistan and perhaps al-Qaeda, too, would be blamed for the attack. It is clearly possible that the terror rampage had its origins outside India, aimed as they were at international rather than Hindu targets. But in a least one sense it doesn’t matter. For the attacks will aggravate a growing fault line between Hindus and Muslims within India itself.

India is home to 154 million Muslims, the third largest Muslim population in the world after Indonesia and Pakistan. Tolerable inter-communal relations are the sine qua non of Indian stability and ascendancy. India has more to lose from extremist Islam than arguably any other country in the world. The Mumbai terrorists announced themselves as the Deccan Mujahideen. The Deccan is a rugged plateau region in south-central India that Aurangzeb, the fierce Sunni emperor of the Mughals (India’s most historically significant Muslim dynasty) could never subdue and in fact died trying in 1707. The Islamic Mughals vanquished all of northern India, Pakistan, and a good part of Afghanistan, but they could never consolidate the Deccan against the Hindu Maratha warriors. This Mughal history has taken on heightened symbolism in India in recent years precisely as a result of globalization and the expansion of electronic communications and education, all of which have sharpened the country’s religious divide.

Let me explain.

In the early Cold War decades, India’s ruling Congress Party, the party of independence, sought to unite both Hindus and Muslims under the umbrella of a shared community and new nation-state. It worked, more or less, until the 1970s, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi enacted dictatorial emergency decrees that erased much of the romantic sheen from Congress’s image. New imagined communities then started to form. In the 1980s, and particularly in the 1990s, with the opening up of the Indian economy to the outside world, Indians, especially the new Hindu middle class, began a search for roots to anchor them inside an insipid world civilization that they were joining as a result of their new economic status. This enhanced status, by the way, gave them new insecurities, as they suddenly had wealth to protect.

Consequently, we had the rise of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (Indian People’s Party, or BJP). The BJP is one of several Hindu nationalist organizations that promotes a revisionist view of Indian history, in which the Mughals and other Muslim dynasties of the medieval and early modern era (which helped create India’s dazzlingly syncretic civilization - but who also brought terrible depredations upon the Hindus) are considered interlopers in what should have remained a purely Hindu civilization and story-line. Mass communications have helped Hindus in this historical journey, enabling the creation of a standardized and ideologized Hinduism out of many local variants. It goes without saying that a similar process simultaneously occurred within parts of the Indian Muslim community, who joined a world Muslim civilization that competed with Indian nationalism for their loyalty. Bottom line: this is not an ancient historical divide so much as a recreated modern one.

The divide exploded in full force in February and March 2002 in the northwestern province of Gujarat. Following the massacre of 58 Hindus on a train, Muslim areas of Gujarat, and particularly neighborhoods in its largest cities, were besieged by Hindu mobs: hundreds of Muslim women were raped, more than a thousand were killed, and 200,000 were made homeless. The Hindu nationalist BJP government in Gujarat was implicated in the killings, and because there was never an official apology for what happened, the atrocities have lived on in infamy, becoming a symbol for both groups in India.

With this background – and I have provided only the most rudimentary chronicle – the immediate result of the Mumbai terror attacks will be a further hardening of inter-communal relations within India. The latest attacks will also increase the likelihood that in national elections slated for early 2009, the result will be a BJP-led government, as Hindus, who comprise the overwhelming majority of Indian voters, take on another layer of insecurity.

Internationally, this event will further aggravate Indian-Pakistani relations, making it harder for the incoming Obama Administration to effect a rapprochement between the two countries, necessary for progress in Afghanistan, where the two subcontinental states are engaged in a proxy struggle that goes on behind the immediate conflict between the United States and al-Qaeda.

But the real story is India itself, whose undeniable rise as a major world power is being threatened by these civilizational tensions.

I have just spent a month reporting in Gujarat on Hindu-Muslim relations, and will have much more to say on the subject in the future.

Robert D. Kaplan is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

Also See:
Assault on Mumbai - Tariq Ali
I am a Mumbaikar: In Prayer and in Solidarity - Adil Najam (Pakistaniat.com)

Mumbai Terror Attacks - Who is behind it?

Mumbai terror attacks: Who could be behind them?
Some of the groups possibly behind the strikes
Maseeh Rahman in Delhi guardian.co.uk, Thursday November 27 2008

Deccan Mujahideen
Some six hours after the attack on Mumbai began on Wednesday night, Indian media organisations received an e-mail from an unknown group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen claiming responsibility for the deadly, well-planned operation. "We want to warn the Indian government that they must stop the injustice against the Muslim community," the email warned.

Security experts however remained sceptical about the existence of the Deccan Mujahideen. Such emails have been issued in the past by other jihadi outfits that have attacked Indian cities. What was unusual this time was the fact that the message was written in Hindi, and not, as on all previous occasions, in English.

For complete article, click here

Also See:
Experts, western media points finger towards Indian Mujahideen - Online
Behind the Mumbai Massacre: India's Muslims in Crisis - TIME
Indian forces storm Jewish centre - Sumantra Bose, BBC
India’s Suspicion of Pakistan Clouds U.S. Strategy in Region - New York Times

Quotable Quote from NYT article: Unless care is exercised, one of the apparent goals of the Mumbai attack will be achieved, said Moonis Ahmar, a lecturer in international relations at Karachi University. And the new American agenda of reconciliation between India and Pakistan will be sacrificed. “It’s a well-thought-out conspiracy to destabilize relations between the two countries,” Mr. Ahmar said.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Thank God for Justice:Renewing the Spirit in Uncertain Times - By Dr. Robert Crane

Thank God for Justice:Renewing the Spirit in Uncertain Times
by Dr. Robert Dickson Crane

A Thanksgiving Day Talk at Temple Solel
sponsored by The Bowie Clergy Association's
Annual Interfaith Worship Thanksgiving Service 2008
Bowie, Maryland - November 26, 2008


Bi ismi Allahi al rahman al rahim.
In the name of God, Who is both the essence of mercy and the most merciful

Every Muslim, at the beginning of whatever one does or intends to do, asks for the blessing of God by invoking His name in this way.

One might call this the Islamic invocation of the trinity. God, the Father is the essence of power, God the Son is the essence of mercy, and God the Holy Spirit is the essence of wisdom. Like Meister Eckhart, who succeeded St. Thomas Aquinas in the chair of theology at the University of Paris, we understand this as honoring the attributes of God Who is beyond number, beyond existence, and even Beyond Being.

My Thanksgiving Day talk today is entitled ‘‘Thank God for Justice’’ because justice is the combination of power, compassion, and wisdom, the Abrahamic trinity.

On the back of my card for the Abraham Federation are three quotes. The first is from Deuteronomy 16:20, “Justice. Justice, Thou Shalt Pursue.” The second is from Pope Paul VI, Si vic pacem, laborate justitiam, “If you want peace, work for justice.” And the third is from the Qur’an, Surah al An’am 6:115, Wa tama’at kalimatu Rabika sidqan wa ‘adlan, “And the Word of your Lord is fulfilled and perfected in truth and in justice.”

The central task of the great scholars in all three of the Abraham religions has been to develop holistic methodologies to explore what transcendent justice may mean in the design of God for the universe and how we creatures may best pursue it.

Justice may be defined as right order in a coherent universe. Transcendent justice assumes that the universe has purpose beyond its mere existence. Justice assumes that sentient human beings are part of this order and therefore that every human being by nature seeks justice as a higher purpose than mere life and liberty, because life and liberty are primarily products of justice. We should be thankful that we as sentient beings have both the capacity and the instinctual inclination to understand the concept of justice and that we have the life and freedom to pursue it.

Now down to the practice of justice and then we will go back again to the theory. I almost always avoid discussion of justice in the Holy Land, because emotions can distract from a higher understanding that we must shift from policies of power to a new paradigm of justice in all domestic and foreign policies. On the other hand, the Holy Land is a good case study, because the dilemmas in the Holy Land today are a microcosm of the world. If the Jews are not free to fulfill their divine destiny there, as the twentieth century’s greatest spiritual leader, Rebbe Abraham Izaac Kook, prophetically said that they can, must, and will do, then there is no future for human civilization.

