Nationalist movements promote and protect national language, culture and identity through political expression. They aim to control their affairs without outside interference. They are about managing their economic resources by themselves. They may want autonomy within a multinational state in order to structure it to protect their identity, or in certain cases for an independent state of their own.
Taliban meet none of these criteria in Afghanistan or Pakistain, and therefore cannot be considered a Pashtun nationalist movement. They take ideological and political inspiration from Arabs and other non-Pashtuns. They have consciously, as a matter of policy, targeted different cultural traits of Pashtuns, like tribal councils and folk music; they are not concerned about the language and promote mostly Arabic and/or interestingly, Urdu; Economic resources or their control is not their concern; neither is any political or administrative manifestation of Pashtun identity their goal.
They have killed a large number of traditional Pashtun elders in FATA and banned the Jirga as means of dispute settlement in areas under their influence. They have been eliminating the Pashtun way of life.
The term 'Taliban' referred to students of madrassas. The current use of the term started when Mullah Umar led some of those students to rise against the atrocities of the Mujahideen groups who had fought against the Soviet Union. In the beginning, even Americans considered them a force to counter pan-Islamists as well as the neighbouring Shia Iran. But very soon, international terrorists, mainly Al Qaeda, established connections with the Taliban.
Today, the only connection that they have with Pashtuns is that the term Taliban is a Pashto plural for the Arabic term Talib (student), and that they are using Pashtun territory. The only thing that unites these diverse groups is that they follow a particular brand of Islam. Quite a large number of them come from Punjab.
The Pak state considered the intervention of Soviet Union an opportunity to achieve long-cherished policy aims based on its threat perceptions from India. It had always considered Afghanistan's closeness with India as against its security and also feared Afghan claims about the Durand Line. In this situation it had always seen the Pashtun nationalist with suspicion. The unitary post-colonial state of Pakistain had always considered all the pluralist democratic identity movements as a threat. Due to the Afghan connection, Pashtun identity politics and autonomy aspirations, even within Pakistain, were considered more so.
Pakistain's use of religious beturbanned goons as a tool of policy began in early 1970s when most of the Mujahideen leaders who rose to fame in 1980s were backed to oppose President Daud's government in Afghanistan. This policy was furthered later by promoting the Mujahideen amongst the resistance movement at the expense of Pashtun nationalists (Afghan Millat, one such Pashtun Nationalist Party from Afghanistan, was denied freedom of action in 1980s) amongst the anti-Soviet resistance. The Pak state aimed at a social and political engineering of Pashtuns. It was believed that a secular Pashtun cannot be trusted. There was similar mistrust of the secular freedom fighters in Kashmire too.
The Taliban were supported before 9/11 with the similar aims - as an alternative to those liberal Afghan Pashtuns who were getting increasingly fed up of the warring Mujahideen groups. Even after 9/11, Pakistain does not talk about Pashtun tribal elders or Pashtun nationalists of secular leanings when it expresses concern about Pashtun representation in Afghanistan.
In FATA, the current Taliban concentration includes a sizeable number of non Pashtuns and Al Qaeda. The jihad boy challenge in Punjab is taken to be a completely separate problem, and the very strong presence and role of Punjabis in FATA is often denied.
The approach also suits pan-Islamists because it makes it easier for them to use Pashtun territory on both sides of the Durand Line as a sanctuary and provides them with a constant source of of foot soldiers. They are aided by the lack of modern state governance in those area. But none of the Death Eaters talks about this lack of governance, or the rights of Pashtun in any part of Pakistain or Afghanistan.
On the contrary, Talibanisation is de-Pashunisation of the Pashtun, and may lead to the de-Paksation of the Pashtun.
The economy did horribly in the last three months of 2011.
I know that's not what you've been hearing.
During this past Christmas season you were first told that consumers were dying to get to the malls and shop. That turned out to be true -- for a couple of days at least, while stores were desperately discounting everything they had.
Then you were told that manufacturers were having a bang-up month and that automakers were selling cars like it was the old days.
And Apple -- who could forget Apple? -- was selling iAnythings like they were some sort of lifesaving device and every American was in the hospital emergency room.
Last Friday the Commerce Department released its tally of business conditions in October, November and December. And it was, well, quite disappointing if you actually know what to look at.
The headline number you saw on the evening news that night and in the newspapers on Saturday was this: the nation's gross domestic product rose at a 2.8 percent annual rate in the 2011 fourth quarter, which was better than the 1.8 percent growth in the July-September period.
