#5
Has mass shooting been defined as anything, other than what bad white people do? Perhaps a planned attack on a unsuspecting group of people in a public setting, in this case using a firearm (as opposed to mass bombings or mass vehicular homicides). Yeah, sounds about right.
So then what does that make a drive-by? I seem to remember a number of shooting into crowd incidents in Chicago within the last year. Do the shooters have a plan, hell yeah they do because if they miss their target is likely armed and a number of the crowd may be as well. Its why the gangsters don't park their car and walk up to the targets, because the targets either shoot back or know better than to lock themself in a closet and hope the police show up in the next 45 seconds.
[Bangla Daily Star] A beleaguered government has made its first concession to its detractors. With the law enforcers now going after some bloggers and taking them into custody, the government has made two things clear, one openly and the other indirectly.
The first is that it is quite desperate about preventing the extreme rightwing political and religious groups from creating a situation that could only worsen matters for itself. The second is that by clamping down on the bloggers and therefore on the Projonmo Chattar movement, it has disappointed the nation's secular forces hugely.
The disappointment could not have been expressed better than what Rashed Khan Menon had to say in his reaction. For him, there is an inherent contradiction in the government's prosecuting the war crimes trial and at the same time caving in to the bigots' demand that "atheists" be dealt with firmly. Unsurprisingly, a very large number of secular-oriented citizens agree with Menon.
A particular difficulty with a besieged government handing out concessions to the opposition is that there is hardly any end to such slipping away of moral authority. One concession leads to another, and then another. And so it goes on.
Some recent instances of concessions not really helping governments in distress, despite the conditions being at quite a variance with those pertaining in Bangladesh today, might come in handy. In 1977, having triumphed (with a good deal of rigging thrown into a process he would have won anyway) at the elections, Pakistain's Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto ...9th PM of Pakistain from 1973 to 1977, and 4th President of Pakistain from 1971 to 1973. He was the founder of the Pakistain Peoples Party (PPP). His eldest daughter, Benazir Bhutto, would also serve as hereditary PM. In a coup led by General Zia-ul-Haq, Bhutto was removed from office and was executed in 1979 for authorizing the murder of a political opponent... was swamped with demands that fresh elections be called. He eventually reached a deal with the rightwing Pakistain National Alliance on the evening of 4 July that year. At dawn the next day, the army overthrew his government.
Earlier, in 1974, Pakistain's Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... and other fanatical groups pushed the Ahmadiyya community into a corner and loudly demanded that the Bhutto government declare the community as non-Moslem. Bhutto did as asked. And then came other demands, all of which the Bhutto administration acquiesced in. Those concessions did not help Bhutto survive.
An embattled Shah of Iran, in his final year as monarch, went on a spree of concessions to the holy mans. He dismissed his ministers, tossed in the calaboose Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! his respected Prime Minister Amir Abbas Hoveyda and installed his long-time critic Shahpour Bakhtiar as head of a new government.
Such a retreat only emboldened Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers, who made it clear their goal was a capture of power in Tehran. The monarchy collapsed, secular Iran passed into history and the country turned into a closed society.
Today, in Bangladesh, the great danger is that the agitation spearheaded by the holy mans and publicly supported by the opposition BNP has pushed the war crimes trials into the background. Into that suddenly empty space has come an assortment of demands that patently militate against constitutional politics and democratic order. Organisations like Hefajat-e-Islam have vowed to bring the country to a standstill.
The Jamaat remains conditioned to demonstrations of violence. The BNP, trying to derive as much advantage as possible from the holy mans' agitation, now has a single demand -- the overthrow of the legally established government. Meanwhile, ...back at the Council of Boskone, Helmuth had turned a paler shade of blue. Star-A-Star had struck again... demands have begun to arise from the fundamentalists that secularism be done away with and replaced by invocations to Allah.
