Widen the view on the US
PLA Daily 2006-06-08 Presented without comment, for maximum effect.
The main purpose of widening the view on the United States is to know more clearly about the strategies and tactics that the US adopts in its process of building a unipolar world.
According to Dr. Lu Dehong, American issue expert, since it's founding more than 200 years ago, the United States started or took part in more than 240 wars and foreign military operations. Hence it can be said that it is the wars that have made what the US is today.
Ceaselessly looking for enemies, ceaselessly playing up crises, and ceaselessly sending out troops for military actions have become the core and essence of American military culture and strategic thinking.
Since the end of the Cold War, the US has been looking for enemies in order to build a unipolar world and to prevent the emergence of a nation similar to the former Soviet Union in the world. For this purpose, the US needs to create a parity situation among different regions so that different regions will hold up and restrict each other.
In the early period of the 21st century, the US pursues regional parity strategy mainly in Asia, because Japan, Russia, India or China in Asia, anyone of them might become a polar in the future multi-polar world.
In accordance with the analyses, the current US-Japan alliance is an alliance by which the US holds Japan in its arms. In order to pursue balance of power in Asia, the US needs to let Japan, that is under its effective control, play a maximum role.
Currently, India's position has been on steady rise in the strategic pattern of major powers. The US attempts to use India as a chip to contain China. In case China slows down its pace of development, India will replace China to bear the pressure of hegemony.
Russia is a major power that will rejuvenate itself sooner or later. It is precisely because of this, right after realizing NATO's eastern expansion and sending its troops to station in central Asia, the US poked its nose into the general election in Ukraine, and pushed ahead with "color revolution" in central Asian countries.
Meanwhile, China's development has attracted worldwide attention, and the voice that China is rejuvenating and rising has grown louder both in China and in the world. Hence, China has been regarded as a "stand-out country" in Asia.
As mentioned above, the American's "regional parity" strategy is aimed at making use of the contradictions to realize the check and balance among major regional powers and impeding the rise of major powers. Hence, the future that lies before us is a coexistence of opportunities and crises, and crises will generate from opportunities. Development and challenges exist side by side, and challenges will be brought about by development. In the face of such a situation, we cannot but develop and we must bravely rise to challenges.
In order to build a unipolar world, the US has hit out everywhere, resulting in its ever-growing battlefront and accumulating more and more contradictions. If things go on like this, the US will eventually prove to be true an old Chinese saying: Big ones have their own troubles. Biting off more than one can chew, and the old will certainly decline.
#1
Lots of issues here, but first... I though we were at about 240 conflict while still in Vietnam. Note how the sub-rosa ones are not counted. I think this count is low.
#3
It's the American Empire! LOL. Now where did we put our empire? It's gotta be around here somewhere...
The truth is, in 200 years we've surpassed the 6,000 yr old Chinese dungheap like it was standing still. Which it was, lol. And has been for millenia.
This is pure tripe. But fun tripe. I liked the opening:
...the United States started or took part in more than 240 wars and foreign military operations. Hence it can be said that it is the wars that have made what the US is today.
Hence? Wotta dipshit. A nation of laws, an open democratic society, living free, collaborating in science, medicine, electronics, intellectual property, private property, capitalism, etc, etc, these are what made America what it is today.
Fucking idiots, projecting their own twisted failed intellectual limitations while ignoring obvious reality. Steal what you can, ChiComs, it's all you'll ever have. Backward, arrogant, ignorant, assholes.
#4
Part of his cliam is Russia is a power that will rejuvenate itself sooner or later. I don't think that likely, and if it does it will be nowhere near the scale it was before.
#5
Who is Lu Dehong, anyway? Michael Moore's ghostwriter?
Posted by: Mike ||
06/10/2006 8:34 Comments ||
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#6
I have a book in my library somewhere, 'A Country Made by War'. The author, a reasonably conservative fellow, makes the point that Americans profess peace and wield the sword whenever necessary, which seems to be a lot. I dunno about 240 times, but every few years we have a full war or intervention somewhere.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/10/2006 11:31 Comments ||
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#7
--The truth is, in 200 years we've surpassed the 6,000 yr old Chinese dungheap like it was standing still. Which it was, lol. And has been for millenia.--
There's a joke about this, the Chinese gave us gun powder, pasta, etc., etc., then they discovered opium and the world caught up.
#8
He misses a basic factor of US policy: the democratic revolution.
That is, the US competes across the board with non-democratic nations, such as China; with both military and non-military competition.
However, with democratic nations, like Japan, the US only competes economically. Were Japan to suddenly go on a military spending spree, even one as big as China's, assuming its democratic politics remained stable and non-radical, the US would notice, but it would not even be opposed, much less try and stop them.
This is because while the US doesn't mind being economically superior to other democracies, it doesn't go to war over keeping this status. "Blood for oil" is nonsense.
However, we will respond, and forcefully, to a military build-up by a non-democratic power. We have long since learned that while we might deal with such a government, we cannot trust them in any way, and sooner or later, non-democratic powers will clash with democracies, militarily.
The old Soviet Union had a similar and opposite philosophy. It felt it could only trust other police states, and felt threatened even by liberal communist nations.
In 1968, this was the reason they invaded peaceful, liberal, and loyal communist ally Czechoslovakia, to the surprise of much of their army, instead of the brutal Tito regime of Yugoslavia, which was a bitter enemy of Moscow and even threatened to fight the Red Army. Moscow could tolerate Tito's brutality, but Brezhnev was deadly afraid of the Prague Spring.
In any event, to the utter bafflement of the Chinese, no doubt, relations with the US would improve dramatically if it made even a few modest movements in the direction of democritization.
Right now, they are being driven to distraction, because the concept of "voting" for ordinary things is becoming rooted in the population, despite their best efforts to forbid it. To the average Chinese on the street, voting for things make sense, as a more efficient way of doing much of everything.
Even in non-democratic situations, someone will chime in "Let's vote on it", and more and more, to oppose voting sounds like insisting that everyone hop around on their left foot only instead of walking.
