WaPo house editorial Saturday
Another week has passed since President Obama delivered the May 19 address in which he pledged to use "all of the diplomatic, economic and strategic tools at our disposal" to oppose repression and support democratic transitions across the Middle East. In that time, the uprising in Syria has passed its 100th day with no end in sight -- and no letup in the regime's murderous violence.
The Syrian opposition now says that more than 1,400 people have been killed by the regime's forces, which have used tanks, helicopter gunships, machine guns and snipers to assault crowds of unarmed civilians. Thank heaven it's not risen to the level of the Libyan genocide! Hey! What was that level, anyways?
The European Union responded to these outrages on Friday by expanding its sanctions: Seven more individuals and organizations were cited, including three commanders of Iran's Revolutionary Guard. The Iranian Guard? How are they involved in Syria? [giggle]
A tough declaration said that "the regime is calling its legitimacy into question." Britain and France have been leading efforts to pass a resolution on Syria through the U.N. Security Council. If only we were not quagmired in Libya!
And Mr. Obama? His administration again failed to take significant action in pursuit of what he said would be "a top priority." Well, I suppose it's in the top 100, maybe 80-90 down from "getting re-elected, at #1.
Instead, Mr. Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton have been calling their counterparts in Turkey. Turkish President Erdogan has condemned the Syrian repression, but he along with Obumble and Hilly has also pursued a policy of courting Mr. Assad in recent years. Turkey pressed Syria to end the military operation along the border, but its foreign minister suggested Friday that Syria's crisis could still be ended through reforms led by the dictator.
That, in effect, is the Obama administration's position as well: The president, who has spoken in public on Syria only twice, has declined to say that Mr. Assad is an illegitimate ruler or that he should leave office. Mr. Obama's reticence reinforces the equivocating policies of countries such as Turkey, to which the United States has ceded leadership on the issue.
No doubt it gives Mr. Assad hope that if he can kill his way to stability, the Obama administration will again seek to "engage" him. Most of all, Mr. Obama's silence and his administration's passivity sends a message to the people of Syria and to the larger Middle East: His pledge to use all of America's resources to support the cause of freedom in the Arab world was an empty one. Hope 'n' change, Baby! Gotta make us some more union jobs in South Carolina.
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/25/2011 13:05 ||
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#1
Now that the Bammer has made his troops withdrawal announcement, the UK + France + Germany are about to make theirs.
Meanwhile ...
* IIRC FREEREPUBLIC > MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD CALL ON ARAB YOUTH TO SUPPORT [set up] A "GLOBAL ISLAMIC STATE".
#2
The Commies-Socialists + aligned in the West think they hold the cards vee Radical Islam because they are already established in well-developed, "First World" NUCLEAR-INDUSTRIAL OR POST-INDUSTRIAL STATES.
THE CARDS, "...THEY ARE A'CHANGIN" [Bob Dylan], ALREADY AS RADICAL ISLAM [Govts. + MilTerr groups] SLOWLY BUT STEADILY DEV + ACQUIRE NUCWEAPS.
The one civilian out of more than 100 million in Mexico who have never even had even one single audience with Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa was told Thursday that the war on drugs would be fought using the available means.
Javier Sicilia, a Mexican writer and poet who lost his son in a drug murder late last March was granted a second meeting Thursday with Calderon to discuss his proposals for ending the drug war.
Among those proposals were those which could impact Mexican national security overall, including returning the army to the barracks, and not using them to fight Mexican drug cartels.
Other proposals include legalization of drugs, a pledge of non-violence and a means to recall corrupt politicians.
The ideas and thus the discussions were rejected by Calderon out of hand because in the context of how violent Mexican organized crime has become, Mexican legal and political authorities are left with little choice. The entire political structure is unfairly under fire by the independent left for its response to the totality of crime in Mexico.
To date Sicilia has enjoyed positive treatment by both the Mexican and the international press as a man of peace who is using a great personal tragedy to do some societal good.
And it is hard to argue against a man who has suffered the loss of a child, especially one who was killed in a violent drug related incident.
But an undertow exists in the political currents which have been propelling Sicilia through Mexican which has not been widely reported, but which points to a resurgence of a leftist political movement from the 1980s.
As far as this writer knows, Sicilia had toiled as a writer in relative obscurity, certainly without the international attention he has gained since last March. Among his bonifides are two stints as an editor, one at a literary magazine and one at a leftist political magazine.