Almost twenty-five years ago, a close colleague of mine in congressional lobbying, Rabbi Herzl Kranz, whom many of you no doubt know as the long-time rabbi of a nearby synagogue, discussed his concern for the security of Jews in Israel. I said, “What we need is justice!” His eyes lit up and he exclaimed, “Yes, justice! The Arabs must go!” And then he gave me Rabbi Meir Kahane’s book, published in 1981, They Must Go: How Long Can Israel Survive its Malignant and Growing Arab Population?.

Here we get to the issue of premises. As the philosopher Cicero said two thousand years ago, “Before you discuss anything whatsoever you should first agree on premises and terminology.” Rabbi Kahane’s basic premise was his goal of an exclusivist religious state, at least for Jews, though I doubt that he would have recognized the justice of a Christian state and certainly not a so-called Islamic one.

In fact, we are dealing here with a paradigm that comprises a spectrum of three premises. In his recent book, Religious Pluralism in America: The Contentious History of a Founding Ideal, the dean of historians of religion in America, William R. Hutchison, proposes a framework of three premises for interfaith relations. The first one is “tolerance.” This means, quite simply, “I won’t kill you yet.” The second is diversity, which is somewhat more expansive and means, “You’re here damn it, and I can’t do much about it.” The third and highest premise is “pluralism,” which means “We welcome you because we each have so much to offer and learn from each other.”

Hutchison’s thesis is that in the history of America we consistently think we are one level higher than we actually are, while most of us seem insistently to act as if we were one level lower.

If we want to aspire to, much less live in, a world of pluralism, we must find common purpose. “Pluralism by participation,” Hutchison writes, “implies a mandate for individuals and groups … to share responsibility for the forming and implementation of the society’s agenda.” This is the difference between suicide by assimilation and both survival and prosperity by integration so that everyone can share the best of the other. Perhaps the highest wisdom of interfaith understanding and cooperation calls us to recognize the truth and wisdom of the prophets, each of whom left the same message expressed in the words of Jesus, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” John 14:16.

Last summer at the International Institute of Islamic Thought in Herndon, Virginia, twenty scholars from around the world spent a month discussing what this means as a framework for faith-based justice and faith-based reconciliation, which now is the framework for all of the IIIT’s work.

Aside for a couple of Wahhabis who were invited to provide a wide spectrum of thought, we reached consensus on two things. First, we agreed that we should further develop methodologies and even lead the way to derive truth and justice heuristically from three sources. These are, first, haqq al yaqin, which is divine revelation, second,‘ain al yaqin, which is natural law or the Sunnat Allah observable in the physical universe, including our own human nature, and, finally, ‘ilm al yaqin, which is the intellectual processing of the first two.

Second, we reached agreement on the purposes of what we might call transcendent justice or even metalaw but what Muslim scholars refer to by the traditional term maqasid al shari’ah. This is the classical Islamic normative law known variously as the maqasid or purposes, the kulliyat or universal principles, and the dururiyat or essentials of universal jurisprudence. This whole subject is clarified in my article in the current issue of The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, entitled “Human Rights in Traditionalist Islam: Legal, Political, Economic, and Spiritual Perspectives.” The state of the art in the development of holistic methodologies for the study of justice is best shown by Jasser Auda’s tome, Maqasid al Shari’ah as Philosophy of Islamic Law: A Systems Approach, which was published this year by The International Institute of Islamic Thought as part of a whole library of books now appearing on the subject.

Among the seven irreducibly highest principles developed more than half a millennium ago by Al Shatibi, who was the greatest of the classical Islamic scholars on the subject, the first maqsud is haqq al din. During the past six hundred years, this has been ossified to mean “protection of true belief,” meaning protection of Islam as an organized and politically approved religion. Beginning in 1946 with the publication of the book entitled Treatise on Maqasid al Shari’ah by the Grand Mufti of Tunisia, Ibn Ashur, and reaching broad acceptability today half a century later, this first principle of classical Islamic thought about justice is understood to mean “freedom of religion” in the true sense of pluralism. This is blindingly clear throughout the Qur’an but much less so in the hadith, many or most of which are either spurious or related by witnesses who had their own biases in understanding what they had heard.

Next come three sets of pairs. The first pair consists of haqq al haya and haqq al nasl, which mean the duties, respectively, to respect the human person and life itself and to respect the nuclear family and communities at every level that derive from the sacredness of the human person. The first one includes the elaborate set of principles that define the limitations of "just war" theory. The second one includes the principle of subsidiarity, which recognizes that legitimacy expands upward from the community or nation to the state.

The second set consists of two responsibilities related to institutionalizing economic and political justice: haqq al mal and haqq al hurriyah. Throughout much of Islamdom this second pair of responsibilities has been observed, more often than not, in the breach. Even when the principles have been acknowledged, the derivative lower level, known as hajjiyat, of institutionalized implementation has been ignored.

The third pair of maqasid consists of haqq al karamah, the duty to respect human dignity especially in regard to gender equity, and haqq al ‘ilm, the duty to respect knowledge, including the secondary level of implementation known as freedom of thought, publication, and assembly. The historical trend of these last two maqasid is now strongly upward because educated Muslim women are gaining recognition as equal to men in the ijtihad of scriptural analysis known as the intellectual or "third" jihad: Wa jihidhum bihi jihadan kabiran, "And struggle to understand it [divine revelation] in a great jihad" (Surah al Furqan 25:52).

Beyond the intellectual development of these universal principles, which increasingly in the West are now known expansively as natural law, and beyond the philosophical debate over whether positivist or man-made law is the only kind of law accessible to human knowledge, is what Yves R. Simon in his book, The Tradition of Natural Law: A Philosopher’s Perspective, on page xxi calls “a connatural grasp of the idea via inclination.”

Here we come to the essence of my talk and the real reason why we should be thankful for our awareness of a transcendent justice and of the responsibilities that this enjoins upon us. The grand master in this aspect of justice is the Rebbe Abraham Izaac Kook, whose wisdom has so grievously been distorted and perverted by his self-styled followers, the Gush Emunim in the modern Settlers’ Movement. He was Chief Rabbi of Palestine from 1919 until the beginning of the first great Palestinian national-liberation movement in 1935. He taught that every religion contains the seed of its own perversion, because humans are free to divert their worship from God to themselves. The greatest evil is always the perversion of the good, and the surest salvation from evil is always the return to prophetic origins. Rebbe Kook’s wisdom has been collected in Abraham Isaac Kook, The Lights of Penitence, The Moral Principles, Lights of Holiness, Essays, Letters, and Poems, translation and introduction by Ben Zion Bokser (Paulist Press: N.Y., Ramsey, Toronto, 1978), published in The Classics of Western Spirituality: A Library of the Great Spiritual Masters under the supervision of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Fazlur Rahman, Huston Smith, and others.

The fundamentalist Gush Emunim make the sacrilegious error of turning his spiritual teaching into a call for secular nationalism of the most extreme kind. Abraham Isaac Kook’s entire life spoke his message that only in the Holy Land of Israel can the genius of Hebraic prophecy be revived and the Jewish people bring the creative power of God’s love in the form of justice and unity to every person and to all mankind. “For the disposition of the Israelite nation,” he asserted, “is the aspiration that the highest measure of justice, the justice of God, shall prevail in the world.” Universally recognized as the leading spokesman of spiritual Zionism, Rebbe Kook went to Jaffa from Poland in 1904 to perfect the people and land of Israel by bringing out the “holy sparks” in every person, group, and ideology in order to make way for the advent of the Messiah.

This was the exact opposite of “secular Zionism,” which resulted from the assimilationist movement of 19th century Europe, compounded by the devastating blow of the holocaust to traditionalist Jewish faith. Thus alienated from their own culture, and vulnerable to modern nationalist demagoguery, a growing portion of the Jewish nation came to elevate control over physical land to an ultimate value and goal, and therefore to transform the land of Israel into a golden calf.

As a Lurianic Cabbalist, committed to the social renewal that both confirms and transcends halakha, Rebbe Kook emphasized, first of all, that religious experience is certain knowledge of God, from which all other knowledge can be at best merely a reflection, and that this common experience of “total being” or “unity” of all religious people is the only adequate medium for God’s message through the Jewish people, who are the “microcosm of humanity.”

“If individuals cannot summon the world to God,” proclaimed Rebbe Kook, “then a people must issue the call. The people must call out of its inner being, as an individual of great spiritual stature issues the call from his inner being. This is found only among the Jewish people, whose commitment to the Oneness of God is a commitment to the vision of universality in all its far-reaching implications and whose vocation is to help make the world more receptive to the divine light by bearing witness to the Torah in the world.” This, he taught, is the whole purpose of Israel, which stands for shir el, the “song of God.” It is schlomo, which means peace or wholeness, Solomon’s Song of Songs.