In the first place, 2.8 percent isn't a good rate of growth for any year.
Take out your calculator, divide 2.8 percent by the four quarters of the year, and you'll see that fourth-quarter growth -- even if you take these numbers at face value -- was just 0.7 percent.
Tepid. Lukewarm. Disappointing. Not what should be happening four years into a recession (oh, right, that's supposed to be over) after the Federal Reserve has used all its tricks and our elected officials have bankrupted the country.
But it gets worse.
(If you start coughing up blood while reading this column I suggest you dial 911. Remember, I'm just the skeptical messenger trying to set things straight, so don't take it out on me.)
And that meager 2.8 percent annual growth really isn't what it seems to be.
That's because 75 percent of that 2.8 percent growth involved businesses restocking inventories. Who says? The Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis, which released this data.
So people like you and me weren't really buying all that stuff in the last months of 2011. It was businesses buying stuff and putting it on their shelves in hopes that people would soon come along and buy it from them.
Inventories will only build up so much before companies say "no more." So these restockings are not considered a particularly good thing when the ultimate buyer -- the consumer -- is still uncooperative.
But that wasn't the only scary thing in the GDP report. In fact, it wasn't even the most important thing.
In order to get to that 2.8 percent growth the Commerce Department used a very unrealistic level of inflation in its calculations.
Let me explain: The government comes up with a figure on how much it thinks the economy grew, or shrunk. Friday's figure was a first estimate for the fourth quarter, so most of the numbers used in the calculation are only guesstimates anyway. (But that's for a different story.)
The government then takes that growth figure, subtracts the rate of inflation and comes up with the real growth it reports in its press release.
So, in other words, if inflation is rising it reduces the rate of actual, after inflation, growth -- which is the figure that Washington reports.
In Friday's number the government used 0.4 percent as the rate of inflation. Zero. Point. Four. Percent.
In which country is inflation that low? Certainly not in America. Absolutely not in the last four months of 2011.
The consumer price index, which is put out by the US Census Bureau, had prices up 3 percent for the year.
And the rate of inflation used in calculating the third-quarter 2011 GDP was 2.6 percent; in the first and second quarters, combined, the rate was 2.5 percent; it was 1.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010.
So how does the Zero-Point-Four-Freakin' percent sound now?
That's how Commerce got to the not-very-inspiring 2.8 percent growth it reported last Friday.
Let me put this another way in case you are missing my outrage.
If the inflation figure used in last Friday's GDP figure had just remained the same as the 2.6 percent rate from the third quarter, Washington would have had to report fourth-quarter annualized growth of just 0.6 percent.
(Calculation: Inflation was lowered by 2.2 percentage points. So subtract 2.2 percent from the 2.8 percent growth to get 0.6 percent.)
And that's an annualized rate. So divide the 0.6 percent by four quarters and the economy expanded at an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny 0.15 percent in the fourth quarter.
On Friday, the Labor Department will issue its employment report for January.
Wall Street had better get out the Depends. I would believe 0.15%. I would believe the 10% unemployment. We are in a depression and no amount of bullshit numbers from the feds can cover it up anymore.
"The Congressional Budget Office on Tuesday predicted the deficit will rise to $1.08 trillion in 2012.
The office also projected the jobless rate would rise to 8.9 percent by the end of 2012, and to 9.2 percent in 2013.
These are much dimmer forecasts than in CBO's last report in August, when the office projected a $973 billion deficit. The report reflects weaker corporate tax revenue and the extension for two months of the payroll tax holiday."
WHILE Pakistain has endured two back-to-back years of intense flooding, mismanagement continues to mark rehabilitation efforts at both the state and private levels. As reported in this paper on Saturday, a lack of coordination between the government and NGOs in rain-affected parts of Jamshoro district in Sindh has resulted in the duplication of relief projects. Apparently, NGOs did not share their plans with the state, which is why several organizations have been working on identical projects. The report adds that the state's response in relief efforts has also been far from satisfactory. In a similar vein, the Sindh minister for Zakat and Ushr told the provincial assembly during question hour recently that over Rs3.6bn meant for the reconstruction of houses for victims of the 2010 floods remained unspent. He told the House that "modalities for the construction of houses" were still being worked out, despite the fact that it has been a year and a half since floodwaters first raged through Sindh. In this regard, the Sindh chief minister reportedly told flood victims to "be patient". Patience is indeed a virtue, yet failure to build the houses despite the passage of such a lengthy period of time and the availability of funds is enough to try anyone's patience.