Sicilia has long been a creature of the Mexican independent left. Starting with his involvement in the 1980s with the Ecclesiastic Base Communities (BEC) movement in Mexico, a close relative to the Liberation Theology movement in Latin America, he had a well known association with Sergio Mendez Arceo, known as the Red Bishop of Cuernavaca.
BECs are considered a forerunner of Liberation Theology, and are considered endorsed by the Vatican II Council. What makes BECs unique in Latin American Catholic churches is that it permits a nexus between lay persons and the church in such area as liturgy, and in Catholic education.
According to his Wikipedia entry, Mendez Arceo was closely involved with the two communist guerilla movements in El Salvador and Nicaragua, as well as a guerilla movement in Guerrero state in Mexico. He had also been awarded a medal by Cuban communist dictator Fidel Castro, and when Mendez Arceo returned to Mexico he began to espouse democratic socialism.
One of the programs of the independent American left in the early 1980s was that of an "underground railroad" of linked churches, both Catholic and protestant which would provide sanctuary for war refugees fleeing El Salvador. The original idea behind sanctuary was to provide a means for fleeing persons, who were presumably persecuted for the beliefs a means of getting to Canada and declaring political sanctuary. Under US law at the time, since El Salvador was receiving US military assistance, and this its citizens were allies, the US government could not provide political sanctuary.
And so the flow of refugees came from El Salvador courtesy of liberal protestant and Cathloc churches, soon to include whole cities such as Cambridge, Massachusetts and others, which at the time flaunted the newly passed Moakley-DeConcini immigration law, the first to provide amnesty for illegal aliens.
In time, also came La Maras (MS-13), the Pan American criminal youth gang that nearly every drug cartel in Mexico now draws from for their shooters. Arguably, it was the sanctuary movement in the 1980s that may have been instrumental in providing Mexican organized crime with some of its personnel 30 years later.
Two still extant political movements, however, which followed the left's political successes of the 1980s, made a reappearance in supporting Sicilia during his marches in May and in June and points to a possible resurgence of some of the more loopy ideas the left developed in the 1980s.
#1
Indeed - whoring your dead son for leftist political points and media attention is apparently not just an American value. I'd take a closer look at his finances, too.
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/25/2011 11:01 Comments ||
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The one civilian out of more than 100 million in Mexico who have never even had one single audience with Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa was told Thursday that the war on drugs would be fought using the available means.
Javier Sicilia, a Mexican writer and poet who lost his son in a drug murder late last March was granted a second meeting Thursday with Calderon to discuss his proposals for ending the drug war.
Among those proposals were those which could impact Mexican national security overall, including returning the army to the barracks, and not using them to fight Mexican drug cartels.
Other proposals include legalization of drugs, a pledge of non-violence and a means to recall corrupt politicians.
To date Sicilia has enjoyed positive treatment by both the Mexican and the international press as a man of peace who was using a great tragedy to do some societal good.
And it is hard to argue against a man who has suffered the loss of a child, especially one who was killed in a violent incident.
But an undertow exists in the political currents which have been propelling Sicilia through Mexican which has not been widely reported seems to point to a resurgence of a leftist political movement from the 1980s.
As far as this writer knows, Sicilia had toiled as a writer in relative obscurity, certainly without the international attention he has gained since last March. Among his bonifides are two stints as an editor, one at a literary magazine and one at a poltical magazine.
Early one morning, a few days ago, I left my hometown Umerkot for Mirpurkhas with some friends. On the way we stopped for breakfast at a roadside cafe. What followed was an incident that left me shaken, although it involved no violence.
While we were eating, a man with a long beard approached the café owner. We could clearly hear the conversation. He was telling the owner off for having served breakfast to us:
Tum Hinduon ko bhi nashta karwate ho?
(So, you serve breakfast to Hindus too?)
The owner responded:
Kisi ke maathay pe likha hua nahi hota ki koi Hindu hai ya Muslim
(A mans religion is not written on his forehead)
The bearded man retorted that if the café owner paid more attention to religion than making money, he would be able to identify who was a Muslim and who was not. He then went on to castigate the man further, accusing him of defiling himself and Islam for the sake of a few paltry rupees.
The café owner was right.
Our religion was not written on our foreheads. Perhaps the bearded man guessed our faith because we were talking loudly, using each others names. I have lived all my life in Pakistan, and have never encountered such bigotry before. This was the first time my friends and I had such an experience.