In that greatest of all ironies, the Chinese government would be utterly shocked to learn that if the people voted, they would generally vote for exactly the same things that the communist party votes for. There would be no great revolution. People love to vote the status quo.
And yet, were they to permit voting, suddenly they would in many ways cease to be the great potential enemy of the US. Because the greatest migration of opinion in democratic situations, is towards peace.
After just a few years, the Chinese people would lose their belligerence towards Taiwan, and in doing so, Taiwan would stop feeling so threatened, and be far more inclined to a peaceful reunification. Eventually the two would rejoin by, of all things, a mutual popular vote to rejoin--no military anything required.
And those people who rule China now would continue to rule China, as much as those that ruled Russia continue to rule Russia.
#9
Some real facts and conclusions.
The US was a leader in the industrial revolution, then space and practically everything else. All along, we viewed the world as a poor cousin. We fought their wars, and fed them. Now, we unselfishly spread our means of production among these poor cousins, and attempt to lead them into modern lifestyle. If you examine South and North Korea, you will see how the US has spread this lifestyle and communism and totalitarianism have spread only misery. China is a perfect example of our real strategy. We have sought to do business with China without strings attached. We believe in time, China will embrace capitalism, and then democracy. Without the freedom real democracy brings, development and inititive are blunted.
We don't really want China, Russia, or any other country to challenge us as world leaders, we just want them to stop being stupid and backward. We don't even expect them to say thanks.
#10
Remember, boyz, any seeming US defeat or failure over Iran-ME, andor North Korea-Taiwan, will be interpreetd by AMer's enemies as a de facto decline in US geopol power. influence, or position. And where ANTI-AMERICAN AMERICANS are concerned, COMMUNISM and TOTALITARIANISM is the answer to the National, Regional, and Global problems, controversies, corruptions and anarchies wrought by Dubya and the FASCIST GOP-Right. The FAILED LEFT > FASCIST > HATED DESPICABLE BRUTISH IMPERIALIST ARROGANT HITLERIST = BELOVED WELL-MEANING, BUT MISGUIDED ERROR-PRONE INNOCENT MOTHERLY HALF-A-STALINIST. The Masculine = Feminine, Thesis = anti-Thesis, Nationalism =Anti-Nationalism, etc. The answer to defective Rightist Authoritarian Socialism > perfect Leftist Totalitarianist Socialism, espec after 2008 and Der MarthaStalinFrau POTUS=CO-POTUS Hillary.
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#1
Correct and Worng. Yes there are a LOT of rich people in the U.S. and they are very rich compared to the poor. But there is an even LARGER middle class and the "poor" in America are lightyears ahead of the "poor" from Mexico or most countries in Europe. I would bet any amount of money that if any of the "poor" were offered a ticket to any other country in the world they would decline.
#2
The Guardian, wisdom in black and white. Fool's wisdom, but still considered "wisdom" by most.
Both my parents were high school graduates during a time when fewer than 50% of Americans achieved that goal. They were far better off than their parents and grandparents. My brother has a BA and doesn't use it, I have the equivalent of a MS, and don't use it. My brother and his wife own their own business and make over $100,000 a year. My military career has left me with a large, diverse education, skills in a dozen different areas, and a decent retirement with lots of bennies. When I was forced to retire from the chip manufacturer I worked for, I was being groomed to take over a major role in their company, with outstanding promotion potential.
Hard work alone won't make anyone rich. It takes the willpower to develop skills that are needed, to find a niche and fill it, or to stumble into something by blind luck that fits extremely well.
Yes, the rich get richer. Yet our "poor" frequently live better than the upper-middle-class in most nations, including much of Europe. A person can start out flipping hamburgers and end up managing a WalMart or something else equally as productive and challenging.
The American Dream isn't over, it's just evolved into something slightly different for this generation than for the previous one. The opportunities are still there. The disparity between "rich" and "poor" is more the difference in education, training, inherent skill, and opportunity. To think that puts a "lid" on how successful others can be is both condescending and stupid.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
06/10/2006 22:17 Comments ||
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#3
So I guess those 12 milion illegals we got here will be heading home now, right?
#4
Don't over-define The American Dream, because in essence, The American Dream is The Pursuit of Happiness.
This pursuit isn't a static thing. It varies with each person, and in each person many times in their life.
Perhaps in turn, its best definition is The Ability To Try. Government *not* stepping in and forbidding you from even trying, for whatever reason.
"You can't do it because you are a commoner."
"You can't do it because you are the wrong race or sex or religion."
"You can't do it because we do not wish to license you to do it."
"You can't do it because you have to pay me a bribe."
Now granted, not everyone can play NBA. But even if you are 5'4", if you want to try, and some team is willing to hire you, the government will most likely not tell them that they can't, because you are just too short.
#5
Paul Harris of the Guardian as an oddly ambivalent attitude toward wealthy Americans. When he was predicting the outcome of the 2004 election, the fact that the Kerrys were filty rich didn't bother him a bit. He described Terayza as the "head of one of America's largest charities."
Posted by: Matt ||
06/10/2006 23:21 Comments ||
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Four months after the controversy, Denmark is stronger than ever.
Contrary to the fervent hopes of radical Islamists, the deadly protests over a handful of cartoons published in a Copenhagen newspaper last fall have not brought Denmark to its knees. Quite the opposite. The fiery imam who helped spark the violence has left the country in a sulfurous huff, and the pro-U.S., center-right government has been strengthened.
Denmark is still feeling the effects of what Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen called its worst international crisis since World War II, but they're hardly earth shattering. The country is busily trying to repair relations with the Arab world, and a boycott of Danish goods in several Middle Eastern countries, though mostly ended, is still causing some economic pain. Denmark-based Arla Foods, Europe's second-largest dairy company, recently announced that the boycott would cost at least $65 million this year. But that won't do much damage to an economy that has seen slow but steady annual growth recently.
The fuss arose in January in reaction to cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad that were published in the daily Jyllands-Posten in September. Although the cartoons sparked some minor local protest at the time they were published, not until Ahmed abu Laban and a group of other radical Danish Muslim leaders went on a Middle Eastern hate-mongering tour in December, saying depictions of the prophet were blasphemous, did the controversy take off. Danish embassies were burned and dozens of people were killed in protests in the Arab world.
