[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Al-Shabaab ... the Islamic version of the old Somali warlord... never learn. The moment the kaboom in downtown Nairobi went off and the finger of suspicion pointed to the Somali bully boy group, security analysts predicted the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) would imminently step up their military operations in Somalia.
There are many reasons why the Kenyans have been cautious in their advance since they crossed the border last October.
One of those is domestic doubts about the wisdom of the whole enterprise. Read (Kenya reveals move to capture Kismayu)
In the days leading up to the incursion and following a spate of attacks at the Coast, which were blamed on elements sympathetic to the Shabaab, there was solid public support for Operation Linda Nchi. A poll found eight in 10 Kenyans supported military action.
But this did not disguise the fact that there were many who were cautious about the armed forces' first external operation in defence of the country's territory in decades.
President Kibaki, the commander-in-chief and then Defence minister Njenga Karume, were recorded by American diplomats, in a dispatch dated July 9, 2009, as being unenthusiastic about the initiative, according to cables released by WikiLeaks.
If Al-Shabaab had been wise enough to understand these dynamics, they would have been cautious about attacking Kenya.
Because nothing triggers domestic support for foreign intervention than a major attack on the homeland.
An Al-Shabaab bombing in Nairobi was always likely to trigger an escalation of military efforts by the KDF and that's exactly what has happened in the last few days.
We have seen this movie before. From the time the Ugandan People's Defence Forces (UPDF) landed in Mogadishu in mid-2007 to the end of June 2010, the UPDF and Al-Shabaab were engaged in a sterile stalemate in Mogadishu.
In line with their mandate of propping up the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), the Ugandans were content to guard key installations: the airport, seaport, presidential palace and the strategic Kilometre 4 junction. They barely launched frontal attacks on Shabaab positions.
The direction of the war changed for good when, on July 10, 2010, the Shabaab sent several jacket wallahs to attack Ugandans watching the World Cup final killing 76 fans in their wake.
Changed everything
Those killings triggered revulsion in Uganda and beyond. This is how Amisom front man Col Paddy Ankunda summed it up: "(The Kampala attacks) changed everything. In their aftermath, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development resolved to send a further 2,000 troops, and the AU Summit reinterpreted Amisom's rules of engagement to allow for pre-emptive defence, meaning Amisom could finally take the fight to the bully boys. Soon after, Amisom began a methodical advance across the city.
By mid-August, half of the Igad-backed troops had been inserted into Mogadishu and, Amisom, now with more than 7,000 soldiers, had established seven new positions in the south-western and southern part of Mogadishu."
The decision of the Ugandans to go on the offensive spelt trouble for Al-Shabaab, who did not anticipate a conventional force would take them on in an urban war in territory which the Shabaab were intimately familiar with.
But the Shabaab, whose popularity had been eroded by the dominance of imported muscle within the group and the tactics this cadre brought -- such as massive suicide kabooms and a harsh interpretation of Islam -- could no longer count on the support of locals.
Within weeks of the offensive, the Amisom troops had taken key positions such as the former Immigration ministry and the old Parliament.
Their control of the city was enhanced by the capture of the Makka Al-Mukarama road, which links the Presidential Palace to Kilometre 4 and Mogadishu airport and the subsequent fall of Mogadishu University and the old stadium.
Burundian troops simultaneously made significant gains including the capture of Gashandigga, the former Defence ministry which had been a key Al-Shabaab hub.
The success in Gashandigga came at a terrible cost -- the loss of 72 soldiers in Amisom's bloodiest single day in Somalia -- after the Shabaab showed their military nous by tricking the Burundians into advancing into a trap in the streets near the Defence headquarters.
The story of how Mogadishu fell to Amisom means few will be surprised Kenyan and allied forces are making an advance so soon after the Assanand's blast.
Somalia analyst Mohammed Ali Hassan told the BBC that the capture of the former Shabaab stronghold of Afmadhow on Thursday was a major development.
"This is a strategic area," he said. "Afmadhow is the second main town in the South after Kismayu. It has a network of roads leading to various parts of the country including Mogadishu and the sea port."
Mr Hassan said if the Kenyan, TFG and Ras Kamboni brigades proceed to capture Kismayu, as Chief of General Staff Gen Julius Karangi has said they will by mid August, that will prove a telling if not decisive blow to the Shabaab.
"They will not have been comprehensively defeated but it will be a very significant setback. It was their main strategic area. They will be choked off. They will be in a desperate situation both politically and financially. They won't know where to hide."