But he warned, again “prophetically,” that, “when an idea needs to acquire a physical base, it tends to descend from its height. In such an instance it is thrust toward the earthly, and brazen ones come and desecrate its holiness. Together with this, however, its followers increase, and the physical vitality becomes strikingly visible. Each person then suffers: The stubbornness of seeking spiritual satisfaction in the outer aspect of things enfeebles one’s powers, fragments the human spirit, and leads the stormy quest in a direction where it will find emptiness and disappointment. In disillusionment, the quest will continue in another direction. When degeneration leads one to embrace an outlook on life that negates one’s higher vision, then one becomes prey to the dark side within. The spiritual dimension becomes enslaved and darkened in the darkness of life.”

Rebbe Kook warned that “the irruption of spiritual light from its divine source on uncultivated ground yields the perverse aspect of idolatry. It is for this reason that we note to our astonishment the decline of religious Judaism in a period of national renaissance.” “Love of the nation,” he taught, “or more broadly, for humanity, is adorned at its source with the purest ideals, which reflect humanity and nationhood in their noblest light, but if a person should wish to embrace the nation in its decadent condition, its coarser aspects, without inner illumination from its ancient, higher light, he will soon take into himself filth and lowliness and elements of evil that will turn to bitterness in a short span of history of but a few generations. This is the narrow state to which the community of Israel will descend prior to an awakening to the true revival.”

“By transgressing the limits,” Rebbe Kook prophesied, the leaders of Israel may bring on a holocaust. But this will merely precede a revival. “As smoke fades away, so will fade away all the destructive winds that have filled the land, the language, the history, and the literature.” Always following his warning was the reminder of God’s covenant. “In all of this is hiding the presence of the living God. It is a fundamental error for us to retreat from our distinctive excellence, to cease recognizing ourselves as chosen for a divine vocation. We are a great people and we have blundered greatly, and, therefore, we suffered great tribulation; but great also is our consolation. Our people will be rebuilt and established through the divine dimension of its life. Then they will call out with a mighty voice to themselves and to their people: ‘Let us go and return to the Lord!’ And this return will be a true return”.

We cannot know whether the catastrophe that Rebbe Kook foresaw was merely a warning, or whether the true return is already taking place, but he was confident of the end result. The Rebbe always sharply defended the validity of both Christianity and Islam as religions in the plan of God, and proclaimed that, “the brotherly love of Esau and Jacob [Christians and Jews], and Isaac and Ishmael [Jews and Muslims], will assert itself above all the confusion [and turn] the darkness to light.”

For this we should be thankful. Al hamdu li Allah, wa astaghfiru Allah inna Allahu ghafur wa rahim.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Scores killed in Mumbai rampage: Highly Condemnable


Picture source: Mumbai’s Taj Hotel, the scene of one in a series of coordinated terrorist attacks. (Photo: Pal Pillai/AFP/Getty Images)

Scores killed in Mumbai rampage
CNN, November 26, 2008

(CNN) -- In a brazen series of coordinated attacks, gunmen struck 10 sites Wednesday night across India's financial hub, killing scores of people and taking hostages in two luxury hotels frequented by Westerners, officials said.

Mumbai police spokesman Satish Katsa put the death toll at 87 and another 185 wounded, with nine of the attackers killed.

More than six hours after the attacks, fighting was still reported in the Taj Mahal Hotel, the Hotel Oberoi and Colaba Market, site of a number of restaurants, he said.

Vilasrao Deshmukh, chief minister of Maharashtra state, where Mumbai is located, told reporters that a total of 10 locations were attacked, including a railroad station. Watch a witness describe the chaos »

A Mumbai police spokesman, Satish Katsa, said gunmen took over the Taj Mahal Hotel and Hotel Oberoi, and were holding guests hostage on multiple floors. iReport.com: Are you there?

After the attacks, about 100 members of the Rapid Action Force entered the Oberoi. Shortly thereafter, the sound of gunshots came from inside the building.

British businessman Alan Jones told CNN.com how he was about to get out of an elevator in the Oberoi when another guest was shot.

For complete and latest coverage, click here

Also See:
Tracking the Mumbai Attacks - New York Times
Mumbai shootings: Reaction in quotes - BBC
Zardari, Gilani denounce Mumbai attacks - The News
Chronology of major terrorist atttack in India - The Hindu
Three top cops die on duty - Times of India
Chopra: Attack prompts tough questions - CNN

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Role for Pashtun intelligentsia

Role for Pashtun intelligentsia
By Khadim Hussain, Dawn, November 26, 2008

DIVERSE and usually contradictory approaches have been adopted by different actors, both national and international, in their response to the radicalisation, isolation and Talibanisation that is taking place in the Pashtun belt.

There are some who believe that Pashtun culture is inherently militant, violent and aggressive and that Talibanisation and radicalisation in the region is the expression of Pashtun nationalist sentiment.

This approach assumes that all Pashtuns have a Taliban mindset ideologically and that the Taliban are a violent bunch of Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists who need to be carpet-bombed without any consideration for the lives of the millions affected by this kind of attack.

There are others, such as individuals and political parties like Qazi Hussain Ahmad of the Jamaat-i-Islami, Maulana Fazlur Rahman of the JUI, Imran Khan of the Tehrik-i-Insaaf and Mian Nawaz Sharif of the PML-N, who are of the opinion that radicalisation and Talibanisation are essentially foreign phenomena that need to be analysed in the context of US intervention in the region.

This approach assumes that as long as what is perceived as the US occupation of the region continues, radicalisation and Talibanisation will persist and vitiate the socio-political and economic fabric of the Pashtun belt.

There are yet others, mainly in the corridors of power in Islamabad, who presume that the Taliban of Pakistan and the Taliban of Afghanistan are completely distinct ideological, strategic and functional entities that must be dealt with separately. The Taliban of Pakistan are to be manipulated to fight the military’s war in Kashmir and the Taliban of Afghanistan are to be covertly and strategically supported to minimise the perceived Indian influence in the region.

There are people who understand the causes of radicalisation in terms of chronic poverty, penetration of the modern Wahhabi jihadist ideology through madressahs, crumbling institutions of governance, lack of access to formal and informal justice systems, hegemonic intervention of the international powers, destabilisation of elected governments, and marginalisation and ‘otherisation’ of a whole community, i.e. the Pashtuns.

They also point to the lack of infrastructural development, the strategic-depth policy of the Pakistan army and lack of economic opportunities in the region as factors promoting radicalisation. This approach emphasises the need for development of responsive governance and justice systems, investment in the region and helping Pakistan and Afghanistan to repair their broken security, law and order and socio-political institutions.

The complex dynamics of the present violence in the Pashtun belt in particular and the rest of Pakistan and Afghanistan in general has confused Pakistani and western intellectuals. In the absence of fieldwork data and authentic evidence due perhaps to the inaccessibility of the region, analysts usually find themselves at a loss in identifying diverse factors that contribute to terrorism and religious militancy in the Pashtun belt.

Consequently they usually adopt a one-dimensional approach to address the complexity of the picture by analysing half-baked and incomplete data. It is this lack of clarity that usually leads analysts in Pakistan and elsewhere to term the present insurgency in the Pashtun belt of Pakistan and Afghanistan as a class war, a war of liberation, an expression of nationalistic sentiments, culture and identity of the Pashtuns, and a war against US imperialism.

As a result, the core issues are usually ignored. They are: (i) this is an economically, politically and socially unstable region which is fast turning into a never-ending war zone; (ii) the interplay of different forces in the region has led to continuous tension; (iii) the conflict is resulting in the mass killing of the non-combatants caught in the crossfire between the state and non-state forces in the area; (iv) the disintegration and deterioration of the social structures of the Pashtun belt is taking place; (v) there is an increased trend towards violence and terrorism around the globe that sends threat waves to the adjacent regions; (vi) an unnecessary engagement of resources is taking place which could have been otherwise a source of progress and prosperity for people in the Pashtun belt as well as those from other societies of the world; and (vii) no competing force in the region is able to decimate competing forces, and so there is a need to find and identify the overlapping and common interests of these forces in the region.