Beset by criticism in Denmark, Laban announced last month that he was leaving for the Palestinian territories. "I could have provoked a revolt, created hell in Denmark, led Muslims to react violently, but did not do so," he said, apparently wanting to be congratulated because the death and destruction he fomented were limited to the Mideast. Rasmussen, meanwhile, a key U.S. ally who arrived at Camp David for a visit with President Bush on Friday, is stronger than ever.
The protests helped focus political debate on a topic long overdue for serious discussion: better integrating Denmark's 200,000 Muslim immigrants. Even by European standards, the country's unemployment rate among non-Western Muslim men is high. One reason: Ironically, Denmark may be too generous. Its liberal policies and wide social safety net may heighten the alienation of Muslim immigrants, who often find it so easy to get government handouts that they have little incentive to look for work.
Denmark's moderate Muslims seem to be benefiting from the unrest. Naser Khader, a Syrian-born member of parliament interested in peaceful integration, is a rising political star. And last week, Muslims in Denmark's second-largest city said that the cartoon flap had helped unite them behind a long-stalled mosque project. In the end, a crisis that threatened to split the country could help draw it closer.
Golly, am I relieved. Because until I heard the various statements from assorted politicians, journalists, police chiefs and religious leaders, I assumed that the 17 Muslim men arrested last weekend for alleged connection with acts of murderous terrorism might in some way have been inspired by Islam.
But no. Apparently Islam has nothing at all to do with it and all religions are made up of good and bad people and produce their own share of extremists. In fact, according to those who shape and govern our culture, the Muslim religion is one of peace and love.
Again, big sighs of relief all round -- and a celebratory burning of American flags, stars of David and any Danish cartoons that we can get our hands on. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, al-Qaida, the Martyrs' Brigades and all the rest are mere products of righteous anger, not religion.
As for the British-born Muslims who slaughtered people on the London Underground or those lovable atheists who ripped Spanish bodies apart in Madrid or our friends from 9/11, they wouldn't know the difference between a mosque and Moscow. Unless it was a theatre in Moscow where other Muslims, presumably not inspired by Islam, murdered innocent people enjoying an evening with their families. But there was justification for this, because Muslims are suffering.
Which, of course, is why specifically Muslim terror groups have slaughtered people in Israel, the Palestinian territories, Iraq, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Ethiopia, Denmark, France, Somalia, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Thailand, the Philippines, Russia, Turkey, Yemen, Jordan and so many other nations.
It really is extraordinary to watch the Canadian establishment spinning as it tries to disassociate Islamist terrorism from Islam. Yet on the three occasions in the past 30 years when abortionists have been attacked in Canada, the crime was portrayed as being typical of pro-life extremism.
Or when a tiny percentage of Catholic priests raped teenage boys, it was a "systemic problem within the Catholic Church." Or when Israel builds a fence to protect its people, it is somehow a product of an apartheid state.
Look, it is hardly necessary to say it, but the majority of Muslims are not violent and condemn terrorism. But it is equally true that the majority of terrorism at this point in history is being carried out by people in the name of Islam.
They tell us so themselves. They scream from the Koran as they decapitate men and women, or when they tape religious sermons before they blow themselves up.
It is not for someone like me -- a Christian with a Jewish father -- to argue with those Muslims who say they are willing to die and kill for their faith, whether they are doing so in the name of Islam.
And spare me the argument about colonial oppression and suffering. In Pakistan and Egypt, for example, Christians have been persecuted by Muslim gangs.
No Christian, Jew, Hindu or Buddhist has shot a filmmaker nine times and then tried to sever his head as he lies on the street begging for his life, merely because he made a movie that offended their religion (as happened in the Netherlands).
Goodness, don't lecture any Christian about being offended after weeks of anti-Christian nonsense with The Da Vinci Code.
It may be that Islam has been hijacked, it may be that Islam is being exploited, it may be that Islam has been misunderstood. But if so, it is Muslims who have done the hijacking and exploiting and misunderstanding and the world is being punished for the errors. Wouldn't it be nice if Canada's contribution to the war on terror ends up being the first public challenge and response to the "moderate muslims". Stating the truth and the oh so obvious - out loud, where it has to be dealt with. The Toronto arrests may have started something interesting.
Politicians should move mountains to accommodate a request by six Islamic groups that want their help in co-ordinating a meeting of the minds on preventing Muslim young people from becoming radicalized.
They suggest bringing together youth groups, imams and community organizations for what Karl Nickner, executive director of the Canadian Council on American Islamic Relations, calls "a concrete plan" to address youth radicalization.
The plea was made to the federal and Ontario governments, and to Toronto city council.
The Islamic groups said they "care deeply" about Canada's security and support protecting this country.
This has no doubt always been the sentiment of the vast majority of Canadian Muslims. While there have been concerns the community hasn't done enough to ferret out radicals, the call for a diverse summit is exactly the sort of signal Canadians should embrace.
Such a meeting has potential to go far beyond the radicalization issue. Canada is rightly proud of its multicultural society. But, as Irshad Manji, a fellow at Yale University and author of The Trouble with Islam Today, pointed out in a column in a Toronto newspaper this week, multiculturalism's downside is it tends to make all cultures and religions "off-limits to scrutiny."
It can lead to insular groups within the larger society. The trick for newcomers is to maintain one's own culture and still integrate, as we have seen in many cases here in London. This should be encouraged.
In the wake of the arrest of 17 people accused of plotting terrorist attacks in Ontario, the Islamic groups are asking politicians for help. This is a huge step that should prompt a positive reply.
If you go to the link, read the next editorial and see if you think the editorial staff have the same commitment to "understanding" the United States as they have to "understanding" muslims.
#1
Smart move - if anything goes wrong in the near future, non-muslims will share the blame.
I guess, instead of lying to infidels and syphoning non-muslim resources, it's time to stop breeding like rats...