This attitude of the state is not new as several months after 2010′s floods initially struck, there were millions of dollars reportedly lying unused in the prime minister's fund. We complain -- and perhaps rightly so -- when the world fails to loosen its purse strings for us in times of trouble. Yet when funds are clearly available we fail to put them to good use mainly due to the haphazard manner in which the state conducts its affairs. Along with the state, NGOs should declare the amount of funds that have been raised for the flood victims in 2010 and 2011, as well as details of where and how these funds have been spent. Ultimately, much better coordination needs to exist between the state and the private sector immediately after a disaster has taken place as well as in the long run to ensure transparency and effective rehabilitation of victims.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/31/2012 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[Dawn] THE killing last week of three lawyers in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... was the latest reminder of the sectarian menace that haunts Pakistain. According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, 203 people were killed and 297 injured in 30 incidents of sectarian violence in 2011.
The map of sectarianism stretches across Pakistain, from Kurram Agency ...home of an intricately interconnected web of poverty, ignorance, and religious fanaticism, where the laws of cause and effect are assumed to be suspended, conveniently located adjacent to Tora Bora... to Bloody Karachi, Mastung district to Lahore. Geopolitics -- in particular, increased global pressure on Iran -- and upcoming general elections in Pakistain are likely to intensify sectarian festivities in the near future. And yet, political interest in coining holistic policies to stem sectarian violence is sorely lacking.
Improved law enforcement is no doubt the best antidote to sectarian and bad boy violence. Deweaponisation and the prosecution of snuffies would certainly reduce the incidence of religiously motivated violence. Successful crackdowns against sectarian gunnies in the late 1990s and the banning of groups such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi ... a 'more violent' offshoot of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistain. LeJ's purpose in life is to murder anyone who's not of utmost religious purity, starting with Shiites but including Brelvis, Ahmadis, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Rosicrucians, and just about anyone else you can think of. They are currently a wholly-owned subsidiary of al-Qaeda ... (LJ) and Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistain (SSP) in 2001-02 led to a reduction of such violence in the past decade. But the recent resurgence of sectarianism suggests that targeted security operations cannot suffice to weed out sectarian violence.
Pakistain's weak judicial system and low rates of conviction have made 'crackdown' a euphemism for extrajudicial killings. As such, attempts to stem sectarian violence exclusively through law enforcement have invited retaliation (recall the many police officials involved in arrests of sectarian gunnies who were killed in the mid-2000s) and spurred an ongoing spiral of violence between the state and orc groups.
Moreover, while crackdowns in the late 1990s and the first decade of this century broke the organizational structure of sectarian groups, they led to the infusion of sectarian gunnies and their ideologies into other bad boy organizations. Members of the LJ, SSP and other sectarian groups joined global jihadi networks such as Al Qaeda that boasted more resources and a broader agenda.
A decade later, we're seeing a boomerang effect as sectarian groups return to their original mandates, but with the added advantage of enhanced training, more diffuse orc networks, sanctuaries, funding and other advantages proffered by links to numerous bad boy groups, including the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistain.
In short, Pakistain's brutal history has shown that tougher law-enforcement can suppress, but not stamp out, sectarian violence. What's needed is a sustained state response comprising multifaceted, long-term policies. And the need is now greater than ever.
Developments surrounding Iran's quest for nuclear weapons threaten to ignite sectarian violence throughout the region. If Tehran proceeds with its weapons programme, Pakistain may descend into a proxy sectarian battleground where Iran and Soddy Arabia vie for influence -- a throwback to the Iran-Iraq war and its aftermath.
Conversely, if international sanctions rein in the country's nuclear ambitions, Tehran will find itself left with few retaliatory options beyond supporting sectarian groups in order to create regional havoc. Either way, Pakistain must take steps to ensure that it is less vulnerable to widespread sectarian strife than at present.
Focused operations against sectarian groups must be complemented by policy initiatives in the educational, economic, agricultural and media regulatory sectors. The need to register and monitor madressahs cannot be overstated: by design, madressah education intensifies sectarian divisions and blurs out religio-cultural commonalities. In the short term, the state must scrutinise madressah curriculums for hateful and prejudiced content against rival sects, and fund conferences and exchange programmes to boost interaction -- and thus understanding -- between sects. In the long -term, the emphasis must be on increased participation in the government school system, and the development of an inclusive, secular curriculum.
Holistic policies to counter sectarianism must also acknowledge that much violence has more to do with socio-economic or political dynamics than ideology.