The Pashtun intelligentsia has yet to rise to the occasion and start scrutinising the threat to the survival of their nation and community on the basis of a people-centered analytical framework to find a way out of the present turbulence in their region. The Pashtun intelligentsia in Pakistan, Afghanistan and the diaspora may play a pivotal role in bringing peace and prosperity to the region and save their brethren in Pakistan and Afghanistan from total annihilation.

The Pashtun intelligentsia in Pakistan, Afghanistan and the diaspora may include university teachers, researchers and analysts in the regional and area study centres, media outlets and political parties. They may focus on three major and core issues to begin with.

First, there is need to develop indigenous and people-centred analytical frameworks to understand the complexity of the present turmoil in the region. Second, they should identify overlapping and shared interests of various competing forces in the region. Third, they may start networking with area study centres and regional study centres besides security, defence and rights organisations around the globe. There is a dire need that the Pashtun intelligentsia starts establishing think tanks and networks with the think tanks working on the region outside Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The Pashtun intelligentsia may facilitate progressive nationalist political parties both in Pakistan and Afghanistan to adopt policies which are based on solid research and analysis of the present situation. The political parties in turn may facilitate the intelligentsia to establish forums for dialogue at all levels, both vertically and horizontally. The dialogue forums may include local, national and international stakeholders in the region on the one hand and various ideological factions on the other.

In addition to it the Pashtun intelligentsia should make an effort to reactivate the already available forums like the grand Pak-Afghan jirga, the Saarc platform, the ECO platform and other initiatives by UN agencies like Unesco and the UNDP. In the present gloomy environment in the region, activism by the intelligentsia is one of the beacons of hope for peace and prosperity in the region.

The writer is coordinator for Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy.

The Water Crisis in Pakistan

analysis: The Hydra has a fourth head — William B Milam
Daily Times, November 26, 2008

Excerpts:
Last week, at the Wilson Centre, the Hydra of Pakistan’s crises reared a fourth ugly head, one that, I think, not enough of us are thinking about. It is Pakistan’s water crisis, the forgotten crisis that, in the long run, could prove as fatal to the state as the three we think about all the time. This was laid out in 8 excellent presentations during a one-day conference that kept the audience there and listening intently until the end.

The organisers asked, for example, if we knew that Pakistan spends, on average, 47 times more on its military budgets than on water and sanitation; that more residents of Karachi die each month from contaminated water than all the soldiers killed in wars with India since 1947; that water availability declined from 5000 cubic meters per capita in 1951 to 1200 now (and 1000 is the threshold below which no country can sink without severe consequences)? The water crisis affects, of course, all Pakistan’s other crises — economic, energy, health, political, even security.

What struck me, as I listened through the day to the obviously well-informed and intelligent speakers, is that, like the country’s other problems, the water crisis has inspired a number of articulate, talented, and motivated Pakistanis to get involved and to work through civil society organisations of one sort or another to get Pakistan on the right track. The question is, then, in this as in all the other crises (Pakistan seems to have quite a few), why, with such bright, well informed, articulate, motivated people working hard for better policies, do those policies remain unchanged and counterproductive.

For complete article, click here

Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry's Speech at Harvard Law School - November 19th, 2008

chaudury receives award
Speech Transcript: November 19, 2008: Cambridge, MA

Madam President,
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen:

It is a singular honour to be awarded the Harvard Law School Association's Medal of Freedom on behalf of 170 million Pakistanis who continue to stand for rule of law, independence of the judiciary, equality, freedom and justice for all.

This the 19 th day of November , and I stand 10,816 km from my hometown. I stand in one of this planet's largest reservoirs of law: America's oldest law school. And I stand here as a humble representative of all those Pakistanis who continue to defy autocracy, repression and oppression in all their forms.

I stand here for all those Pakistanis who have risen against despotism, dictatorship, brutality, tyranny and injustice. I also stand here for all those Pakistanis who stand for the principle that no one is above the law and all those Pakistanis who agree with Thomas Paine that "in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other."

The power to issue the writ of habeas corpus was exercised with dramatic effect by Lord Chief Justice Edward Coke 8 decades before the English Courts guaranteed the subject of the Crown the right of vote in 1704 in the case of Ashbey Vs. White. It was also three hundred years before full adult franchise was granted to all in England.

For the record, the Act of Settlement, that institutionalized a guaranteed security of tenure came in 1701 some 86 years prior to the Grand Convention at Philadelphia, the Convention that gave birth to a Constitutional Democracy in this country. In other words, judicial independence preceded constitutional democracy by more than 8 decades.

Intriguingly, Pakistani autocrats, whether uniformed or otherwise, are trying to turn the wheels of history in the wrong direction. Our autocrats, whether uniformed or otherwise, while decreeing a democratic order are, at the same time, postponing the establishment of an independent judiciary to an ever more distant future. Such democracy is bound to fail; you can't have a constitutional democracy without security of tenure for the judges .

Imagine; 307 years ago, King William III was cornered into signing the Act of Settlement which "established tenure for judges unless Parliament removed them."

Three hundred years thence, Pakistani lawyers are now struggling to keep their autocrats, military as well as democratic, from influencing judges. The campaign underway is truly, truly unique. To begin with, the campaigners—devoting time, effort and risking life and limb—seek neither any office nor power. A hundred thousand intellectuals lawyer' at two in the morning, thousands getting burnt by the cruel sub-continental sun, hordes waiting in rain drowning a Chief Justice's car in rose petals are all things neither Pakistani nor something that the Third World has ever witnessed. Unprecedented and without any equal in human history, the whole movement is about three things: principles, principles and principles.
On March 9, the debate was all about the action against me alone through the Presidential Reference or indictment. No more. The indictment or charge sheet was thrown out and trashed by the verdict of 13 senior judges of the Supreme Court including those who would profit by my removal. The struggle now is all about "Trias Politica", 'separation of powers', 'role of the judiciary in our society', 'rule of law', more about ridding the Judiciary from Executive enslavement.

In Pakistan, both civilian as well as uniformed autocrats have been influencing judicial decision-making for the past 6 decades. Just look at what we now have: an inefficient, vulnerable, partial judiciary. And, this inefficient, vulnerable and a partial judiciary has long been keeping Pakistan from realizing her full economic growth potential.

Judicia l reforms are a high stake venture. Every reform undertaking has potential losers and potential gainers. Potential losers, if our judiciary is to become truly independent, include civilian as well as uniformed politicians and our intelligence agencies. Potential gainers: the general population at large and the economy. There are two problems: First, potential losers are also our principal decision makers so they resist reforms. Second, potential losers are organized, potential gainers are not.

Remember, almost all of Fortune 500 companies are a product of economies where the law rules supreme. At the same time, the poorest of the poor continue to dwell in countries where men govern as opposed to law. A government of laws stimulates economic growth. A government of men impedes economic growth.

Pakistan's 600-day 'March to Justice' has been long and painful. Those black-coated lawyers, braving the baton and the bullet, gas and guns, the inclemency of the weather, the mid-day scorching sun and the sub-zero winter storm, are ambassadors of law, missionaries of justice, messengers of virtue, emissaries of due process and jurists of fairness. They seek no seat of power. They look for no junkets at state expense. They long for no bullet-proof limos.

I salute, too, the millions who participated in the Long March. It was a seeding machine, a real and living revolution. It was the proclamation of a new manifesto for Pakistan. It was a declaration that the pursuit of justice cannot be subverted or resisted.

The latest in our series of military dictators had built his throne strong—strong on pillars of oppression and repression. The latest in our series of military dictators having partnered with the lone super power had sent every civilian leader into forced exile. He sent Benazir Bhutto to Dubai and sent Nawaz Sharif to Saudi Arabia. They could not come back. They were therefore could not face the dictator's wrath. The latest in our series of military dictators wouldn't abdicate his throne—wouldn't abdicate his throne for anything in the whole wide world. But then, the lawyers came on stage. They faced the dictator's wrath. They weakened the pillars of oppression and the pillars of repression. The lawyers exerted the pressure that brought Benazir back. The lawyers exerted the pressure that brought Nawaz Sharif back. And, the lawyers brought Dictator Musharraf down.