Posted by: Matt K. ||
06/10/2006 12:43 Comments ||
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#2
Irshad Manji was on a panel a few days ago on one of our news shows. To her right was a journalist, to her left was a sociologist. One was blathering on about appeasement and not blaming muslims in general. The other took the apologist route, excusing their actions on what is happening to muslims overseas. Irshad, the only muslim (and woman) in the interview, was the only one with balls to speak the truth about islamism and layed a rhetorical smackdown admidst the dhimmis. She finished off with what SHOULD be the discussion in canada and the multicultural west in general: How much intolerance can we tolerate?
General Pervez Musharraf brought Pakistan out of its Dark Age of death and destruction by rolling back Pakistans 20 year old jihad. He banned the jihadi organisations - once nurtured carefully by the ISI - to win back space for Pakistan in the international polity. But there was a measure of ambiguity in his approach that made many think that he could be merely hiding jihad under the bushel for the time being, to be brought out to threaten the world once again. The time probably has come to threaten the world a la? General Hameed Gul, Pakistans de facto ruling strategist, who is once again parading his trigger-happy vision on the TV channels.
In its May 2006 issue monthly Herald published a report by Azmat Abbas that the government had allowed Sipah Sahaba to reinstate itself on the condition that it would no longer indulge in militancy (sic!), violence of the verbal or active sort. The Sipah, now renamed Millat-e-Islamia Pakistan (MIP), held its first post-ban meeting in Islamabad on 6 April 2006 under the surveillance of the agencies. This rally was the outcome of an understanding reached between Sipah and the government in March 2006. But when the party convened with a gathering of 5,000 people it became a show of strength of the old sectarian terrorist Sipah. The government allowed Brigadier (Retd) Zaheerul Islam Abbasi the officer who failed narrowly to stage a military-religious coup in 1995 but is now running his own extremist organisation to harangue the gathering.
Sipah Sahaba rides again? The meeting chanted anti-Shia slogans and vowed to avenge the deaths of their leaders Haq Nawaz Jhangvi and Maulana Azam Tariq at the hands of the Shia. Literature of anti-Shia exhortation was distributed as well as videos depicting beheadings of American soldiers in Iraq. MIP leader Dr Khadim Hussain Dhillon said his party had held its gathering with the governments permission after he had protested the governments according of normal protocol to Allama Sajid Naqvi the leader of the banned Tehrik Jafaria while Naqvi was a member of the MMA.
The intelligence officers looking after the Sipah told Herald that the gathering was the outcome of a long drawn out process of negotiation with the banned organisation. This also involved a reconciliation between the Sipah and the Shia organisation. Arrested leaders, like the fanatically anti-Shia Maulana Muhammad Ludhianvi, were to be released and in return the rabid Shia leader of Sipah Muhammad, Allama Ghulam Raza Naqvi would be released and sent to Gilgit where he would head a seminary. The Shia of Gilgit were making preparation to celebrate his entry there. The government went ahead and further made peace with the anti-Shia activists, members of the dreaded Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. (Rustam Khan Muawiya, Asghar Muawiya and Ghulam Farid were let off at the Sindh High court. Member of MMA, Shia leader Allama Hassan Turabi was attacked in Karachi the very next day in which he narrowly escaped death. He issued a statement connecting the attack with the release of the Lashkar members.)
Lashkar-e-Tayba revived? Earlier on 2 May 2006, the State Department in Washington named Pakistans Jamaat al-Dawa and its affiliated Idara Khidmat-e-Khalq as terrorist organisations that pose a threat to the United States. Everybody knew that Jamaat al-Dawa was earlier the dreaded Lashkar-e-Tayba banned by a UN Committee as a terrorist organisation. The Idara Khidmat-e-Khalq had been active in the relief and reconstruction work in the Azad Kashmir areas affected by the October 2005 earthquake in Pakistan. It now developed that the Idara could not be used to rescue the bad image the Jamaat al-Dawa had garnered for itself over the recent years. Its leader Hafiz Said had constantly condemned the policies of the government in general and President Musharraf in particular, and had used all kinds of dire threats.
For some puzzling reason, President Musharraf has been soft on Jamaat al-Dawa. Some say because the son of an important personality in Islamabad is a member of the outfit, but why allow its firebrand leader Hafiz Said to constantly badmouth him? All the other dreaded jihadi outfits banned either by the UN or put on the terrorist list the United States have duly changed their names and are operating quietly without shooting off their mouths. At one point this year President Musharraf actually called in all the police chiefs of the country and asked them to catch hold of the old jihadi outfits on the UN terrorist list now operating under changed names; but nothing happened. The attitude of the president has been most puzzling, especially after the fact that he had nearly gotten himself killed at the hands of the fanatic activists of these very jihadi militias.
Lashkar/Dawa becomes popular? Then Islamabad literally issued an edict defying the Washington categorisation of Jamaat al-Dawa. The Foreign Office was made to say that Pakistan had no plans to act against the two Islamic charities listed by the United States last week as terrorist organisations. Its stance was however correct. We are not required, and we do not put any entities on the terrorist lists, if action is taken under the domestic US law, it said, However, if the UN Security Councils sanctions committee were to designate any organisation (as a terrorist group), then it becomes a legal obligation to take action.
The Foreign Office statement was followed on 6 May 2006 by demonstrations in which hundreds of residents demonstrated against the US in Garhi Habibullah and Balakot, NWFP, where the banned organisations are still running tent villages and hospitals for locals where 90 percent of the non-government organisations (NGOs) are wrapping up their camps after finishing relief projects. The press noted that Jamaat al Dawa had become popular in the earthquake-hit region and its activists had become heroic icons for the local population. The Jamaat al-Dawa was even more popular in Azad Kashmir where its relief work was much aided by the fact that it had been active there as a jihadi militia under the tutelage of the ISI. As reported in Dawn , on 10 May 2006, hundreds of people staged a rally in Muzaffarabad, Azad Kashmir, to condemn the United States ban on the Jamaat al-Dawa: Down with America, down with Bush, the demonstrators shouted. According to daily Jang (29 May 2006) a sessions judge in Peshawar, after hearing the famous Al Qaeda and Sipah Sahaba lawyer Javed Ibrahim Paracha, ordered that a group of Egyptian mujahideen languishing in jail, be released, be treated at Al Khidmat Hospital, and then handed over to Mr Paracha pending their deportation to Egypt.