The fundamentalist assault has cleverly moved from condemnation of the government to an assault on the principles and values of the War of Liberation. The state of Bangladesh is now under threat from those who have already forced one concession from a nervous government. Any more concessions could clear the path to even bigger danger.
Where does Bangladesh go from here? The BNP's Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain has spoken of a government conspiracy to impose a state of emergency in the country. The past comes in here again. Indira Gandhi clamped emergency in India in June 1975 when Jayaprakash Narayan asked the military to act against the government. The move discredited her, but it restored order in the state.
In December 1974, the government of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, confronted with demands for a "Moslem Bangla", extreme leftwing lawlessness, creeping rightwing-engineered chaos and rising crime, imposed a state of emergency in Bangladesh. Disorder was rolled back, until conspiracy overturned the state in August 1975.
Circumstances today call for a firm yet humane handling of the opposition agitation. The government must not be seen to be caving in to the forces of bigotry and extra-constitutionalism. Preserving the state, with all its original principles intact, must be the priority. The job can be done in line with the constitution.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/06/2013 00:00 ||
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#2
Who, by name, gave the briefing and who, by name, reviewed the content. That question demands and answer and once answered, should be made available to Congress. Those careers need termination. This is beyond the pale, even for liberals!!!!!
#3
Apparently much of it was complied by an amateur and appears to have been cribbed from such 'authoritative' internet sources such as wikipedia and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
It seems to have worked. Explaining that the Nazis were socialists results in the same puzzled look you get when explaining quantum mechanics to the dog.
ISLAMABAD: Sorry Mr Altaf Hussain, and sorry the wayward and confused media! Your humiliating criticism of the Returning Officers questions, being asked from the candidates, reflects your bias instead of presenting the facts to the people of Pakistan.
All the hullabaloo is focused on the questions being asked about the basic knowledge of Islam and the Islamic teachings. Has anyone the right to say why do the Returning Officers ask these questions? The answer is it is the demand of the 1973 Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
The media generally ignores this constitutional fact and Altaf Bhai also seems to be not interested in referring to it, which in its Article 62(1)(e) says: (1) A person shall not be qualified to be elected or chosen as a member of Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament) unless (e) he has adequate knowledge of Islamic teachings and practices obligatory duties prescribed by Islam as well as abstains from major sins.
Some may feel shame about the Islamic scheme of the Constitution of Pakistan but this fundamental legal framework of the country does require from the Muslim parliamentarians that they should have adequate knowledge of Islam and Islamic teachings.
The Returning Officers are bound by the law and the Constitution to judge every candidate on the basis of Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution. You cant conduct a written exam of such candidates to see if they are well versed with the Islamic teachings but by asking a few simple questions about Islam and Islamic teachings the Returning Officers can judge whether or not the candidates, who want to lead the people of Islamic Republic of Pakistan, have minimum knowledge of Islam.
Though the media is making mountain out of molehill, such questions are routinely asked in the most prized competitive examinations/interviews for the Central Superior Services and from militarys commissioned officers.
Most importantly, all the questions being asked are very simple and relate to the basic teachings of Islam. Most of these questions could be answered even by an ordinary school child such as the total RAKAT of five prayers; the total chapters/PARAS of the Holy Quran and the duaas (prayers), which are part of the daily Namaz etc.
Questions regarding number of wives become relevant as our leading politicians, as per media reports, have more than one undisclosed marriage. The questions about the behaviour of husband with his more than one wives would show how justly and fairly the person who intends to become the lawmaker of the country deals with his wives. Islam allows more than one marriage with the strict condition that the man should be just, fair and unbiased in his relationship with the wives.
Some people claim that Articles 62 and 63 should also be applied to judges, journalists and bureaucrats. The Constitution, however, invokes these articles only in case of members of parliament.
It is also being projected by some quarters that personal questions should not be asked from a candidate. But when a person jumps into the election fray, it is right of the people to ask questions about his public and private life. This right is enjoyed and exercised by the people of the United States. There is a difference between the personal life of an ordinary person and a leader. People used to follow their leaders whose life must be ideal. Those who want that no questions should be raised about their personal lives should not aspire to lead the people.
