This is a really interesting and chilling short documentary made by two New York Times reporters in the Swat Valley in Pakistan.
The documentary profiles an 11-year-old Pakistani girl on the last day before the Taliban close down her school. It is a shocking reminder to all of us that the Taliban need to be crushed by all means. Their barbarian actions are far from over.
Warning: this video includes some graphic images of people tortured and beheaded by the Taliban.
blog.bassamsebti@gmail.com
The documentary profiles an 11-year-old Pakistani girl on the last day before the Taliban close down her school. It is a shocking reminder to all of us that the Taliban need to be crushed by all means. Their barbarian actions are far from over.
Warning: this video includes some graphic images of people tortured and beheaded by the Taliban.
blog.bassamsebti@gmail.com
37 Comments:
i heard about this last month when a blog that translates news from the middle east published some letters to the editor and also some letters to the some local leaders.
pakistan is very very confusing for me. 3000 taliban does not seem an insurmountable amount for the army to deal with. isn't there some schism between the government and the military there? also, what is the taliban doing in the swat valley? don't they normally live up in the mountain region near afghanistan?
extremely sorry this is going on. i wonder what percentage of the population is aligned w/the taliban and what their reasons for doing so might be. is it primarily because of the threats, or as the film mentions, is it because of the civilian deaths due to the bombings?
were the taliban in this region before? are the taliban aiming for sharia law thruout pakistan? i wonder how many of the police, army and government figures are aligned w/them and how many strong is the army there? why are they going to swat? i think if some people want to live this way they should stay in one little region way off in the middle of nowhere and be left alone, and leave others alone. i cannot stand collective punishment, especially schools and children should always be off limits. in heavily populated areas like this bombing people is never the answer. good intelligence. they should be driven out back to wherever it is they come from.
"i think if some people want to live this way they should stay in one little region way off in the middle of nowhere and be left alone, and leave others alone."
Interesting - but unfortunately not realistic. We sadly see these people 'ruling' in many countries and it's hard, if not impossible, to dislodge them. The damage they do to their own is saddening to say the least, and I just hope that there's a way 'out of it' for the population who don't want to live that way (I assume they are many, and as their 'choice of life' needs to be respected if those unwilling are not 'harmed' by it)
yes, i know it is not realistic avram. i have been reading up a bit on pakistan as there are some real problems there. wapo had a piece yesterday.
seems our actions via the opposition may be acting to widen the gap between the current gov and the population.
some good news tho.
from the comments
One of the relevant points in all of this is the motivations of the lawyers’ revolt. Many were put in jail, beaten in the streets, etc. The biggest motivator for the lawyers was the removal of Chaudhry as Chief Judge.
Why was Chaudhry removed?
He had ruled, while Musharraf was still in power, that under the Pakistani law and its Constitution, people could not just be disappeared; could not just be sold off secretly to the US with no accounting.
So our commitment to torture; our Dept of Justice diligently making sure that cases like el-Masri’s and Arar’s get blocked; Obama’s current diligence in blocking the suit of the survivors of Dostum’s shipping container of death who then were handed off to US torture to force a false confession from them; our own determination here that we could round up and conduct torture experimentation on people sold to us in Pakistan and elsewhere - - we created the lawyers revolt in Pakistan.
By comparison, the lawyers in our own Dept of Justice have chosen a very different path.
So our torture policies both pushed lawyers and moderates in Pakistan into a loose alliance with some extremists and have contributed to instability in a nuclear power.
more at the link. it appears there was this huge protest some say
My understanding, however, is that the protests were never really about the Justice Chaudhry as such. Rather, there was a hope on the part of Sharif to ride this issue back into power
con't...
and others say
what a great day for Pakistan and Pakistanis. ....Police starting using the third degree. Surprisingly, fool hardily, the 50 surivived the first 15 minutes, and fought back. By another 15 minutes, they became 150 and started throwing stones at the police. Justice Shahid Siddiqui got a shell and was injured. For three hours they kept fighting, girls, women, lawyers, including Asma Jilani. Express had a crane camera and three great reporters. Lahore saw police beating girls and activists.
Mian sb was reluctant to come out. He did not have numbers with him. There was no organisation. Lahore was locked, and some rich kids were preparing for Basant. I think the GPO beatings shook him. Hamza Shahbaz stealthily broke free in an SUV , with ten people.
Express broke the news.
Suddenly Lahore woke up. ” Nawaz is out, on his own?”