In response to the latest Kenyan advance, the Shabaab have issued yet another threat to bring down the "skyscrapers" of Nairobi.
Beyond Somalia
It is not a threat that should be taken lightly given the fact the group has shown itself capable of carrying out acts of terror beyond the borders of Somalia.
Yet events in Somalia show that the group's best days are behind it.
In the space of a week, the bully boyz lost their grip not just on Afmadhow but on Afgoye, the main town in the bread basket of Somalia in the River Shabelle region.
These losses represent not just the surrender of territory but that of significant lines of income.
Kismayu will be the next big battle. Yet as many Somalia watchers recognise, Al-Shabaab's ultimate defeat will hinge on the success or failure of the grinding of the peace processor which aims to give the country a credible government to take over when the transitional period ends on August 20.
In that respect, events in Istanbul, Turkey, where a major conference on Somalia is taking place, will be as important as battleground gains or losses closer home.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
06/03/2012 00:00 ||
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[Business Day Online] The Nigerian Police must be eager to show some "performance" in the fight against terror that it took the whole country on a ride last week. The official line, as reported by the media, was: "3 ministers, journalists escape death as security operatives arrest man with grenades." The police account was that "eagle-eyed" security operatives placed in long-term storage Book 'im, Mahmoud! a 39-year old man, one John Akpanum Anaku, with a bag containing 37 rounds of ammunition and three hand grenades on Monday, May 21, 2012 at the Radio House, Abuja, venue of a ministerial press briefing by ministers of Aviation, Stella Oduah-Ogiemwonyi; (then) Youth Development and Sports, Bolaji Abdullahi; and Information, Labaran Maku. The gentleman, whom the media naively rushed to proclaim a "jacket wallah" or "terrorist", was cooled for a few years You have the right to remain silent... by security officers from the Nigerian Legion, according to one John Akindele, a police officer (as reported by the media) and chief security officer at the venue "when it was noticed that he was carrying explosives".
The report by ThisDay was just as alarmist: "Panic in Abuja as Police Arrest 2 Terror Suspects," the newspaper loudly proclaimed on its front page the morning after the arrest. According to the newspaper, "The police in Abuja yesterday set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! two terror suspects at different locations in the city, thus averting what might have resulted in another kaboom in the nation's capital." In what would have amounted to an amazing display of police dexterity and proactivity, were the reports not essentially a hoax, our newspapers unquestioningly reported apparent propaganda without any attempt at subjecting official storylines to deep rational analysis. The reference to the second "terrorist", one Abdullahi Salihu, who it was reported "had laced his body with some explosives and hand grenades which he wanted to use to wreak the havoc, but was detected by the security gadgets mounted in FCT" was to another individual set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! same day as the purported Radio House "terrorist" somewhere in the vicinity of Force Headquarters.
However, by candlelight every wench is handsome... reading between the lines, the truth would soon be obvious to any discerning reader. The fellow tossed in the slammer You have the right to remain silent... at Radio House was a frustrated and depressed individual who had brought ammunition found amongst his late brother's luggage (the late brother was a former mobile police officer) and SMOKE grenades to the venue of the media briefing in an attempt to meet the minister of Information who was his kinsman from Nasarawa State. His objective appeared to be obtaining some sympathy and assistance towards collecting his late brother's benefits. The poor gentleman in fact explained to journalists that he had been abandoned and frustrated in life and "so he came to Radio House to make his grievance known to government". Confused, frustrated and incoherent John Anaku may have been, but he was certainly no terrorist. Even a police front man admitted the fact that the purported "grenades" were old, smoke grenades.
And what about Salihu who was reported to have laced his body with explosives? Well, as police front man, Frank Mba, later admitted, "When we searched him, no explosive was found on him, but there were pieces of broken bottle, bottled water, five Automated Teller Machine cards and a vehicle number plate in the bag he was carrying." Pray, how do you carry out a suicide kaboom with these items? Mba, reluctantly, I imagine, agreed that "so far, there is nothing to suggest that he is a suicide bomber". Again, poor Salihu may have been slightly out of his mind, a vagrant, an unemployed wanderer, or even a confused or frustrated myrmidon or tout, maybe even a medicine man, but terrorist or suicide bomber he certainly was not. The surprising aspect for me, as I mentioned earlier, was the eagerness of the media and police spokesmen to report these two incidences as the busting of terror attempts when it was fairly clear that was not the case. How could the Nasarawa fellow carry out terror with any quantity of ammunition without a gun? Is there a means by which a "terrorist" could wreak terror with ammunition if he didn't have a gun? Wasn't it clear the State Security Services (SSS) account of the incidents was more believable? (Indeed, on the whole "Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... " issue, I think the SSS and military have been more credible than the police!) Marilyn Ogar, SSS spokesperson, had cautioned against hasty commentaries and conclusions, explaining that what John Anaku had on him were tear gas canisters and not grenades, and that the fellow was simply trying to meet the Information minister who was his primitive.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/03/2012 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Boko Haram
The euro has essentially broken down as a viable economic and political undertaking. The latest rush of events reeks of impending denouement.