Remember 1987. The Russians had come in T-84 tanks and the Russians had come in Putilov armoured cars. Lithuanians had neither tanks nor cars. Their songs were their tanks and their hymns their cars. The tanks rolled over men. The tanks rolled over women. And, the tanks rolled over children. Lithuanians did nothing but sing. Lithuanians sang in front of radio stations. Lithuanians sang in front of television stations. But the tanks kept coming for four long years and Lithuanians kept singing for four long years. We all know what happened at the end. Tanks lost, songs won. Russians lost, Lithuanians won. Remember 1990. Lithuania got liberated. We all know that was the Singing Revolution.

Now try and remember the 9 th of March the year 2007. A dictator had not suspended me but the Chief Justice of Pakistan. And with me he purported to fire several dozen other judges. The entire superior judiciary was out in the cold. Now that's something that had never happened—never in Pakistan's 61-year chequered history never in the 10,000 years of human history. That's when Pakistanis began their 'Long March to Justice'; Pakistan's 'Lawyers' Revolution' had begun.

South Asia had never seen a Lawyers' Revolution before. The judges were fired for no rhyme or reason. I began to address the Bar Associations. That is when the people began to pour out.

March 9 th is seen by the people when the Chief Justice of Pakistan said "NO" to a military dictator. But I only did my duty according to my conscience. Now that's something that had not happened in 61-years of Pakistan's history.

Who doesn't know that Pakistan has been a 61-year long judicial nightmare? But then the Chief Justice said "NO". And, that "NO" has fathered a dream. It's a dream to end the nightmare. A Pakistani dream to become part of civility. Everyone knows that dreams take time. And I know that this one would too.

To live by the law is all that the dream is all about. Pakistanis, both with and without guns, will have to live by the law. Play by the rules and no judge can ever become a hero. Break the law, and crowds gather and mirrors show the crowds to the world. Judges become heroes.

Pakistan's Lawyer' Revolution has been just that, a revolution and no less. Our Lawyers' Revolution is like no revolution in the entire Muslim world. Lawyer' Revolution is like no revolution in a thousand years of Islamic history. Remember, Pakistan's revolutionaries are neither soldiers nor warriors. Remember, Pakistan's revolutionaries have neither guns nor bullets. Their drums are their guns and their drumsticks are their bullets. Remember, Pakistan's revolutionaries have damaged no property and hurt not a soul. Remember, Pakistan's revolutionaries have been on the streets for 20 long months.

Is the state of Pakistan to be subject to the 'Rule of Law' or the 'Rule of Man'? Well, there are two broad systems of governance: 'Rule of Law' and 'Rule of Man'. Now there are 245 countries on the face of our planet and of the 245 there are 202 sovereign states. Of the 202 sovereign states, the "Supreme Court of Pakistan is the only court in the world to have given cover to military rulers under its novel law of necessity theory. Of the 202 sovereign states there are 193 states with international recognition and of the 193 states there are 192 member-states of the United Nations. I would say that of the 192 member-states of the UN, two-third are being governed based on the 'Rule of Law'. I would also say that of the 192 member-states of the UN, one-third are being governed based on the 'Rule of Man'. Please note that of the 57 member-states of the Organization of Islamic Conference, four-dozen member-states fall into the 'Rule of Man' model of governance. Under 'Rule of Law', the source of all authority within the state is the law of the land. Under 'Rule of Man', the source of all authority within the state is the man who rules. Using the same principle, states can be divided up into pre-modern and modern; pre-modern is where the source of authority is the man who rules while modern is where the source of authority is the law of the land.

It's time for Pakistan to transform from a 'Rule of Man' to a 'Rule ofLaw' state. It's time for Pakistan's judiciary to declare a spade a spade. We are already a half century behind India's judicial transformation. Obviously, justice cannot be dispensed in a vacuum. Pakistan's judiciary has to be confident that Pakistan's civil society has reached the level of maturity whereby the Judiciary will be protected against the coercive apparatus at the command of the Executive.

Pakistan's 'Rule of Man' model of governance has seen at least four conflicts between the gun and the law. For the record, Pakistani gun has a history of winning over Pakistani law. This is what Pakistani lawyers now want to reverse. The law ought to win, not the gun. Pakistani lawyers now want the source of all authority within Pakistan to be the law of the land, not the gun.

Who's side are you on? The dreamers or the anarchists?

Pakistan's present judiciary has neither institutional nor decisional independence. No wonder Pakistan is flirting with financial bankruptcy. America will not win her war either. No one can win without siding with rule of law.

Pakistan is at war. At war on two fronts; judicial and militant insurgency. Lawlessness, chaos, confusion and disorder have led Pakistan into a spooky, dangerous dungeon. Rule of law is Pakistani's only way out. Rule of law is America's only way out.

You have to choose are you on? Lawlessness, chaos, confusion and disorder? Or, rule of law, clarity, harmony and prosperity?

On November 4 America voted. On November 4 America stood united for change. On November 4 America voted for change. Change is what an overwhelming majority of Pakistanis demand as well. A change from 'rule of man' to 'rule of law'.

You have Article Three of the United States Constitution. Canada has her Constitution Act. And, Britain her Constitutional Reform Act. What we have is Part VII of the Constitution of Pakistan. We all have statues and we all have laws. America, Canada and Britain also have rule of law. What we have is rule of man. What we need is rule of law. What we cannot live without is a judiciary that is immune to political interference.

Remember, rule of law is inhospitable both to dictatorship and terror. Remember, Pakistan's judiciary is at war. And, America's judicial, legal and academic fraternities must help Pakistan fight this war. Pakistan's judiciary desires to transform Pakistan. And you must help Pakistan transform itself. Rule of law is Pakistan's national consensus. And we must all side with Pakistan's national consensus.

This medal is a tribute to all the judges, lawyers, media persons, political workers, traders, labourers, civil society members and every Pakistani citizen of Pakistan who have stood steadfastly by the rule of Law. It is my privilege to accept it on their behalf.

Thank you ladies and gentleman


Related:Pakistan’s ousted Chief Justice accepts HLS Medal of Freedom - Harvard Law School NewsPakistan Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry’s Speech at Harvard Law School - NYT

Pakistan's Ex-Army Officers' Group Recommends Pakistan to Cut off NATO Supply Lines: How popular is this line of thinking?

Ex-Army Officers for cutting supply line to allied forces, expulsion of US Ambassador
Online News Agency, November 25, 2008

RAWALPINDI: Pakistan Ex-Servicemen Society has demanded of the government to cut supply line of NATO and US forces based in Afghanistan and to raise the issue of violation of Pakistani territory by US drones on the platform of the United Nations.

Addressing a joint press conference here on Monday after a meeting of Pakistan Ex-Servicemen Society, former DG ISI General (retd) Asad Durrani and Admiral (retd) Fasih Bukhari have underlined that Pakistan is providing 90 percent logistic support to NATO Forces and it can be stopped.

The meeting of Pakistan Ex-Servicemen Society was attended by former DG ISI General (retd) Hameed Gul, General (retd) Saleem Haider, former Governor Gul Aurangziab, Brig (retd) Khalid Usman, Brig (retd) Khadim Hussain, Brig (retd) Slam Akhtar, Major (retd) Islam-ul-Haq, Captain (retd) Dr. Babar Zaheer-ud-Deen.

Former DG ISI General (retd) Asad Durrani and Admiral (retd) Fasih Bukhari while addressing in the press conference stated violation of Pakistani borders have been continued for the last seven years and the previous government taken the responsibilities of these attacks.

They opined that strong voice was expected from the incumbent democratic government by using the platform of the Parliament but it was disappointed that 29 airstrikes were carried out by the United States in the tenure of present government.

They infomrmed that the association is considering several options but we do not want to take any action on their own.

They urged the government to call back its ambassador from the United States and expel the US ambassador from the country and claimed that the step would stop violation of Pakistani areas. They criticised the briefing taken by some government officials from US Ambassador. They also criticized the visits of Generals of Pakistan Army to the United States and vice versa and demanded to stop these visits.

The Ex-Servicemen Society have also emphasized that Pakistan can demand compensation for loss of life in its tribal areas by moving to the International Community and US courts. They urged the government to take urgent measures for stopping violation of Pakistani borders instead of handing over sensitive issues to committees.

They demanded for discussing any secret deal between the government and the United States in the Parliament.

Talking on restoration of judiciary, the Ex-Servicemen society emphasized that it is vital to steer the country out of current financial crisis. They said that it is the constitutional responsibility of Army to follow the National Policy of the government, adding Army Chief should resign if he thinks that difficulties are being faced by him regarding performing his responsibilities.