In two hours, the 10 became 20,000.
on the same thread another commenter makes the same point made in the last post about the odd alliance here:
the party that physically assaulted the Supreme Court, the cheerleader for the local Taliban and the gang that terrorizes our campuses marched for democracy and the rule of law? Why can’t the supporters of the lawyers’ movement see the ridiculousness of this? Just now, Hamid Gul, that dyed in the wool democrat, was speaking from Chaudhary’s house and commending the army for its “role”…
There are those who say that it is the PPP’s fault for ditching the lawyers and letting them fall into the hands of the rightwing… I concede that point, but the fact remains that the leading lights in the movement should have kept their movement away from those unsavory creatures, but didn’t… how can Aitzaz Ahsan and Asma Jehangir sleep at night knowing that Imran Khan and Hamid Gul are a part and parcel of their movement?
hmmmm? what is going on? can anyone make heads or tails (tales!) of this for me.
the wapo article ("Pakistani Political Crisis Jeopardizes U.S. Regional Strategy") makes clear we support Sharif the opposition affiliated w/the protest, over Zardari's government. but the taliban were also supportive of the protest?
i am massively confused.
there are some really good other comments at that last link. i recommend, it is very confusing. it appears pakistanis find it confusing too. and the role of this character the US supports is odd indeed.
"the Taliban need to be crushed by all means."
Bassam I am not sure what you mean by "all means"?
For me using rhetoric like that is a no zone, since its too unclear what I would mean. All means to crush something is really closer to a fanatical way of solving problems. Since I have followed your blog for many years I know you are as far as one could be from that. But still it frightens me that you use words like that.
What is needed in Pakistan is that remote villages get a better life. Roads, health centres, electricity, easy access to clean water, youth centres, more schools etc That is the way to improve the lives of people and by it given ALL of them a chance to feel there is hope, there is something else to look forward too that is within reach.
The Pakistani government a few years ago promised that 5000 villages should get electricity. NOTHING has happened from their side. But buying weapons for billion of dollars it can.
When you are on the verge of starvation most people don't act to change their societies, you just do your best to survive from one day to another. But if your standard is little bit better THEN you start to think about change. That is where the rest of the society responsibility comes in. Build a society where people can easily choose to improve their lives. That is what should be given more attention and actions in Pakistan's governments local policies.
I feel really sorry for the girls in Pakistan whose lives are being wrecked by Talibani cultural devastation.
The Taliban are like a disease that is attacking the body of Afghanistan and Pakistan. They grew out of very strict and fundamentalist Islamic schools that taught a dark ages version of Islam. I was astonished to learn recently that these schools were promoted by the U.S. administration during Jimmy Carter's Presidency. His national security adviser Zibignew Brizinski said this in a TV interview that I watched. The thinking then was that religious fanatics were needed to fight the Russian occupation of Afghanistan.
Now, I don't know much about Pakistani history, so I don't know if these fundamentalist schools existed before Russia invaded Afghanistan.
Decades of damage have been done to Pakistan's brain washed young men who became the Taliban. Unfortunately, the only solution I see is to kill as many Taliban as possible (most of these men probably can't be reformed!), but at the same time provide some real education to all the young people of Pakistan so that the cycle of religious fundamentalist despotism is broken.
Nadia,
You can call it fanatic. The Taliban are harmful and need to be stopped. The means: hanging, shooting, crushing with tanks and bombs.
They do not deserve to live. They destroy human beings' lives and that's why they need to be stopped.
I think one of the means should also be starting to fix things from the roots. Fighting Taliban needs to fight them from the roots. By that I mean whatever reason that makes people join the Taliban.
Bassam you wrote "You can call it fanatic. The Taliban are harmful and need to be stopped. The means: hanging, shooting, crushing with tanks and bombs."
Bassam but I totally disagree with you. Here you want the same thing they want to people they disagree with. There is no hope for sustainable peace that way. You all end up killing and injuring more innocent people.
These people the Taliban we must remember weather we like it or not are fathers, brothers, sons and grandchildren to other people.
They are not aliens from another planet with two 3 eyes that makes it easy to recognise them.
Hanging other peoples fathers, brothers and sons and crushing them will only lead to more devastation and hate among even more people. More innocent men, women and children will be killed now from all sides.
This is about Pakistan here. Over several decades this nation has been a dictatorship which many western democracies willingly have sold weapons to for billions of dollars. NOT one single honest long term attempt to improve the lives of people outside the cities have been made by the Pakistani government and its democratic supporters.
Decades of living in devastation and poverty like this has its effect an we see it now in many ways. Some effects are very extreme. But to solve it by killing family members of people is in my view very primitive and unhelpful way of solving a complex issue.