Switzerland is threatening capital controls to repel bank flight from Euroland. The Swiss two-year note has fallen to -0.32pc, not that it seems to make any difference.
Denmark’s central bank said it was battening down the hatches for a "splintering" of EMU. It has cut interest rates twice in a matter or days and pledged to do whatever it takes to stop euros flooding into the country. Contingency plans are on the lips of officials in every capital in Europe, and beyond.
On a single day, the European Commission said monetary union was in danger of "disintegration" and the European Central Bank said it was "unsustainable" as constructed. Their plaintive cries may have fallen on deaf ears in Berlin, but they were heard all too clearly by investors across the world.
Joschka Fischer, Germany’s former vice-Chancellor, said EU leaders have two weeks left to save the project.
"Europe continues to try to quench the fire with gasoline – German-enforced austerity. In a mere three years, the eurozone’s financial crisis has become an existential crisis for Europe."
#1
Meanwhile we have the Queens Diamond Jubilee. A bright spot in a troubled world. Her mother as I recall lived to 100. Hope she does the same. When she is gone allot of class will be lost. Soros will just muck it up.
#3
Her mother as I recall lived to 100. Hope she does the same.
If nothing more than to keep Charles from the throne. Apparently, he at least did his primary aristocratic stud function properly. Everything else does makes us wish the Queen a long and healthy life.
#4
Soros starts a three-month countdown to doomsday in Europe? Does he have something to do with doomsday that he is so certain of the timing? He broke the Bank of England in the early 1990s and got rich doing it.
[Dawn] ON Thursday, women protested bravely in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar against the discriminatory remarks made by a holy man -- and former MNA -- from Kohistan ...a backwoods district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa distinguished by being even more rustic than is the norm among the local Pashtuns.... in a Friday sermon. They were taking a stand in the face of threats issued by Maulvi Abdul Haleem, who declared that women working for NGOs would forcibly be married to local men if they tried to enter Kohistan. This was in keeping with his other obscurantist views, according to which girls should not be educated, women should not work unless accompanied by mahrams and 'honour' killing is a religiously-sanctioned practice. The common thread running through all of this is a fear of women's empowerment: if female NGO workers inform Kohistani women of their rights, the latter might start questioning the restrictions under which they are made to live.
The sermon was part of a worrying trend in Pakistain in which NGOs are increasingly under pressure from a variety of sources. Since Dr Shakil Afridi's involvement in the the late Osama bin Laden ... who knows that it's like to live in the belly of a whale only he's not living... affair surfaced, western NGOs too have come under suspicion by the state, with employees being denied visas, supplies being held up, and organizations being monitored and even being asked to stop working in certain areas. Because vaccination was used as a front, the polio ...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set... campaign is now reportedly facing suspicion from the communities it tries to serve. The security situation in Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... and Fata prevents non-profit work there. Take, for example, the killing of a second worker of the Balochistan Rural Support Programme after six were kidnapped in the province, or reports this week of threatening letters issued against NGO workers by South Wazoo hard boys. Maulvi Haleem's sermon is a reminder that gender, too, is a barrier for NGO workers in parts of Pakistain. In a country where the government provides limited social services, this trend will only make life more difficult for Pakistain's disadvantaged and marginalised communities.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/03/2012 00:00 ||
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The doctor who helped the US find Osama bin Laden has been convicted of treason. Is Pakistan reacting out of guilt rather than moral outrage?
If rage were the criterion, Pakistain would be adjudged 'rogue'. Infested with the hobgoblins of terror, it snarls at foreign victims who plan their destruction. Terror's serum, violence, runs in its veins: political discourse is flecked with destructive long marches; women are being burned with acid, maidservants tortured to the third degree; infants are thrown live into canals, children maimed and killed at school and madrassa; peaceful 'oppressed nations movement' (PONAM) could be killing innocent people in Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... and Sindh. The Overlord of Terror Al Qaeda surveys the scene and is satisfied that his final dominion has come into being, with politicians, judges and the generals lined up in obedient columns.