Christians and Hindus love Lashkar/Dawa? Then on 17 May 2006, more than one hundred Hindus and Christians from different parts of Sindh staged a demonstration in front of the press clubs of Hyderabad and Karachi against the United States recent move to include the Jamaat al-Dawa on its list of terrorist organisations. The next day however the Christians in Punjab rebelled against the orchestrated pro-Dawa protest. A leading Christian organisation in Punjab, National Commission of Justice and Peace (NCJP), condemned the pro-Jamaat al-Dawa rallies by Christians and Hindus in Sindh, particularly haris of Thar, saying that it was an establishment-sponsored ploy to glorify the jihadi militia. The statement was bold because it was made in the city where Jamaat al-Dawa is headquartered.
If there was an effort afoot to return to the jihadi option through the reinstatement of Sipah Sahaba and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, it was already greatly undermined by the Nishtar Park massacre of the Barelvis on 11 April 2006. It soon became apparent that it was not a Shia-Sunni sectarian incident but a Sunni-Sunni one. As put in Urdu, it was not an act of terrorism based on fiqh but on maslak , and this is how it began to be described on the TV channels. Monthly Urdu journal Naya Zamana in its issue of May 2006, wrote that during the Afghan war against the Soviet Union, Saudi Arabia had funded a number of organisations to carry out its Wahhabi project in the region, and one of these organisations was Lashkar-e-Tayba, then headquartered in Muridke Lahore, as Markaz Dawat wal Irshad. The project was of spreading pure Islam not only in Afghanistan but in Pakistan too as a bulwark against the emergence of a Shia state in Iran. The intent of Imam Khomeini to export the Shia revolution to the rest of the Islamic world was in parallel to the Saudi ambition of spreading the Wahhabi model.
After Shia-Sunni terror, it is Sunni-Sunni terror: According to Naya Zamana , the publications of Jamaat al-Dawa/Lashkar-e-Tayba and Sipah Sahaba (Khilafat-e-Rashida) criticised and condemned the Shias together with the Barelvis. The Barelvis were dubbed a moderate version of Shiism and both were together dubbed a version of Judaism. After General Zia, this Wahhabi Islam was used in Kashmir too and the state itself became more and permeated with this hardline faith. It was in the face of this Wahhabi dominance that Sunni Tehreek was defensively created to protect the interests of the Barelvis with force. As observed by Naya Zamana , when JUP chief Maulana Shah Ahmad Noorani attended a rare gathering of the Barelvis in Lahore in those days he made a speech in which he declared that there were one lakh kalashnikovs in the Muridke headquarters of Lashkar-e-Tayba which will not be used in Kashmir but against the Barelvis in Pakistan.
Wahhabism and Deobandism are characterised by an opposition to popular culture and it literary and festive forms and is finally also opposed to democracy in favour of khilafat. They are hostile to the mystical batinya traditions of Waris Shah, Shah Husain, Mian Mir, Data Sahib, Khwaja Nizamuddin Auliya, Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, Hazrat Zakariya Multani, etc. Wahhabism easily apostatises those that don not follow its strict order; and after someone is declared outside the pale of Islam his property is thought to be rightfully owned by the Wahhabis through looting and confiscation. It is on this principle that Barelvi mosques were taken from them. In the case of Jamaat Dawa or Lashkar-e-Tayba, this extended to taking Barelvi girls into forcible marriage after abduction and the looting of banks in the tradition of an early Companion, Abu Jandal, who funded jihad in this fashion. (After Hafiz Saids faction fell foul of the Ahle Hadith party of Prof Sajid Mir, one Qari Hanif issued a series of audio tapes in which he accused Hafiz Said chief of Jamaat al-Dawa of looting banks in Gujranwala and abducting Barelvi girls.)
Viability of jihad option: President Musharrafs attitude towards Jamaat al-Dawa has puzzled almost everyone who has watched Pakistan. Now some critics connect it to the on-going peace process with India where he expects India to match Pakistans flexibility on Kashmir: If India fails to deliver, Pakistan will take out the Lashkar-e-Tayba card and start playing it again . This option becomes pointed because Hafiz Said is a wanted man in India. According to Frontline (5 Nov 2005) on December 22, 2000, Lashkar-e-Tayba (LeT) claimed responsibility for the Red Fort attack in which three Army personnel lost their lives. The main accused in the case, Mohammed Arif alias Ashfaq, a Pakistani national and a member of the LeT, used his mobile phone to convey to BBC correspondents in New Delhi and Srinagar his organisations responsibility immediately after the shootout. This, apart from the other pieces of evidence pointing to the LeTs involvement in the attack, was the basis of the trial courts conclusion that the LeT planned and carried out the assault.
The truth is that jihad is no longer an option. It is not an option even if only for brandishing under the nose of the world community. It gains nothing for Pakistan in regard to the Kashmir dispute; but it will certainly force the countrys civil society into making another painful shift to adjust to Hafiz Saids parallel government. Even if the fiat has come from Saudi Arabia, it is not in the best interest of Pakistan.
Posted by: john ||
06/10/2006 12:51 ||
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#1
Even if the fiat has come from Saudi Arabia, it is not in the best interest of Pakistan.
In the early days of the Afghan war, Osama was almost captured (or killed) at Tora Bora, where Canadians were tasked with digging up al-Qaida bodies in hopes that one might have been Osama bin Laden.
The feeling at the time was that British commandos had bin Laden holed up, and were poised to capture or kill him, but they were called off because the Americans wanted to do it, and the operation was put on hold for a couple of days.
In the interim, Pakistani helicopters reportedly flew in and removed Osama and his key leaders. That's essentially what Canadians soldiers who were there say.
Still, Osama bin Laden's future is the same as al-Zarqawi's. The only question is when.