They said that the Army Chief cannot start war of his own until clear directives from the government.

They informed the media men that the Society has written letters to the Prime Minister and the Speaker National Assembly but did not receive any response. The Society would publicize all the facts if did not get positives response of its panel report, they warned.

Monday, November 24, 2008

Pakistan's Fear of the U.S

Ringed by Foes, Pakistanis Fear the U.S., Too
By JANE PERLEZ, New York Times, November 22, 2008

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A redrawn map of South Asia has been making the rounds among Pakistani elites. It shows their country truncated, reduced to an elongated sliver of land with the big bulk of India to the east, and an enlarged Afghanistan to the west.

That the map was first circulated as a theoretical exercise in some American neoconservative circles matters little here. It has fueled a belief among Pakistanis, including members of the armed forces, that what the United States really wants is the breakup of Pakistan, the only Muslim country with nuclear arms.

“One of the biggest fears of the Pakistani military planners is the collaboration between India and Afghanistan to destroy Pakistan,” said a senior Pakistani government official involved in strategic planning, who insisted on anonymity as per diplomatic custom. “Some people feel the United States is colluding in this.”

For complete article, click here

A Night of Bravery and Defiance

COMMENT: The day the music died — Ayeda Naqvi
Daily Times, November 25, 2008

On Thursday night I sat at the World Performing Arts Festival along with thousands of others, mesmerised. Abida Parveen had just finished singing. It was past 1 am. And yet we continued to sit in the biting cold, smiling, warmed by the afterglow of her rousing performance.

This was the Pakistan I so loved — vibrant, diverse and defiantly alive. This was the Pakistan that made me proud, the one that I was always trying to share with my non-Pakistani friends.

Like all other singers that night, Abida Parveen had started her performance by thanking the Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop for its tireless efforts to preserve our culture. And then she continued to make a point our government would rather ignore. “A nation which abandons its music and its arts has no soul,” she said. “If you want to kill a country, then kill its culture.”

Just to make sure people understood, she followed up with a thundering version of “Aray logon, tumhara kiya; main janoon mera Khuda jaaney”, a line ascribed to Al Hallaj, the 10th century mystic who was put to death for declaring the oneness of all being. The message was simple: “What I believe is between me and my God.”

For complete article, click here

Kabul 30 Years Ago, and Kabul Today. Have We Learned Nothing?: Robert Fisk

Kabul 30 Years Ago, and Kabul Today. Have We Learned Nothing?
'Terrorists' were in Soviet sights; now they are in the Americans'.
by Robert Fisk
November 23, 2008 by The Independent/UK

I sit on the rooftop of the old Central Hotel - pharaonic-decorated elevator, unspeakable apple juice, sublime green tea, and armed Tajik guards at the front door - and look out across the smoky red of the Kabul evening. The Bala Hissar fort glows in the dusk, massive portals, the great keep to which the British army should have moved its men in 1841. Instead, they felt the king should live there and humbly built a cantonment on the undefended plain, thus leading to a "signal catastrophe".

Like automated birds, the kites swoop over the rooftops. Yes, the kite-runners of Kabul, minus Hollywood. At night, the thump of American Sikorsky helicopters and the whisper of high-altitude F-18s invade my room. The United States of America is settling George Bush's scores with the "terrorists" trying to overthrow Hamid Karzai's corrupt government.

Now rewind almost 29 years, and I am on the balcony of the Intercontinental Hotel on the other side of this great, cold, fuggy city. Impeccable staff, frozen Polish beer in the bar, secret policemen in the front lobby, Russian troops parked in the forecourt. The Bala Hissar fort glimmers through the smoke. The kites - green seems a favourite colour - move beyond the trees. At night, the thump of Hind choppers and the whisper of high-altitude MiGs invade my room. The Soviet Union is settling Leonid Brezhnev's scores with the "terrorists" trying to overthrow Barbrak Karmal's corrupt government.

Thirty miles north, all those years ago, a Soviet general told us of the imminent victory over the "terrorists" in the mountains, imperialist "remnants" - the phrase Kabul communist radio always used - who were being supported by America and Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

Fast forward to 2001 - just seven years ago - and an American general told us of the imminent victory over the "terrorists" in the mountains, the all but conquered Taliban who were being supported by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The Russian was pontificating at the big Soviet airbase at Bagram. The American general was pontificating at the big US airbase at Bagram.

This is not dƩjƠ-vu. This is dƩjƠ double-vu. And it gets worse.

Almost 29 years ago, the Afghan "mujahedin" began a campaign to end the mixed schooling of boys and girls in the remote mountain passes, legislation pushed through by successive communist governments. Schools were burned down. Outside Jalalabad, I found a headmaster and his headmistress wife burned to death. Today, the Afghan Taliban are campaigning to end the mixed schooling of boys and girls - indeed the very education of young women - across the great deserts of Kandahar and Helmand. Schools have been burned down. Teachers have been executed.

As the Soviets began to suffer more and more casualties, their officers boasted of the increasing prowess of the Afghan National Army, the ANA. Infiltrated though they were by the "mujahedin", Moscow gave them newer tanks and helped to train new battalions to take on the guerrillas outside the capital.

Fast forward to now. As the Americans and British suffer ever greater casualties, their officers boast of the increasing prowess of the ANA. Infiltrated though they are by the Taliban, America and other Nato states are providing them with newer equipment and training new battalions to take on the guerrillas outside the capital. Back in January of 1980, I could take a bus from Kabul to Kandahar. Seven years later, the broken highway was haunted by "mujahedin" fighters and bandits and the only safe way to travel to Kandahar was by air.

In the immediate aftermath of America's arrival here in 2001, I could take a bus from Kabul to Kandahar. Now, seven years later, the highway - rebuilt on the express instructions of George W but already cracked and swamped with sand - is haunted by Taliban fighters and bandits and the only safe way to travel to Kandahar is by air.

Throughout the 1980s, the Soviets and the ANA held the towns but lost most of the country. Today, America and its allies and the ANA hold most of the towns but have lost the southern half of the country. The Soviets secretly sent another 9,000 troops to join their 115,000-strong occupation force to fight the "mujahedin". Today, the Americans are publicly sending another 7,000 troops to join their 55,000-strong occupation force to fight the Taliban.

In 1980, I would sneak down to Chicken Street to buy old books in the dust-filled shops, cheap and illegal Pakistani reprints of the memoirs of British Empire officers while my driver watched anxiously lest I be mistaken for a Russian. Last week, I sneaked down to the Shar Book shop, which is filled with the very same illicit volumes, while my driver watched anxiously lest I be mistaken for an American (or, indeed, a Brit). I find Stephen Tanner's Afghanistan: A Military History From Alexander The Great To The Fall Of The Taliban and drive back to my hotel through the streets of wood-smoked Kabul to read it in my ill-lit room.

In 1840, Tanner writes, Britain's supply line from the Pakistani city of Karachi up through the Khyber Pass and Jalalabad to Kabul was being threatened by Afghan fighters, "British officers on the crucial supply line through Peshawar... insulted and attacked". I fumble through my bag for a clipping from a recent copy of Le Monde. It marks Nato's main supply route from the Pakistani city of Karachi up through the Khyber Pass and Jalalabad to Kabul, and illustrates the location of each Taliban attack on the convoys bringing fuel and food to America's allies in Afghanistan.

Then I prowl through one of the Pakistani retread books I have found and discover General Roberts of Kandahar telling the British in 1880 that "we have nothing to fear from Afghanistan, and the best thing to do is to leave it as much as possible to itself... I feel sure I am right when I say that the less the Afghans see of us, the less they will dislike us".

Memo to the Americans, the Brits, the Canadians and the rest of Humpty Dumpty's men. Read Roberts. Read history. © 2008 Independent/UK

Sunday, November 23, 2008

For Obama to Consider: Joint Experts' Statement on Iran

Among the many challenges that will greet President-elect Obama when he takes office, there are few, if any, more urgent and complex than the question of Iran. There are also few issues more clouded by myths and misconceptions. In this Joint Experts' Statement on Iran, a group of top scholars, experts and diplomats - with years of experience studying and dealing with Iran - have come together to clear away some of the myths that have driven the failed policies of the past and to outline a factually-grounded, five-step strategy for dealing successfully with Iran in the future.