Surgeon Shakeel Afridi has been found guilty of treason under the tribal justice system of Khyber Agency and sentenced to 33 years in jail and fined Rs 320,000 ($3,500) along with confiscation of his property. He was fired as a government doctor in February 2012. The treason charge brought against him after US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta ...current SecDef, previously Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Panetta served as President Bill Clinton's White House Chief of Staff from 1994 to 1997 and was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1977 to 1993.... , in January, disclosed Afridi had worked for US intelligence collecting DNA to verify bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad ... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden.... Afridi was not present in the court and not given a chance to defend himself because under the tribal system he would not have had access to a lawyer. He was thereafter moved to prison in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar and put under heavy guard probably in anticipation of another Abbottabad-like operation by the US. In October the Abbottabad Commission inquiring into the death of Osama bin Laden had recommended that he be tried for treason.
As if to further provoke an already outraged military established Panetta had said he believed someone in authority in Pakistain knew where bin Laden was hiding. The wrath that resulted from this remark likely led to the 'prejudgement' on Afridi. Pakistain already prostrated by the violation of its illusory sovereignty by Al Qaeda and its foreign affiliates got out of hand. Now the US was the enemy and Al Qaeda was an enemy susceptible to Pak appeasement. Al Zawahiri ... Formerly second in command of al-Qaeda, now the head cheese, occasionally described as the real brains of the outfit. Formerly the Mister Big of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bumped off Abdullah Azzam with a car boom in the course of one of their little disputes. Is thought to have composed bin Laden's fatwa entitled World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. Currently residing in the North Wazoo area. That is not a horn growing from the middle of his forehead, but a prayer bump, attesting to how devout he is... could not be such an imbecile as to ignore that commonality of enemy makes you friends.
Afridi was sentenced under Penal Code clauses related to offences against the state, conspiracy or attempt to wage war against Pakistain, concealing with intent designs to wage war against the state and on charges of working against the country's illusory sovereignty. The doctor had been recruited by the CIA for an elaborate scheme to vaccinate residents for hepatitis B, a ploy to get a DNA sample from those living in the house to see if they were bin Laden family members.
The American position was terse and it came from Pentagon: 'Without commenting on specific individuals, anyone who helped the United States find bin Laden was working against Al Qaeda and not against Pakistain'. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ... sometimes described as The Heroine of Tuzla and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another Edward Livingstone ... said, 'We think his treatment is unjust and unwarranted. The conviction and jail sentence has no basis and the doctor's fate is among the many issues important to the United States and the international community that the US is discussing with Pakistain's leaders'.
In a punitive measure, the Senate Appropriations Committee has requested $1 billion in aid for Pakistain for fiscal year 2013, down from about $1.5 billion. Its leader said: 'Afridi's sentencing will be hard for people in the US to understand or bear. Americans will have great difficulty knowing that one year after the United States found and killed the most notorious terrorist in modern history hiding on Pak soil, the most visible action being taken to find out how he came to be in Pakistain is the conviction in a Pak court of the physician who helped the United States identify Osama bin Laden'.
At the risk of being called 'CIA agent' the Human Rights Commission of Pakistain said: 'One is concerned about the security of the country, but that cannot be made the basis of denying rule of law to anyone. HRCP notes with concern that the trial of Dr Afridi falls well short of the due process standards on many counts, not least because the core principle of natural justice has been ignored and Afridi denied due legal assistance. The question of trying Dr Afridi on charges of treason also remains controversial. His actions may well have been prompted by the declared policy of the State to fight all forms of terrorism in sincerity'.
In a recent article Pakistain's reputable nuclear physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy pointed out the topsy-turvy sense of justice in Pakistain sent out of kilter by terror by stating that Supreme Court was demanding that the government move quickly to rebuild Islamabad's Jamia Hafsa, the madrassa adjoining Lal Masjid that was illegally built on government land and torn down in 2007, ignoring the acts of terror carried out by elements inside Lal Majid known as a watering-hole of Al Qaeda and its Pak minions. Al Zawahiri had announced reprisals and announced the setting up of Tehrik Taliban after the Lal Masjid operation.
Pakistain became unhinged in 2011 when it caught hold of CIA contractor Raymond Davis after he had killed two dacoits in Lahore and allowed the nation to become a blood-thirsty animal calling for his death. Later Davis was allowed to go scot-free under an Islamic provision which no one gave credit to. The same kind of imbecilic reaction was displayed in reaction to the Salala attack in November 2011. The nation wants war with the US but the parliament wants the NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... supply route resumed. Even this back-step was not rational. It wanted emotional satisfaction through an apology instead of a realistic compensation that would have helped the country's sinking economy.