Posted by: john ||
06/10/2006 09:04 ||
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#3
I would hazard to guess that he lives with the main religious opposition party, taking brief excursions out to the safe hinterland to shoot his videos, then back to some well-guarded and isolated madrassa that acts as his HQ.
No electronic anything is allowed there, and only close family members are permitted. They have set up a "jump-HQ" with a higher profile somewhere else, and all messages are hand-delivered there for further dispatch.
Tertiary HQs are widely separated and are used for briefing cell commanders individually, when they receive info from the jump-HQ. They are probably just cash rental apartments in urban areas.
Cell commanders in turn brief their subordinate cell lieutenants, each of whom directs several cells.
Right-wing abuse and U.S. political maneuvering are undermining real reform.
By James Traub
The United Nations is at death's door. That's not news; the U.N. always seems to be on the brink. This time, however, it's our very own ambassador, John R. Bolton, who's preparing to unplug the respirator.
After a senior official of the U.N. secretariat gave a speech this week calling for more consistent and less hostile engagement from Washington, a furious Bolton predicted that the institution would suffer "grave harm" unless Secretary-General Kofi Annan "personally and publicly" repudiated his colleague's remarks. Annan, to his credit, refused.
We have, of course, been here before. During the late 1990s, congressional conservatives led by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) vowed to starve the U.N. unless it acceded to a long list of "reforms." In September 2002, President Bush asserted that the United Nations would become "irrelevant" should it fail to join the U.S. in disarming Iraq. You have to wonder why the U.N. is still in business.
The short answer is: Because the U.S. can't do without it. I spent the period from June 2004 to September 2005 more or less living inside the U.N. while writing a book about it, and I was always struck by how much business the U.S. and the U.N. transacted with one another, and how routinely they did so. Crisis brewing in the Horn of Africa? Let's bring in the State Department because only the U.S. can talk sense to both the Ethiopians and the Eritreans.
And the need ran both ways. In December 2004, with the right-wing press baying for Kofi Annan's blood over the Iraq oil-for-food scandal, Condoleezza Rice, then secretary of State-designate, met with Annan and thanked him profusely for organizing a peacekeeping force in Haiti and elections in Iraq, neither of which the White House could have done by itself.
This is, ironically, precisely the point that Mark Malloch Brown, deputy secretary-general, made in his nownotorious speech. Malloch Brown, who over the last year has absorbed tremendous abuse inside the U.N. for championing Washington's point of view, accused the White House but not only this White House of practicing a " 'stealth' diplomacy" that kept the American people in the dark about the U.N.'s day-to-day utility, because "to acknowledge an America reliant on international institutions is not perceived to be good politics at home."
This formulation seems to me exactly right. Why else was Rice willing to generously thank Annan in private while remaining publicly mum as his career hung by a thread? The U.N., as Malloch Brown also noted, is a cherished whipping boy for Fox News and its ilk. Why take on those who hold the whip in order to defend an organization with no constituency of its own?
This time around, the confrontation involves reforms, originally proposed by Annan himself, which would liberate the secretariat from the micro-management of the 191 members and allow the members to hold managers accountable for their performance. The U.S. is entirely on the right side of this issue. Third World nations, many of which seem to prefer micro-management to effectiveness, are blocking change.
But why are they so dug in? In part, Malloch Brown observed, because of the increasingly common view that "anything the U.S. supports must have a secret agenda aimed at either subordinating multilateral processes to Washington's ends or weakening the institutions."
I would put it less charitably: That view serves as the perfect pretext for Third World obstructionism.
In effect, a very real and troubling U.N. divide between developing and developed countries is being superimposed on a divide of Washington's making between the U.S. and everyone else. Of course, the U.S. will always stand apart at the U.N.; we are, as Madeleine Albright used to put it, "the indispensable nation." But, in the past, we have accepted modest limits on our freedom of action as the cost of keeping everyone else embedded in multilateral institutions. Now we don't. We "hold on to maximalist positions," as Malloch Brown asserted, when we "could be finding middle ground."
And now we are paying the price. The reform process has dissolved into an unsightly mess owing in part to deep differences among members over what the U.N. is for. But the United States' dismal standing in world opinion has tempted otherwise moderate nations to play to the gallery at home by twisting the lion's tail, and Washington's grudging or uncompromising position on a host of issues has almost invited defiance from others.
Lest anyone think that he was kidding, Bolton on Thursday insinuated that the administration was prepared to withhold a portion of U.S. dues to the organization. Is that so and all because a U.N. official had the moxie to criticize the White House?
In the past, Secretary of State Rice has quietly intervened to defuse crises provoked by her bellicose U.N. emissary. Will she do so this time? Or will she provide the definitive proof that Malloch Brown was right?
James Traub's latest book, "The Best Intentions: Kofi Annan and the UN in the Era of American World Power," will be published in November.
#2
Wow..what an amazing amount of bullshit in one article. What I fail to understand is why the US is expected to subordinate its interests and policys to a bunch of unelected beaurocratic vampires who produce nothing and bloviate about things that they lack the will to do anything about.
I see no downside to telling the UN to fuck off. I guess that's why I'll never be an ambassador.
#7
I'm sure they can dig up some hacks with academic credentials to rationalize the reintroduction of the monarchy and slavery too. You know there are some institutions that should remain dead and some that should just die.
#8
Hilarious: our government keeps our people in the dark about the day-to-day utility of the UN?
What's the press for, again? To inform people? Oh, right.
It's not the job of the government to tell people what to think.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/10/2006 11:36 Comments ||
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#9
"The United Nations is at death's door. . . . it's our very own ambassador, John R. Bolton, who's preparing to unplug the respirator."
Go for it, John! Pull that sucker.
In fact, just to be sure, kill the electricity to the whole building so no one can plug it into another receptacle. ;-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
06/10/2006 12:56 Comments ||
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#10
The Guardian article on this topic had the following as the last post in it's comment section. It's worth posting here in its complete form:
VoicesOfTheUN
June 9, 2006 11:56 PM
Dear Middle America,
Recently Mark Malloch Brown, the eloquent speaking number two at the United Nations, said that "Middle America" did not know or understand how the US is constructively engaged with the UN because of UN detractors such as Rush Limbaugh and Fox News, and that the UN's role is "a secret" in Middle America.