Joint Experts' Statement on Iran
American Foreign Policy Project
by Ali Banuazizi, Mehrzad Boroujerdi, Juan R.I. Cole, Ambassador James F. Dobbins, Rola el-Husseini, Farideh Farhi, Geoffrey E. Forden, Hadi Ghaemi, Philip Giraldi, Farhad Kazemi, Stephen Kinzer, Ambassador William G. Miller, Emile A. Nakhleh, Augustus Richard Norton, Richard Parker, Trita Parsi, Ambassador Thomas Pickering, Barnett R. Rubin, Gary G. Sick, John Tirman, James Walsh

Despite recent glimmers of diplomacy, the United States and Iran remain locked in a cycle of threats and defiance that destabilizes the Middle East and weakens U.S. national security.

Today, Iran and the United States are unable to coordinate campaigns against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, their common enemies. Iran is either withholding help or acting to thwart U.S. interests in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Gaza. Within Iran, a looming sense of external threat has empowered hard-liners and given them both motive and pretext to curb civil liberties and further restrict democracy. On the nuclear front, Iran continues to enrich uranium in spite of binding U.N. resolutions, backed by economic sanctions, calling for it to suspend enrichment.

U.S. efforts to manage Iran through isolation, threats and sanctions have been tried intermittently for more than two decades. In that time they have not solved any major problem in U.S.-Iran relations, and have made most of them worse. Faced with the manifest failure of past efforts to isolate or economically coerce Iran, some now advocate escalation of sanctions or even military attack. But dispassionate analysis shows that an attack would almost certainly backfire, wasting lives, fomenting extremism and damaging the long-term security interests of both the U.S and Israel. And long experience has shown that prospects for successfully coercing Iran through achievable economic sanctions are remote at best.

Fortunately, we are not forced to choose between a coercive strategy that has clearly failed and a military option that has very little chance of success. There is another way, one far more likely to succeed: Open the door to direct, unconditional and comprehensive negotiations at the senior diplomatic level where personal contacts can be developed, intentions tested, and possibilities explored on both sides. Adopt policies to facilitate unofficial contacts between scholars, professionals, religious leaders, lawmakers and ordinary citizens. Paradoxical as it may seem amid all the heated media rhetoric, sustained engagement is far more likely to strengthen United States national security at this stage than either escalation to war or continued efforts to threaten, intimidate or coerce Iran.

Here are five key steps the United States should take to implement an effective diplomatic strategy with Iran:

1. Replace calls for regime change with a long-term strategy

Threats are not cowing Iran and the current regime in Tehran is not in imminent peril. But few leaders will negotiate in good faith with a government they think is trying to subvert them, and that perception may well be the single greatest barrier under U.S. control to meaningful dialogue with Iran. The United States needs to stop the provocations and take a long-term view with this regime, as it did with the Soviet Union and China. We might begin by facilitating broad-ranging people-to-people contacts, opening a U.S. interest section in Tehran, and promoting cultural exchanges.

2. Support human rights through effective, international means

While the United States is rightly concerned with Iran's worsening record of human rights violations, the best way to address that concern is through supporting recognized international efforts. Iranian human rights and democracy advocates confirm that American political interference masquerading as "democracy promotion" is harming, not helping, the cause of democracy in Iran.

3. Allow Iran a place at the table - alongside other key states - in shaping the future of Iraq, Afghanistan and the region.

This was the recommendation of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group with regard to Iraq. It may be counter-intuitive in today's political climate - but it is sound policy. Iran has a long-term interest in the stability of its neighbors. Moreover, the United States and Iran support the same government in Iraq and face common enemies (the Taliban and al-Qaeda) in Afghanistan. Iran has shown it can be a valuable ally when included as a partner, and a troublesome thorn when not. Offering Iran a place at the table cannot assure cooperation, but it will greatly increase the likelihood of cooperation by giving Iran something it highly values that it can lose by non-cooperation. The United States might start by appointing a special envoy with broad authority to deal comprehensively and constructively with Iran (as opposed to trading accusations) and explore its willingness to work with the United States on issues of common concern.

4. Address the nuclear issue within the context of a broader U.S.-Iran opening

Nothing is gained by imposing peremptory preconditions on dialogue. The United States should take an active leadership role in ongoing multilateral talks to resolve the nuclear impasse in the context of wide-ranging dialogue with Iran. Negotiators should give the nuclear talks a reasonable deadline, and retain the threat of tougher sanctions if negotiations fail. They should also, however, offer the credible prospect of security assurances and specific, tangible benefits such as the easing of U.S. sanctions in response to positive policy shifts in Iran. Active U.S. involvement may not cure all, but it certainly will change the equation, particularly if it is part of a broader opening.

5. Re-energize the Arab-Israeli peace process and act as an honest broker in that process

Israel's security lies in making peace with its neighbors. Any U.S. moves towards mediating the Arab-Israeli crisis in a balanced way would ease tensions in the region, and would be positively received as a step forward for peace. As a practical matter, however, experience has shown that any long-term solution to Israel's problems with the Palestinians and Lebanon probably will require dealing, directly or indirectly, with Hamas and Hezbollah. Iran supports these organizations, and thus has influence with them. If properly managed, a U.S. rapprochement with Iran, even an opening of talks, could help in dealing with Arab-Israeli issues, benefiting Israel as well as its neighbors.

***
Long-standing diplomatic practice makes clear that talking directly to a foreign government in no way signals approval of the government, its policies or its actions. Indeed, there are numerous instances in our history when clear-eyed U.S. diplomacy with regimes we deemed objectionable - e.g., Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Libya and Iran itself (cooperating in Afghanistan to topple the Taliban after 9/11) - produced positive results in difficult situations.

After many years of mutual hostility, no one should expect that engaging Iran will be easy. It may prove impossible. But past policies have not worked, and what has been largely missing from U.S. policy for most of the past three decades is a sustained commitment to real diplomacy with Iran. The time has come to see what true diplomacy can accomplish.

For Reading "Annex: Basic Misconceptions about Iran", click here

The Pakistan test?

The Pakistan test
By Nicholas D. Kristof, International Herald Tribune, Sunday, November 23, 2008

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Barack Obama's most difficult international test in the next year will very likely be here in Pakistan. A country with 170 million people and up to 60 nuclear weapons may be collapsing.

Reporting in Pakistan is scarier than it has ever been. The major city of Peshawar is now controlled in part by the Taliban, and this month alone in the area an American aid worker was shot dead, an Iranian diplomat kidnapped, a Japanese journalist shot and American humvees stolen from a NATO convoy to Afghanistan.

I've been coming to Pakistan for 26 years, ever since I hid on the tops of buses to sneak into tribal areas as a backpacking university student, and I've never found Pakistanis so gloomy. Some worry that militants, nurtured by illiteracy and a failed education system, will overrun the country or that the nation will break apart. I'm not quite that pessimistic, but it's very likely that the next major terror attack in the West is being planned by extremists here in Pakistan.

"There is real fear about the future," notes Ahmed Rashid, whose excellent new book on Pakistan and Afghanistan is appropriately titled "Descent Into Chaos."

The United States has squandered more than $10 billion on Pakistan since 9/11, and Pakistani intelligence agencies seem to have rerouted some of that to Taliban extremists. American forces periodically strike militants in the tribal areas, but people from those areas overwhelmingly tell me that these strikes just antagonize tribal leaders and make them more supportive of the Taliban. One man described seeing Pashtuns in tribal areas throwing rocks in helpless frustration at the American aircraft flying overhead.

President Asif Ali Zardari seems overwhelmed by the challenges and locked in the past. Incredibly, he has just chosen for his new cabinet two men who would fit fine in a Taliban government.

One new cabinet member, Israr Ullah Zehri, defended the torture-murder of five women and girls who were buried alive (three girls wanted to choose their own husbands, and two women tried to protect them). "These are centuries-old traditions, and I will continue to defend them," Zehri said of the practice of burying independent-minded girls alive.

Then there is Pakistan's new education minister, Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani. Last year, the Supreme Court ordered him arrested for allegedly heading a local council that decided to solve a feud by taking five little girls and marrying them to men in an enemy clan. The girls were between the ages of 2 and 5, according to Samar Minallah, a Pakistani anthropologist who investigated the case (Bijarani has denied involvement).