For example, sectarian outfits originally flourished in Punjab, where Shia landlords stirred resentment among lower-middle class Sunnis. In an urban context, sectarian festivities between Barelvis and Deobandis are often sparked by attempts to take over mosques -- a form of land-grabbing which assumes significance when access to land resources translates into political power.
Tribal warfare, meanwhile, underpins the sectarian violence in Fata. As such, the state must prioritise overall development in the form of job creation and equitable land use, with a particular eye to sectarian flashpoints.
In an age of media saturation, attempts to stem sectarianism must also involve content regulation. The legal publications and websites of Islamic organizations and religious political parties, religious TV programming, and pamphlets of Islamic welfare organizations must be systematically screened for hate-inciting content.
This could prove tricky, as media professionals themselves are not qualified to judge whether religious content is accurate, permissible and unprejudiced. However, the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits... the industry could appoint a panel of religious scholars to help moderate content.
More broadly, Pakistain must strive to develop an independent foreign policy so that Islamabad can engage on its own terms with countries such as Soddy Arabia and Iran that have the potential to stoke domestic sectarianism. Issues such as international financing for sectarian outfits must appear on bilateral agendas, but that will only be possible if
there is cooperation in other, mutually beneficial areas.
Sadly, the probability of any of these policy initiatives being pursued is extremely low, particularly since we are now in election season. Sectarian groups can be counted on to influence vast constituencies and guarantee victory at the ballot box; indeed, prominent members of banned sectarian outfits continue to contest elections or campaign on behalf of mainstream political parties.
Who can forget Punjab law minister Rana Sanaullah's participation in an SSP rally, or the permission granted to SSP leader Azam Tariq to contest elections from jail during Pervez Perv Musharraf ... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ... 's regime? If political parties are unable to look beyond the short-term political gains that result from allowing sectarian groups to flourish, there is little hope of stemming this most heinous form of violence.
THE killing last week of three lawyers in Bloody Karachi was the latest reminder of the sectarian menace that haunts Pakistain. According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, 203 people were killed and 297 injured in 30 incidents of sectarian violence in 2011.
The map of sectarianism stretches across Pakistain, from Kurram Agency to Bloody Karachi, Mastung district to Lahore. Geopolitics -- in particular, increased global pressure on Iran -- and upcoming general elections in Pakistain are likely to intensify sectarian festivities in the near future. And yet, political interest in coining holistic policies to stem sectarian violence is sorely lacking.
Improved law enforcement is no doubt the best antidote to sectarian and bad boy violence. Deweaponisation and the prosecution of snuffies would certainly reduce the incidence of religiously motivated violence. Successful crackdowns against sectarian gunnies in the late 1990s and the banning of groups such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ) and Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistain (SSP) in 2001-02 led to a reduction of such violence in the past decade. But the recent resurgence of sectarianism suggests that targeted security operations cannot suffice to weed out sectarian violence.
Pakistain's weak judicial system and low rates of conviction have made 'crackdown' a euphemism for extrajudicial killings. As such, attempts to stem sectarian violence exclusively through law enforcement have invited retaliation (recall the many police officials involved in arrests of sectarian gunnies who were killed in the mid-2000s) and spurred an ongoing spiral of violence between the state and orc groups.
Moreover, while crackdowns in the late 1990s and the first decade of this century broke the organizational structure of sectarian groups, they led to the infusion of sectarian gunnies and their ideologies into other bad boy organizations. Members of the LJ, SSP and other sectarian groups joined global jihadi networks such as Al Qaeda that boasted more resources and a broader agenda.
A decade later, we're seeing a boomerang effect as sectarian groups return to their original mandates, but with the added advantage of enhanced training, more diffuse orc networks, sanctuaries, funding and other advantages proffered by links to numerous bad boy groups, including the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistain.
In short, Pakistain's brutal history has shown that tougher law-enforcement can suppress, but not stamp out, sectarian violence. What's needed is a sustained state response comprising multifaceted, long-term policies. And the need is now greater than ever.
Developments surrounding Iran's quest for nuclear weapons threaten to ignite sectarian violence throughout the region. If Tehran proceeds with its weapons programme, Pakistain may descend into a proxy sectarian battleground where Iran and Soddy Arabia vie for influence -- a throwback to the Iran-Iraq war and its aftermath.
Conversely, if international sanctions rein in the country's nuclear ambitions, Tehran will find itself left with few retaliatory options beyond supporting sectarian groups in order to create regional havoc. Either way, Pakistain must take steps to ensure that it is less vulnerable to widespread sectarian strife than at present.