And he complains that the US is not supporting even non-controversial issues such as renovating the dilapidated UN Headquarters in New York due to too much unchecked UN-bashing and stereotyping over too many years.
Friends in Middle America, the UN deserves to be bashed and bashed hard. Please allow us, a cross-section of Americans and others who work/ed for the United Nations, to give you a glimpse into how the United Nations is run:
Hirings and promotions routinely violate UN rules and revolve almost entirely around patronage and whom one knows rather than professional qualifications. Poorly performing managers are simply moved into different management slots while others are placed in senior positions only because of his nationality.
The generous salaries for UN employees are free of federal, state and local taxes and come with six weeks vacation, 11 holidays, 10 sick days that are used as vacation, plus 4 weeks of "home leave", rental and housing grants to supplement an already generous salary, and educational subsidies for the children of UN employees. Many also participate in an "alternative work schedule" in which they get every other Friday off.
Several of us have advanced degrees in administration, budgeting, finance, personnel, and other relevant areas of management, and we have been trained to manage large public organizations, and yet we are blocked from advancing by men in the 50s with no management training, education, or experience - only sitting in their chairs because they are friends with someone a higher position. We threaten nearly every
person we meet because they know they are there based only on their connections.
And there is a profound lack of accountability within the UN regarding resource allocation. Simple procurement that would normally take five minutes using modern technology systems takes 2-3 months in the UN. And many United Nations Development Program country offices pay "local
experts" outrageously high sums of money for products of dubious quality. Such contracts would never be made by other international aid agencies such as USAID that have much stronger internal controls and oversight.
We have witnessed several outrageous examples of graft and corruption within the UN system and yet time and again the scandal is covered up because internal UN financial audits are simply comedy. Forms are from the 1950s, and auditors are most interested in inventorying furniture. In fact, a recent article on internal management in the Financial Times cited a UN-commissioned report released in 1994 that was remarkably damning. Yet nothing changed, leading to this crisis in
credibility of the UN.
Despite its dysfunctionality, if the UN were actually making a difference in the lives of others, many would grumble or mutter to themselves but the UN deserves its strongest bashing because of its profound inability to respond to genocide, war, famine, natural disaster emergencies, and other tragedies.
Kofi Annan, current head of the United Nations who ironically lives in a mansion in New York on the shore of the East River that is worth about $10 million, was head of peacekeeping operations in 1994 in Rwanda when 800,000 people died. He said in 2004 that "I believed at that time that I was doing my best" despite that he held back UN troops from intervening to settle the conflict and from providing more logistic and material support to stop the slaughter.
Kofi Annan was unable to stop mismanagement of the Oil-for-Food Program that allowed Saddam Hussein's regime to embezzle millions of dollars through under-priced oil contracts and overcharging in contracts for goods Iraq purchased under the program. According to a Government Accountability Office report, Saddam Hussein embezzled $4.4 billion through pricing irregularities. It is also estimated that Saddam acquired an additional $5.7 billion through illegal oil smuggling. Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna Inspection SA, which won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil for Food program.
Kofi Annan protected Ruud Lubbers, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, against a report that found him guilty of sexual harassment and misconduct by declaring him innocent by Kofi Annan. This created a global protest against Annan which resulted in Lubbers being forced to resign.
Kofi Annan remains in power while genocide continues in Darfur, while Zimbabwe tailspin into despotism, while up to a third of the population of some African countries will die from AIDS, and while corruption keeps the poorest countries in the starkest poverty.
And Kofi Annan arrogantly ignores the fact that the quality of life of several of us has come close to being destroyed by the many bitter experiences we have experienced over the past decades. Most who work for the UN are so used to its dysfunctionality that they have NO idea how sick the organization is or they are unable to come forward vecause most who work for the UN come from countries where the labor laws and protections are abysmal and where speaking out will land yourself in jail or worse.
And to add insult to injury, the newly created IOIS (the new
"independet" internal oversight panel established to "reform" the UN) has been strong-armed by Malloch Brown and is not independent because its budget comes directly from the UN, thus dissuading anyone from within the UN from coming forward.
Unfortunately, as the walls literally crumble down around them, those who work for the UN and citizens who believe in the founding principles of the UN have no understanding how bad it really is.
Unfortunately, we encourage young people who are seeking a career in international affairs or development to avoid the United Nations at all costs. We wish there would come a day when we would no longer make this recommendation.
Of course the senior leadership of the UN try to hide the profound problems of the UN but shame on them for saying that Americans don't know or understand how the US is engaged with the UN.
If Middle America truly understood what ails the UN, the US, who funds nearly 25% of the entire UN budget, would shut off the money spigot. In sum, the UN should be shuttered, allowing a brand new organization to emerge because the current UN is broken beyond repair.
For more information, please contact Edward Patrick Flaherty who represents UN employees including our views here. flaherty@sfhc.ch
Sincerely,
A concerned group of current and former UN employees
#11
The reform process has dissolved into an unsightly mess owing in part to deep differences among members over what the U.N. is for
If they can't figure it out inside the building, how the hell can they expect anyone esle to figure it out on their own?
The fact is that "middle America", the great unwashed mass that most of the UN membership seems to think cannot understand what the UN is for and what it does, simply doesn't give a rat's ass about the UN!
Most of us out here would rather see those billions of dollars flushed down the UN rathole or thrown away providing foreign aid to some third world hellhole spent here in this country or given back to the citizens that earned the money in the first friggin' place!
Ambassador Bolton, don't pull the plug - pull the trigger and blow these blowhards to hell.
#15
JSU - being its a comment somewhere ... it is not an "offical like story" and therefore always must be of questionable pedigree. However, if some enterprising journalist was to contact that e-mail address, verify the guy/gal's bonifides and do a real interview... then it would rate a posting of it's own.