In the case of Ayaz Amirs disqualification, the liberal voices in the media appear to have greatly influenced Altaf Hussain. The MQM claims to do home work while issuing any policy statement but Altaf Hussain sounds oblivious of the Constitutional demand that a person is qualified to become member of Parliament if, according to 62(1)(g), he has not, after the establishment of Pakistan, worked against the integrity of the country or opposed the ideology of Pakistan.
The nomination paper also contains a mandatory oath by every candidate that unambiguously says: I will strive to preserve the Islamic Ideology which is the basis for the creation of Pakistan. May I dare to ask Altaf Bhai how a person, who opposes the Islamic ideology and strives for secular Pakistan could become member of the Parliament in the presence of Article 62(1)(g)?
Altaf Hussain, whose party propagates secular vision for Pakistan, also ignored the Objectives Resolution and other Islamic articles of the Constitution like Articles 2, 31 etc which leave no space for Pakistan to become a secular state. Islamic Ideology cant be detached from Pakistan and its constitution unless the secular minority of the country chooses to go the masses with the slogan of changing the Islamic basis of Pakistan and its constitution to a secular country and secular constitution, wins 2/3rd majority in the Constituent Assembly and then alters the Islamic provisions of the present constitution.
It may disappoint some opponents of Islamic scheme of the Constitution but they need to be educated by this very fact that Islamic provisions in this basic legal framework of the country are safeguarded as one of the five basic features of the constitution. These features cant be amended even by a two-third majority but by the Constituent Assembly elected for the same purpose.
It may also hurt some but the present constitution of Pakistan does not appreciate any secular vision for Pakistan. Instead such thoughts are blocked from entering into Parliament as the authors of the Constitution and the Objectives Resolution, adopted by the very first Constituent Assembly of Pakistan soon after the creation of Pakistan, knew that any effort to separate Islam from Pakistan would mean destruction of Pakistan.
Living in London for many years now, Altaf Bhai despite being a British national cant utter a word against Jews. If he does so, he would face legal and criminal proceedings. Only recently Lord Nazir was proceeded against just because he had uttered what in Pakistan could be considered an ordinary remark about any other community.
In the west, you cant oppose the holocaust. Altaf Bhai and no liberal from Pakistan can do that. However, in Pakistan you can oppose the Islamic Ideology of the country and yet become a parliamentarian. Constitution and law here become irrelevant because they do not suit us.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/06/2013 12:23 ||
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A staggering 94% of fresh recruits of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) see Jammu and Kashmir as a "fighting front" and hail mostly from Pakistan's Punjab province from families having links with the powerful army and intelligence network, according to a US military report.
The eye-opener report from the US Military Academy in West Point
I seem to recall the school has a decent football team...
is result of a multi-year research effort conducted by a lead team of five eminent authors including C Christine Fair, Don Rassler and Anirban Ghosh, and is based on a study of over 900 biographies of the deceased LeT militants.
According to the report that runs into nearly 60 pages, the vast majority of LeT's fighters are recruited from Pakistan's Punjab province and are actually rather well educated compared with Pakistani males generally.
While LeT's recruitment is diversified across the north, central and southern parts of the Punjab, the highest concentration of militants have come (in order of frequency) from the districts of Gujranwala, Faisalabad, Lahore, Sheikhupura, Kasur, Sialkot, Bahawalnagar, Bahawalpur, Khanewal and Multan.
LeT training has historically occurred in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir's capital Muzaffarabad and in Afghanistan.
Together these two locations have accounted for 75% of LeT militant training over time, the report said.
"94% of fighters list Indian Kashmir as a fighting front," the report said.
Although less relevant, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Tajikistan and Bosnia are also identified in the biographies as other fronts.