Fix the lives of people to a better one. Give them roads, give them infrastructure, give them homes, medical care, schools, work, youth centres and recreation areas.
All the billions that have gone to arm the dictatorship of Pakistan could make over 5000 villages look like a beautiful English village in less then 2 years.
Hanging other peoples fathers, brothers and sons and crushing them will only lead to more devastation and hate among even more people. More innocent men, women and children will be killed now from all sides.
i believe this also. it is impossible for me to believe all of these people deserve to die for their beliefs. there is a strong likelihood the motivation of many self identified taliban is the protection of the people, no matter how much w/disagree w/their ideology. therefore the more outsiders punish them, the more sympathy for their position will resonate with at least a portion of the populace which may lead to a strengthening of their control.
nadia makes another excellent point about the amount of weapons we have flooded into the region leading to militarize the conflict. the solution should be to flood the region w/solutions that do not include more militarization. it is one thing going after leaders but these people recruit from the young and many of those young have not been exposed to positive options that protect their society.
we can't go on solving regional conflicts by more and more militarization. protecting people comes in many forms. primary among these options is education from an early age. children learn what they are exposed to. when both sides use force and violence to solve their problems violence is seen as a viable.
Bassam, i ran into this post by newshoggers titled "Guess Who Really Runs Pakistan?"
India sees Pakistan as China's close military ally (the two share a lot of stuff, including naval basing rights, exercises, R&D) and China is the big kid on the block - big enough for even the US to be wary of. India sees China as the main long-term threat nowadays but sees Pakistan as an adjunct to that threat and a shorter-term lesser threat in its own right. As long as that is true, India really is the biggest military threat to Pakistan because India believes it needs to be.
The various extremist groups are potential allies and proxies against that threat, especially in Afghanistan. Karzai and other US-picked Afghan leaders were educated or lived in India, every province has an Indian consulate, rumors of the Indian R.A.W. intelligence agency funding the anti-Pakistan government Taliban are just as rife as those of the ISI funding anti-Indian groups and Pakistani generals see ever closer co-operation between the U.S. and India both in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Fears of being strategically encircled by India are seemingly justified. In a very real geopolitical way, the Pakistani generals are right.
i suggest reading the homepage, scroll down.
i have read over the course of the last year numerous times the framing of our afgh/pak war/ as one of a US/india alliance against/or competition against chinese interests in the region. certainly one can see the competition against chinese interests in gawar in the baluchistan region which is vital for control of the future pipeline.
the reason this is relevant is someone empowers the taliban, they are useful for the purpose of destabilizing the region. from the other link
Far less well reported in the West is that Pakistan accuses India of doing the same thing back, via its R.A.W. intelligence agency. The evidence that India has long supported terrorist proxies against Pakistan is as compelling as that Pakistan does so against India.
so the people get the brutal results of this 'defense'. proxies to superpowers creates inroads to regional control. we aren't just there in to fight 'terror' we are there because the region holds strategic geopolitical importance.
especially in baluchistan, a region destined in the 'new map' to be broken off from pakistan. watch for a 'free baluchistan' movement supported by the US.
The New York Times reported this past week that U.S. officials are weighing extending the missile strikes into Baluchistan province in pursuit of insurgent leaders who have moved south in search of safety.
Western and Afghan officials have long suspected that Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and other members of the Taliban government ousted by the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 have found refuge in or near the city of Quetta, Baluchistan's capital.
The head of the Baluchistan provincial government insisted Friday that Mullah Omar was in Afghanistan and there was no justification for missile attacks in Baluchistan. The provincial assembly passed a resolution on Saturday demanding that the federal government prevent any such attacks.
"I was astonished to learn recently that these schools were promoted by the U.S. administration during Jimmy Carter's Presidency. His national security adviser Zibignew Brizinski said this in a TV interview that I watched."
Can anyone else confirm this?
Re: discussion with Nadia/Annie & Bassam:
I have no idea how you stop what the Taliban stands for ... It won't stop because of outside pressure though, only internal pressure - and that will be very bloody too unfortunately.
The thinking then was that religious fanatics were needed to fight the Russian occupation of Afghanistan.
yes, the taliban was empowered as a US proxy to bring down russia in the cold war and also impact its relationship w/iran. this was not solely a carter initiative. bush senior called them freedom fighters. reagan got lots of credit for ending the cold war as a result of previous presidents policies, not just carters. he was only president from 1977 to 1981. Brzezinski's plan was the precursor to the reagan doctrine.