Posted by: mac ||
06/10/2006 19:46 Comments ||
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#18
I've been in situations where I had to sit down with others, many of them hostile, and help negotiate a way forward. It's not difficult with five or fewer people, harder with 15 or more, and impossible if the numbers are 25 or greater, or more than three groups are represented. The UN has no chance in Hades of ever being anything but a toothless debating society. It should not be a portion of US foreign policy in any way. Cut back funding, keep John Bolton as permanent UN Ambassador, and keep hammering it until it finally succumbs to the pressure. We (nor any of our true allies) don't need it anywhere near as much as it needs us - look at the tsunami in Indonesia, the destruction of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq. Look at how poorly the UN has managed crices in Darfur, Congo, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, and a dozen places around the world. Limited coalitions of the willing" do a far better job, do it faster and at less cost, and achieve more lasting results than anything the UN touches. Keep it around, but only for the chance to laugh at it - and through it, at the dictators that try to run it.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
06/10/2006 22:41 Comments ||
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#2
No, once such an accusation is made, it has to be treated correctly. That's why you conduct an investigation. They briefed the Congresscritters who were ventilating and having fits as to what happened. Once the investigation is complete it will recommend to the appropriate military command as to whether there is justification for further action, just like a grand jury. The command will have the JAG review the findings and make their recommendation. Once it is in the hands of the JAG, its going to get a 'legal' look such as can the evidence stand. One of the problems everyone is going to have to face, is that if there is a courts martial the rules of evidence are going to come into play. The piece of paper signed by a local doc subject to pressure from insurgents is not going to fly. The bodies will have to be exhumed and a proper CSI type exam will have to occur.
The Military Courts of Appeal books little tolerance for command interference in the process if the command attempts to make it a show trial or try to stack the cm board. The rules of evidence is pretty damn clear.
#5
I feel a spin coming on....
This is why Murtha can't ever be considered capable of serving in elected office; he is easily mislead even by our enemies to speak out against his own loyal armed forces. Such men can't be trusted.
Most Muslims know that Islam is a universal religion, meant for all mankind. Allah (swt) is the Lord of the entire Universe, and Muslims have been entrusted with the duty of conveying His message to all mankind. Alas, most Muslims today have become callous towards this duty! While accepting Islam as the best way of life for ourselves, most of us are unwilling to share this knowledge with those to whom the message has not yet been conveyed. The Arabic word Dawah means a call or an invitation. In Islamic context, it means to strive for the propagation of Islam.
Continued on Page 49
#2
My question about Islam is "how come y'all seem to be such backwards, murderous asshats?". We have religious fundamentalists in the West to tend toward the backwards end of the scale, but they don't seem to be intent on killing a lot of people.
#5
Alas, most Muslims today have become callous towards this duty!
This is true, you know why? Because most people try not to get into defending the indefensible.
The brainwashing in Islam is thorough, I do have to give Islam that credit.
#3
I think it would be fun to set up a concession at the next demonstration/riot here. Sell boxes of raisins to be handed to every nutbar burning a flag or screaming "death to America" or ululating in the streets.
[1] Not in the history of commentary on the Qurān has a work like this been produced. Similar works can only be found in the body of text-critical scholarship on the Bible. From its method to its conclusions on the language and content of the Qurān, Luxenbergs study has freed scholars from the problematic tradition of the Islamic commentators. Whether or not Luxenberg is correct in every detail, with one book he has brought exegetical scholarship of the Qurān to the critical turn that biblical commentators took more than a century ago. This work demonstrates to all exegetes of the Qur'an the power of the scientific method of philology and its value in producing a clearer text of the Qur'an. Scholars of the first rank will now be forced to question the assumption that, from a philological perspective, the Islamic tradition is mostly reliable, as though it were immune to the human error that pervades the transmission of every written artifact. If biblical scholarship is any indication, the future of Qurānic studies is more or less decided by this work
[25] In section twelve Luxenberg demonstrates that not only the origin and language of the Qurān are different from what the commentators who wrote two hundred years after its inception claim it to be, but that several key passages contain words or idioms that were borrowed from Syriac into Arabic.
[26] Section thirteen uncovers evidence of Aramaic morphology in the grammar of the Qurān. Instances of ungrammatical gender agreement (feminine subject or noun with a masculine verb or modifier) arose because Syriac feminine forms were misread as an Arabic masculine singular accusative predicate adjective or participle where the governing noun is a feminine subject. In Syriac, predicate adjectives and participles are in the absolute form (predicate form). A feminine singular Syriac form transcribed into Arabic is identical to a genuine Arabic masculine singular accusative form. This phenomenon is quite pervasive in the Qurān
[33] Of the several related examples in sections 15.2 15.9, Luxenberg follows the virgins of paradise through the Qurān. In section 15.2, Luxenberg observes that azwaj, spouses, also can mean species, kinds (suras 2:25, 3:15, and 4:57). The latter reading makes more sense therein also are all kinds of pure (fruits). Luxenberg links to the misunderstanding of sura 44:54 zawwaj, join, marry. The misinterpretation of one verse spills over into the related thematic content of another. The other sections are also well-argued. Of special interest are the discussions in sections 15.5 15.6 of suras 55:56 and 55:70, 72, 74, respectively, which state, referring to the virgins of paradise whom deflowered before them has neither man nor jinn. Instead, these are the grapes of paradise that neither man nor jinn have defiled. Luxenberg points out that sura 55:72 evidences another Qurānic parallel to Ephraem, who writes that the vines of paradise abound in hanging grapes.10
Posted by: john ||
06/10/2006 12:43 Comments ||
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#7
This is my favourite resource when dealing with Islamists, along with this of course
#8
"This book is not to be doubted," the Koran declares unequivocally at its beginning."
Unlike the Bible or the Torah, which were the work of human writers under the inspiration and hand of G*d, the Quran was "given" to Mohammed by an angel, and thus inviolate.
Of course the same thing "happend" to Joseph Smith. I shall leave it to the reader as to what all that entails.
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.
Right-wing abuse and U.S. political maneuvering are undermining real reform.