"According to our data, the districts of Kupwara, Baramulla and Poonch in Kashmir account for almost half of all LeT militant deaths since 1989. Kupwara, the district with the largest number of militants killed, appears to be becoming less important overall as a fighting area, with its share of deaths declining over time," it said.
The report added that the number and share of LeT deaths in Baramulla and Poonch have been increasing.
The report 'The Fighters of Lashkar- e-Taiba: Recruitment, Training, Deployment and Death' by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point identified 12 different channels of LeT recruitment, the most common forms of which include recruitment via: a current LeT member (20%), a family member (20%), mosque or madrassa (17%), LeT speech or literature (12%) and friends (5%).
"Since 2000 there has been a strong upward trend in recruitment via family members and by 2004, this channel contributed to over 40 per cent of LeT recruitment," it said.
Siblings and parents are central characters in the biographies and they play important roles in a fighter's entry into and journey through LeT, the report said.
For example, siblings or other immediate family members were often the one to drop off a LeT recruit at a training camp or at the border.
The report said the mean age when a recruit joins LeT is 16.95 years, while the militants' mean age at the time of their death is 21 years.
The mean number of years between a LeT militant's entry and death is 5.14 years. Interesting. I've read somewhere that the mean age of users of heavy drugs and the time of their death is also around 5 years.
[Dawn] THE manner in which the exercise of screening election candidates is being conducted cannot even be termed as childish. It is far worse. What is on display here is dripping with malice. At the same time, it speaks volumes for the current propensity to ridicule the most serious of matters.
This trend emerged to plug the increasing gaps between popular demand and supply by the government and it has spread. Not even the orders of the honourable courts sufficed; the courts were allowed to act as a source of news in which the accused were not simply tried -- they were grilled in the journalistic parlance. What is happening in the name of scrutiny of the poll candidates in the offices of the Election Commission of Pakistain these days is a spill-over that threatens to wash away some basic principles of common sense.
The Mirpurkhas can-didate who was asked about the number of his wives got off lightly. The question was as irrelevant as the reported observation on a woman candidate -- that her family's home life would be in a shambles if she was elected. However, those who apply themselves too closely to little things often become incapable of great things... on Thursday respected politician-columnist Ayaz Amir's case brought out the true repercussions of the current application of the law. Mr Amir's nomination papers for a seat in Chakwal were rejected over a portion of one of his columns. All this has been happening without any apparent instiga-tion on the part of rival candidates -- as if even that could justify these instances. The officials are aided by Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution. The articles have been a source of controversy on their own. In combination with overeager officials who have notions about themselves as reformers, they have generated a trend that is far too dangerous to have any entertainment value.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/06/2013 00:00 ||
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Amir Taheri
[AAWSAT.NET] By all accounts Azerbaijan should be Iran's closest ally.
The tiny republic on the Caspian Sea is home to nine million people with strong ethnic, historic, and religious ties to the Iranian people. Almost 80 percent speak Azeri, an Altaic language with a vocabulary drawn from Turkish, Persian, and Arabic. Around 12 million people in five Iranian provinces speak a version of the language.
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.
...the creepy-looking former dictator of Pakistain. Zia was an Islamic nutball who imposed his nutballery on the rest of the country with the enthusiastic assistance of the nation's religious parties, which are populated by other nutballs. He was appointed Chief of Army Staff in 1976 by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whom he hanged when he seized power. His time in office was a period of repression, with hundreds of thousands of political rivals, minorities, and journalists executed or tortured, including senior general officers convicted in coup-d'état plots, who would normally be above the law. As part of his alliance with the religious parties, his government helped run the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, providing safe havens, American equipiment, Saudi money, and Pak handlers to selected mujaheddin. Zia died along with several of his top generals and admirals and the then United States Ambassador to Pakistain Arnold Lewis Raphel when he was assassinated in a suspicious air crash near Bahawalpur in 1988...