Is Pakistain reacting out of guilt rather than moral outrage which is what the people of Pakistain are being made to feel by the TV channels? Reported in Mashriq (15 Feb 2012) ex-ISI chief and possibly ex-army chief Ziauddin Butt stated that Musharraf and ISI officer Brigadier Ijaz Shah had kept Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad. Musharraf gave the permission and ex-ISI and then ex-IB chief Punjab Brigadier (Retd) Ijaz Shah built the facility where Osama was living before the Americans killed him. Ijaz Shah later fled to Australia. And when Musharraf tried to send him to Australia as ambassador the Australian government refused to accept him. (Ziauddin Butt denied that he had made the statement).
People may be emotional by nature and when they are a mob they may be likened to an animal but the state must at all times act coolly in the ultimate interest of its economy. The punishment meted out to Afridi is an act of anger which will not appease Al Qaeda which increasingly thinks that Pak Army is not capable of fighting it. It does not think that Pak Army can be a sincere friend in bringing about the change Al Qaeda has prepared the ground for with 'nation-building' through fear.
Continued on Page 49
#3
Well, everything after the first paragraph is repeated after "continued from page 4". Also, you have a rogue html tag in there somewhere, because everything after the highlighted bit about "the Army of the Pure..." goes haywire when you mouse over. Looks like a tag didn't get closed.
#4
I don't see any of that on the iPad, Angie. But I don't see it Page 49'd, either, except now as I am commenting, so there's another anomaly. Which browser are you using?
#18
I'm using Firefox as well (sorry to be so late, just got up). Seamonkey and Konqueror show the same, but the latter doesn't have the wild mouseover text.
Religion can be an admirable guide for personal morality but should not compete with science on matters of empirical inquiry
A cri de coeur from a man who will be completely ignored by those who need what he has to say.
Perhaps the most intractable question in Pak educational reform remains how best to reconcile religion and science within the curriculum. This is a serious matter but few are willing to engage with the issue directly, for fear of being branded religious heretics by some or apologists for fanaticism by others. The matter was accentuated for me most recently in viewing, on the web, a video of a debate between physicist and public intellectual Pervez Hoodbhoy and Islamic educator Hamza Tzortzis at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) a few months back. The "debate" ended in a huff with both speakers fuming with contempt for each other's perspective that ultimately led to an irrevocable meltdown. Professor Hoodbhoy walked out of the room accusing Mr Tzortzis of innuendo. The episode was soon thereafter put online by Mr Tzortzis's organization claiming that the debate had been won by their protagonist. Many commenters on blogs and Facebook seemed to concur that by losing his cool Mr Hoodbhoy had vindicated the Islamist perspective.
There is a tendency for many Mohammedans to atavistically celebrate the accomplishments of tenth-century Islamic mathematicians, while investing little in developing contemporary educational capacity
Such a meltdown between religion and scientific epistemologies is inevitable because the underlying assumptions that exist. There is a tendency for many Mohammedans to atavistically celebrate the accomplishments of tenth-century Islamic mathematicians, while investing little in developing contemporary educational capacity. Where investment is being done, it is focused on instrumental fields such as engineering in the Gulf States, and much less in critical inquiry that could actually lead to discoveries that advance the scientific enterprise.
Far too often, the imams are talking about the etymology of "algebra" coming from Arabic and Avicenna's pharmaceutical accomplishments but do we ask why more of such great scholars have not been seen for a thousand years in Islamic countries? Furthermore, it is important to remember that the golden age of Islam was also its most pluralistic (willing to embrace different interpretations of scripture), and even then there were fundamentalist forces who constantly threatened these scientists. Let us not forget that Madinat-al-Zahra, once a showpiece of Islamic art and learning just outside Cordoba, was destroyed not by any "kuffar" but instead by radical and retrogressive Mohammedan factions.
Students should not be taught science simply to validate theology
Out of more than five hundred Nobel laureates in the sciences, only two have been of Mohammedan lineage. Pakistain can claim one of them: Abdus Salam, who shared the prize in physics in 1979, and memorably wore a shervani and turban to the award ceremony in Sweden. However, the hip bone's connected to the leg bone... as an Ahmedi, he was spurned at home as a non-Mohammedan and died in 1996 without fully being able to contribute to science education in Pakistain, despite his noblest intentions. His dedication to improve the plight of Mohammedan scientists cannot be questioned.