Focused operations against sectarian groups must be complemented by policy initiatives in the educational, economic, agricultural and media regulatory sectors. The need to register and monitor madressahs cannot be overstated: by design, madressah education intensifies sectarian divisions and blurs out religio-cultural commonalities. In the short term, the state must scrutinise madressah curriculums for hateful and prejudiced content against rival sects, and fund conferences and exchange programmes to boost interaction -- and thus understanding -- between sects. In the long -term, the emphasis must be on increased participation in the government school system, and the development of an inclusive, secular curriculum.
Holistic policies to counter sectarianism must also acknowledge that much violence has more to do with socio-economic or political dynamics than ideology.
For example, sectarian outfits originally flourished in Punjab, where Shia landlords stirred resentment among lower-middle class Sunnis. In an urban context, sectarian festivities between Barelvis and Deobandis are often sparked by attempts to take over mosques -- a form of land-grabbing which assumes significance when access to land resources translates into political power.
Tribal warfare, meanwhile, underpins the sectarian violence in Fata. As such, the state must prioritise overall development in the form of job creation and equitable land use, with a particular eye to sectarian flashpoints.
In an age of media saturation, attempts to stem sectarianism must also involve content regulation. The legal publications and websites of Islamic organizations and religious political parties, religious TV programming, and pamphlets of Islamic welfare organizations must be systematically screened for hate-inciting content.
This could prove tricky, as media professionals themselves are not qualified to judge whether religious content is accurate, permissible and unprejudiced. However, the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits... the industry could appoint a panel of religious scholars to help moderate content.
More broadly, Pakistain must strive to develop an independent foreign policy so that Islamabad can engage on its own terms with countries such as Soddy Arabia and Iran that have the potential to stoke domestic sectarianism. Issues such as international financing for sectarian outfits must appear on bilateral agendas, but that will only be possible if
there is cooperation in other, mutually beneficial areas.
Sadly, the probability of any of these policy initiatives being pursued is extremely low, particularly since we are now in election season. Sectarian groups can be counted on to influence vast constituencies and guarantee victory at the ballot box; indeed, prominent members of banned sectarian outfits continue to contest elections or campaign on behalf of mainstream political parties.
Who can forget Punjab law minister Rana Sanaullah's participation in an SSP rally, or the permission granted to SSP leader Azam Tariq to contest elections from jail during Pervez Musharraf's regime? If political parties are unable to look beyond the short-term political gains that result from allowing sectarian groups to flourish, there is little hope of stemming this most heinous form of violence.
[Dawn] THE pages of history are littered with the remains of those that failed, no small number of them deaders to the law of unintended consequences.
Purposive action will sometimes have the desired and estimated effect, and may even occasionally yield some beneficial side effects, but quite often it will throw up a situation that spells disaster. The chain of causality is convoluted and many-stranded.
So it was that when Gen Musharraf liberalised the country's media policy, there was no way he could have imagined that he was thus committing himself to hurtling down towards a future in which his very creation, his much-vaulted "gifts to the nation", would play a decisive role in inducing him to vacate the seat of power.
Back at the turn of the millennium, there could have been no way of foretelling the sequence of events and regrettable decisions that, in 2007, caused people -- or at least, civil society -- and the media to throw in their lot with the judges and the lawyers, and the whole to snowball into something of a revolution complete with a dethronement scene at the end.
When the dust cleared, Pakistain was minus a soldier at the helm of civilian government but plus a number of institutions with a renewed sense of empowerment.
Fast forward from those days to now when in many people's view our erstwhile heroes have turned out to have not just clay feet, but disgracefully so. Consider the legal community. A citizenry appalled by the murder of the then Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer found, to its consternation, cause to be even more appalled by the support offered by a great many lawyers to the killer, Mumtaz Qadri.
Since 2007, we have watched unpalatable instances where lawyers have used strong-arm tactics in courts, against individuals that were part of the judiciary, and watched footage of lawyers clashing with the police.
Today, the more sensible of observers watch aghast as members of the legal fraternity vilify and ridicule a senior colleague -- who they themselves lionised a few years ago -- because he chose to represent the prime minister of the country.
The other winner of the events of 2007, the media, finds itself in a perhaps even more unpalatable place four years on. The major topic of discussion at the moment with regards to the ethical and professional compass of the country's media landscape is the footage aired on a morning show, the host, flanked by upper-class dames, chasing down couples
strolling innocuously in a Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... park.