Some of my colleagues suggest that this attitude is an indirect reaction to the discrimination faced by Muslims in India, which I find to be a rather unconvincing argument. One cannot compare Pakistans religious minorities with those in India. We, the minorities in Pakistan, hardly constitute five per cent of the total population, that is, less than 10 million people. Indian Muslims alone account for around 15 per cent of the population, which means that they number around 200 million more than the entire population of Pakistan.
Discrimination by law
Referring to hate speech, the National Commission for Justice and Peace Pakistan, in a report on The situation of religious minorities in Pakistan, commented on the deteriorating educational policy. It noted that the syllabus is not based on democratic values, and the behaviour of teachers is often discriminatory towards non-Muslim students.
It adds that popular television shows like Mohammed Bin Qasim, Shaheen, and Tipu Sultan misrepresent historical events to the disadvantage of non-Muslim minorities.
Criminal elements take advantage of the breakdown of law and order and the mindset of religious intolerance by forcibly converting Hindu and Christian girls, and kidnapping Hindu businessmen in the interior Sindh. Because no one is ever punished for these crimes, such illegal activities, as well as the mindset behind them, continues unchecked. The targeting of vulnerable communities by extremist elements is not new in Pakistan. The situation becomes worse with the deterioration of law and order and the rise of religious extremism.
The legacy of the military dictator General Ziaul Haq lives on in the laws he imposed. The one with the gravest social and psychological implications for minorities is the blasphemy law.
Offences include:
- injuring or defiling places of worship;
- deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings by insulting its religion or religious beliefs.
These laws are being misused quite blatantly, and many innocent people, Muslims and non-Muslims have been murdered after false allegations.
Remember our roots
Pakistans founder Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah stated clearly in his speech of August 11, 1947:
You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed, that has nothing to do with the business of the State.
Today, after 64 years of independence, it is distressing to see that his vision of Pakistan, where all ethnic and religious groups would coexist peacefully, and strive to develop Pakistan, lies shattered.
Every citizen of Pakistan needs to step in and stop the alienation of the religious minorities taking place. The government needs to address the situation at a policy level and take steps to ensure the rights of minorities, and stop hate speech and exploitation under the garb of religion.
There must be a combined effort to bring the minorities back into mainstream Pakistani society, address our apprehensions and treat us as equal citizens. This will form an exemplary social structure, for the whole world, and fulfil the Quaids dream of a prosperous and peaceful Pakistan.
Posted by: John Frum ||
06/25/2011 07:49 ||
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#1
The inherent contradiction of Jinnah's words is obvious in his "...You may belong to any religion or caste or creed, that has nothing to do with the business of the State."
When the basis of your State is a single religion everything about religion is, by definition, the business of the state.
Logic is definitely not a subject taught in the Madrassas.
#2
I hate the argument that "because we are a minority, we are helpless, and must use passive resistance and non-violence against our oppressors."
In a more brutal, primitive society, more active resistance cannot be done as directly, but it still can be done. And it works much better than advanced ideas like non-violence and passive resistance, which only work against those who question violence and brutality.
With the given case, for example, it might be worth their while for several to follow this Muslim "agitator", discreetly, and see where he goes. If he visits another shop, wait until he leaves, then tell the shopkeeper that he is a criminal who commits loathsome acts, and should bar him in the future.
In the next place he visits, a different story, that he is a homosexual, or a secret Jew, or a Satanist and defiler of the Koran. Or just a thief, who distracts by talking about Islam while he is shoplifting.
Pretty soon the whole neighborhood will eyeball him, and may even turn against him with violence, or turn the police on him.
In short, turn him from persecutor to persecuted, so he can see how he likes it.
#3
In short, turn him from persecutor to persecuted, so he can see how he likes it. I suspect that has been going on for a very long time in Islamic countries. Whoever is able to make a blasphemy/infidel/apostate accusation stick, WINS.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
06/25/2011 13:24 Comments ||
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#6
I know you're right, Rammer, but I sure do like Anonymoose's idea!
I wonder if it'd still be wrong to suggest "he might be a homosexual." After all, who knows?
Or just be honest - "He is a hateful man."
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/25/2011 13:27 Comments ||
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#7
"You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor." Let's not tempt people to turn an affront into a sin.
Except in time of war, during which all manner of deception is permitted and, indeed, encouraged. Pakistan is arguably in a state of war against its religious minorities.
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.