While there are no easy solutions for the interlinked catastrophes unfolding in Pakistan and Afghanistan, there are several useful steps that we in the West can take to reduce the risk of the region turning into the next Somalia.

First, we should slow the financial flow to Pakistan's government and military. If the government wants to stop the Talibanization of Pakistan, its greatest need isn't money but the political will to stop sheltering Taliban leaders in the city of Quetta.

Second, we should cut tariffs on Pakistani agricultural and manufactured products to boost the economy and provide jobs. We should also support China on its planned export-processing zone to create manufacturing jobs in Pakistan.

Third, we should push much harder for a peace deal in Kashmir - including far more pressure on India - because Kashmir grievances empower Pakistani militants.

Fourth, let's focus on education. One reason the country is such a mess today is that half of all Pakistanis are illiterate.

In the southern Punjab a couple of days ago, I dropped in on a rural elementary school where only one teacher had bothered to show up that day. He was teaching the entire student body under a tree, in part because the school doesn't have desks for the first three grades.

One happy note: I visited a school run by a California-based aid group, Developments in Literacy, which represents a successful American effort to fight extremism. DIL is financed largely by Pakistani-Americans trying to "give back," and it runs 150 schools in rural Pakistan, teaching girls in particular.

Tauseef Hyat, the Islamabad-based executive director of DIL, notes that originally the plan was to operate just primary schools, but then a group of 11-year-old girls threatened to go on hunger strike unless DIL helped them continue their education in high school. Hyat caved, and some of those girls are now studying to become doctors.

Obama should make his first presidential trip to Pakistan - and stop at a DIL school to remind Pakistan's army and elites that their greatest enemy isn't India but illiteracy.

Defiant artists in Lahore say blasts can’t scare them

Defiant artists say blasts can’t scare them
The News, November 24, 2008
By our correspondent

LAHORE: “Come what may, we will continue this journey of love and peace and the unprecedented show of solidarity among the peace-loving artists of Pakistan and the rest of the world so that peace and love could be promoted among the people of the world.”

This was the statement of the artists, the organisers and the people at the World Performing Arts Festival at the Alhamra Cultural Complex here on Sunday evening. This message was conveyed at a special candlelight vigil held to express the sentiments of the artists and the participants of the festival in a collective response to the perpetrators of Saturday night’s bomb blasts.

In the message, the artists said: “We have been here from all over the world to receive the love and warmth of the people of Lahore for the last 10 days. It has been wonderful. There is no doubt about the fact that art connects people in a way that nothing else does.

“A festival of arts such as this celebrates and reiterates the enormous possibilities of human being to think of a new world, to love without prejudice and dissolve all barriers — political, religious and personal.

“The impulse to create art was the first impulse of humankind as art came into being before language, before religions, before systems of governance. “Creating art, therefore, is our direct relationship to the supreme and to sublime. “It is an act of compassion, faith and love for all artistes as well as audience who come to participate.”

Also See:
WPAF ends amid vows for next year’s festival - Daily Times

No first Use Nuclear Weapons Policy in South Asia

Zardari suggests accord to avoid nuclear conflict in S. Asia
By Jawed Naqvi, Dawn, November 23, 2008

NEW DELHI, Nov 22: President Asif Ali Zardari dispatched Indian strategists scurrying to the boardrooms as he announced a new no first use nuclear weapons policy on Saturday, overturning years of Pakistan’s deterrence doctrine.

Mr Zardari, who addressed a videoconference with invited guests hosted annually by The Hindustan Times, made interesting conciliatory gestures towards India and won applause in Srinagar from the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC), which thought his remarks on the way ahead for Kashmir were pregnant with possibilities.

Asked why Pakistan would not accept any doctrine against the first use of nuclear weapons, Mr Zardari replied: “We will most certainly not use it first. I don’t agree...to nuclear weapons. I hope we never get to that position.”

There were tense moments at the start of his address when the camera ambled on him without a sound link.

Mr Zardari quoted former prime minister Benazir Bhutto as saying there was a bit of Indian in every Pakistani and a bit of Pakistani in every Indian. “I don’t feel threatened by India and India shouldn’t feel threatened by us.”

He suggested a South Asian pact to prevent use of nuclear weapons in a region rife with turmoil and militancy.

On Kashmir, he said Indians and Pakistanis needed to force their politicians to come together for a dialogue and “decide” so they could do justice to the people of Kashmir.

“Let them (the people of Pakistan) force me and let the Indian people force the Indian politicians to come together to find a peaceful solution in which we can really say we have done justice to Kashmir,” he said.

Asked who he felt Kashmir belonged to today, Mr Zardari replied: “To the Kashmiri people.” The comments won applause from incarcerated leaders of pro-independence Kashmiris.

“He spoke well,” APHC chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq told Dawn from Srinagar, where he is being kept under house arrest. The Mirwaiz said he was particularly pleased that Mr Zardari asked Indian and Pakistani people to mount pressure on their leaders to find a solution to the Kashmir issue. To that extent he saw similarities between the approach of Mr Zardari and former president Pervez Musharraf.

“He is carrying on the policy of flexibility on Kashmir first started by (former) President Musharraf,” the Mirwaiz said. “I hope (Indian Prime Minister) Dr Manmohan Singh was listening to the speech. India has not shown any flexibility.”

Mr Zardari, speaking from Islamabad, said he had asked for a caucus to be formed in parliament aimed at examining suggestions for improving ties with India. “I am glad I can say it with full confidence that I can get my parliament to agree upon that.”

Mr Zardari also proposed closer people-to-people ties by abolishing the bureaucratic visa regime between the two countries. He favoured an e-card for travel purposes between them instead. He said he was keen to expand trade ties with India and China.

A senior Pakistani diplomat agreed that Mr Zardari’s statement on no first use of nuclear weapons could mark a shift in the county’s strategic policy, but declined to double guess whether the head of state had thought it through.

Indian strategic analysts welcomed Mr Zardari’s remarks, but appeared to be cautious about the Pakistan army endorsing the proposed new policy. “This is pretty good news. Pakistan till now has been very reluctant to commit to no first use,” C. Uday Bhaskar, a New Delhi-based strategic affairs expert, was quoted by a news agency as saying. “It is quite a breakthrough, but we have to wait till tomorrow to see how the general headquarters in Rawalpindi responds to Mr Zardari’s political initiative.”

Saturday, November 22, 2008

UK terror suspect was linked to Masood Azhar of Jaish

UK terror suspect was linked to Masood Azhar
The News, November 23, 2008
By Amir Mir

LAHORE: A high-level probe ordered by the Pakistani authorities into the 2007 dramatic escape of the British terror plot suspect Rashid Rauf from police custody had concluded that he had fled with the collusion of the police and some Jaish-e-Mohammad-linked militants while he was being transported to the Adiala Jail, Rawalpindi after a court appearance.

Rashid Rauf, who is reported to have been killed in the North Waziristan area on Friday in a US missile strike along with four other al-Qaeda-linked militants, was arrested on August 9, 2007 from a Jaish-e-Mohammad-run seminary, the Madrassa Madina, situated in the Model Town area of Bahawalpur. He was arrested a couple of days before the British crackdown and arrests of the main plotters in London. Rashid Rauf became the focus of world attention after being named by the British intelligence as the main plotter of a terrorist plan to blow up the US-bound British airliners with the help of liquid explosives. He was arrested in Pakistan after a tip-off from British anti-terrorism authorities, days before a series of August 2006 raids and arrests in Britain of eight men accused of conspiring to smuggle liquid bombs on board a series of Atlantic flights. However, almost 16 months after his arrest, Rashid escaped from the police custody under mysterious circumstances, at a time the British government had officially requested Pakistan to extradite him to London.

A subsequent inquiry into his December 15 escape dismissed claims by Rauf’s police guards that he had slipped away after being allowed to pray in a mosque. The report of the probe committee described as concocted the claim made by his two police guards that he mysteriously disappeared from the mosque. “The escape was made good in the vicinity of F-8 Markaz, the district court in Islamabad, and right after the hearing. Therefore, it is not a case of negligence, but a case of criminal collusion with the accused and facilitating him to escape. F-8 Markaz is located in the heart of Islamabad. Police constables Mohammad Tufail and Nawabzada, who were guarding Rauf, had claimed that he had slipped out of the back door of a mosque after they allowed him to offer afternoon prayers there,” stated the probe report.

For complete article, click here