Dr Ahmed Zewail, an Egyptian-American chemist based at the Caliphornia Institute of Technology, received the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1999 and is the Mohammedan world's sole Nobel science star. He is clearly in high demand for this singular status and has also been appointed by President B.O. as one of his "science envoys" to the Mohammedan world. I had an opportunity to meet him recently at the World Economic Forum in Davos (in January 2012) and he noted the difficulty of getting science to be embraced by Mohammedans because of entrenched and misguided prejudice towards themes like evolution.
Unfortunately, Mohammedan theologians dismiss evolution as established science with canard theories like "intelligent design," ironically taken from fundamentalist Christian traditions in the Southern United States. Ample scholarship by Mohammedan scientists has been provided to show that evolution and Islamic theology are compatible but a vast majority of Mohammedans continue to disavow this because of ignorance on the part of our major holy mans (a recent book by Nidhal Guessoum titled Islam's Quantum Question: Reconciling Mohammedan Tradition and Modern Science, provides an excellent response to these controversies). Without having a basic predication in scientific understanding of the natural world, we cannot develop our intellectual base.
Those Mohammedans who are educated and proceed to develop successful professional trajectories are often career-centered but would rather not invest in cutting-edge creativity. An interesting example is medicine, in which many Mohammedans have excelled considerably, particularly within the US. However, the hip bone's connected to the leg bone... most of these brilliant doctors are focused on making money in clinical practice rather than in creative research which would lead to laurels such as the Nobel Prize. Two rare exceptions are Dr Hina Chaudhry a cardiac researcher at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York and Dr Zeeshan Ozair, a researcher at Rockefeller University, who may well bring such a laurel home.
Some Mohammedans are quick to indulge in recriminations about Jews being "in control of academia." The reality is they have reached that point because of hard work and a cultural love of learning which has been lost to Mohammedans in recent years. Most Jews who came to America were just as penniless as Mohammedan immigrants but their commitment to learning AND differentiating religion from science helped them triumph. Having spent my career in academia, I can say with confidence that they have truly earned that respect and stature and none should resent it but rather learn from them with humility. Mohammedans must aim for a similar culture of the "scholar-practitioner" that will help to naturalize their behavior.
Such efforts must start at the earliest stage in elementary schooling. Students should not be taught science simply to validate theology (such as what is often done by many teachers to show how particular Koranic verses are ratified by science with somewhat dated and superficial texts like Maurice Bucaille's The Bible, the Koran and Science). Rather, science should be taught as a critical enterprise to better understand the beauty and complexity of Creation. Through such an approach we will begin to see a natural appreciation for planetary processes in congruence with our Faith.
Organizations such as the Khwarizmi Society (which has a strong base at LUMS, and of which I am also a member) have the potential to build bridges between Islam and science but they must approach the matter with care. Scientific empiricism cannot be subservient to preconceived notions or mainstream misrepresentation of theology as we have on the issue of evolution. Most important for this reconciliation between science and religion to take place will be a nonliteral approach to scriptural interpretation in Islam.
Also, those who equate religious evangelism with scientific evangelism in the classroom are making a fundamentally flawed comparison. Scientific methods are meant to be inherently adaptive and self-critical whereas religious evangelism is not. Only with clear proof can scientific theories graduate to become laws whereas such burdens of evidence are not requisite for religious doctrines. It is essential that Pakistain's education not conflate religion and science but rather study both in parallel in what the great scientist Stephen Jay Gould called "non-overlapping magisteria."
Religion can be an admirable guide for personal morality but should not compete with science on matters of empirical inquiry. Let us keep these distinctions clearly in our minds and in our curricula to prevent epistemic conflicts and confusion for generations to come.
Dr Saleem H Ali is professor of environmental planning at the University of Vermont (USA). His books include "Islam and Education: Conflict and Conformity in Pakistain's Madrassas" (Oxford Univ Press, 2009). He can be followed on twitter @saleem_ali Continued on Page 49
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.
[Business Day Online] The Nigerian Police must be eager to show some "performance" in the fight against terror that it took the whole country on a ride last week. The official line, as reported by the media, was: "3 ministers, journalists escape death as security operatives arrest man with grenades." The police account was that "eagle-eyed" security operatives 
[Dawn] ON Thursday, women protested bravely in 
Zawahiri
Religion can be an admirable guide for personal morality but should not compete with science on matters of empirical inquiry