From the defenders of freedom and democracy to vigilante guardians of our morality? How far the industry would seem to have fallen. Surely this is not what was intended by the liberalisation of the media.
The show currently being talked about is not the only one, nor is this the only channel, to have violated privacy, constitutional freedoms and even the norms of civilised behaviour in the name of either 'getting the story' (read: ratings) or crusading on the side of what individuals consider 'right'.
Such fare is what sections of Pak journalism consider defendable as something that needs to be exposed because it was in the overarching public interest -- trial and punishment in the anchor and his organization's court of morality and that too without a search warrant that even the police are required to obtain before they can raid the
private property of any individual. Again, surely this wasn't the intended effect of empowering the media.
One answer can be found in hypothesising that as a body, those involved in the 'revolution' of 2007 were given increased confidence and even lauded for seeing themselves on the side of what is 'good' and 'right'. In truth, though, like every other facet of a Pakistain that is broken and breaking down, all those involved were ordinary individuals, flaws
and failings included, elevated to a position of reverence for which they weren't prepared.
Absolute power, especially with righteousness to boot, is likely to corrupt absolutely -- and if not corrupt, then at least lend a sense of infallibility and invincibility that can lead disastrously, damagingly, astray. That one's man 'right' is often another's 'wrong' only further complicates a problem to which the only solution lies in the adage about my
freedom ending where your nose begins.
Yet the law of unintended consequences alone does not explain the viciousness and no-holds-barred fighting that is evident across Pakistain's landscape today, of which the media constitutes merely the loudest representative voice.
In the politicians' vengeful avowal that Musharraf be placed in durance vile if he dares return, in the vitriol of X party's supporter against Y party, in the demand made recently in the Punjab Assembly that those thought to practise magic at graveyards be issued the death penalty forthwith, in a body politic increasingly turning towards the violent and the simplistic --
everywhere, the eye of the imagination can see dogs, young and vicious and slavering, straining at the leash to pursue the perceived evildoer, the dissident, the other.
One way to understand this is through the Shakespearean lens of "Cry 'Havoc' and let slip the dogs of war". If 'war' is understood as conflict, then Pakistain has run the gauntlet over the course of its history.
Havoc has been dealt out by all parties, at every level, from the long running civil-military stand-off to the current turban-terrorist threat, from the politicians to the army to a society whose different factions are at war, from the bludgeoning dealt out by economic or employment conditions to the wretchedness dictated by illiteracy and poverty.
If there is viciousness and a sense of nothing to lose all around us today, it must logically have to equal the viciousness of the conflicts that created the dogs of Pakistain's 65-year-old war.
These products of war constitute the young Pakistain, the mob that rules the brave new world; and if the old guard looks on in dismay, repeating aghast that this torrent of anger is not what was intended ... well, so well it might.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/31/2012 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#3
And you cannot short-circuit the need to prove an individual defendants direct personal complicity by throwing the term 'honour killing' against a clan, and then hoping to get an up-or-down verdict on the whole lot of them at once.
Given the behavior of these people, the lying, the coverup, and the general toxic atmosphere of this family and its so-called honor, please explain how the parents cannot be considered accessories before and after the fact.
#4
It's important to remember that the word in Arabic, and probably the rest of Islamic languages, commonly translated to English as "honor" more properly should be translated as "reputation/face".
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Punjab
The economy did horribly in the last three months of 2011.
WHILE Pakistain has endured two back-to-back years of intense flooding, mismanagement continues to mark rehabilitation efforts at both the state and private levels. As reported in this paper on Saturday, a lack of coordination between the government and NGOs in rain-affected parts of Jamshoro district in Sindh has resulted in the duplication of relief projects. Apparently, NGOs did not share their plans with the state, which is why several organizations have been working on identical projects. The report adds that the state's response in relief efforts has also been far from satisfactory. In a similar vein, the Sindh minister for Zakat and Ushr told the provincial assembly during question hour recently that over Rs3.6bn meant for the reconstruction of houses for victims of the 2010 floods remained unspent. He told the House that "modalities for the construction of houses" were still being worked out, despite the fact that it has been a year and a half since floodwaters first raged through Sindh. In this regard, the Sindh chief minister reportedly told flood victims to "be patient". Patience is indeed a virtue, yet failure to build the houses despite the passage of such a lengthy period of time and the availability of funds is enough to try anyone's patience.
Kurram Agency
Pervez 