Carter administration and Afghanistan
At least one component of the Reagan Doctrine technically pre-dated the Reagan Presidency. In the final year of the Carter administration, following the December 24, 1979 Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, the U.S., along with China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom, began providing covert military assistance to Afghanistan's mujahideen, in an effort to drive the Soviets out of the nation, or at least raise the military and political cost of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The policy of aiding the mujahideen in their war against the Soviet occupation was originally proposed by Carter's national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, implemented by U.S. intelligence services, and enjoyed broad bipartisan political support.
To execute this policy, President Reagan deployed CIA Special Activities Division Paramilitary Officers to train, equip and lead the Mujihadeen forces against the Red Army. [1] [2] Although the CIA in general and Charlie Wilson, a Texas Congressman, have received most of the attention, the key architect of this strategy was Michael G. Vickers, a young Paramilitary Officer. [3]President Reagan's Covert Action program has been given credit for assisting in ending the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. [4] [5]
[edit] Heritage Foundation initiatives
With the arrival of the Reagan administration, the Heritage Foundation and other conservative foreign policy experts saw a political opportunity to significantly expand Carter's Afghanistan policy into a more global "doctrine," including U.S. support to anti-communist resistance movements in Soviet-allied nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America. According to the book Rollback, "it was the Heritage Foundation that translated theory into concrete policy. Heritage targeted nine nations for rollback: Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Iran, Laos, Libya, Nicaragua and Vietnam."[6]
of course we know this 'aid' to afghanistan started prior to russia's invasion for the purpose of agitating russia to invade, according to hollywood! (joke, see charlie wilson's war)
i cannot confirm that Brzezinski stated the US supported 'very strict and fundamentalist Islamic schools that taught a dark ages version of Islam', but chances are US aid for building schools during the time we were supporting the taliban in afghanistan might have filtered into these schools. jimmy carter is a human rights activist, i find it unlikely he would intentionally support an education system that excluded women.
maybe if david comes back he can tell us which interview he saw.
Annie!!! I didn't know you italicized and bolded non-Israeli/Palestinian articles!!! Best weekend ever
jeez louise avram, i am not a one trick pony. check the archives! i mentioned before i post on other political blogs as well, about other political topics. it may shock you to know that the entire world doesn't revolve around israel, not yet anyway.
also, i italicized when copying text or quoting. i bold to highlight, sometimes merely for the purpose of making it easier for the reader who is skimming to see the relevant text that directly relates to the topic, point, or question i am addressing, not necessarily because i agree with it or support it.
I was only joking Annie ... Sheesh, I'm off to work! It's been a slice, cowabunga!
Thanks for standing up to the Taliban. In the most recent Afghan public opinion poll, 91% of Afghans had a negative view of the Taliban. 91% of Afghans had a negative view of Pakistan. By far the most popular country among Afghans was India.
Annie, the Taliban want to destroy India. Why do you think India supports the Taliban?
BTW, China is Afghanistan's largest trading/investment partner and is helping the Afghans fight the Taliban. Iran is also anti Taliban. So is Russia.
Only some Takfiri nujobs in the 3arab world and Pakistan support them. Naturally, so do many western leftists. These leftists should stay home and focus on wrecking their own countries rather than focus on how to wreck Afghanistan and Pakistan.
yesterday, oddly enough i met a young man from afghanistan, can you believe that? so i ask him. he said there were 4 different talibans. one supported by the US, the other by the UK, one jointly by pak/iran, and the other, the afghan taliban. he said, where do you think they get their weapons! so i ask him which ones are bombing the schools in swat, he said, all of them. then i ask him 'don't india and china support them? he said NO.
so that clears everything up!
"Iran is also anti Taliban"
Can you provide sources for this please?
Nadia, “Bassam but I totally disagree with you. Here you want the same thing they want to people they disagree with. There is no hope for sustainable peace that way. You all end up killing and injuring more innocent people.”
Sustainable peace? With the Taliban? I don’t think so! If so, what are the means you would use in order to reach that ‘sustainable peace’?
Nadia, “These people the Taliban we must remember weather we like it or not are fathers, brothers, sons and grandchildren to other people.”
They deprive the people from this very right and you think they deserve having it? I don’t think so. I think it’s better for the son or daughter of the Taliban member, who beheaded- God knows- how many people, to not live with his/her father because the girl will be raised like an animal in the house and the man will turn into a religious fanatic.
Nadia, “They are not aliens from another planet with two 3 eyes that makes it easy to recognise them.”
It would have been a lot better if they had been.
Nadia, “Hanging other peoples fathers, brothers and sons and crushing them will only lead to more devastation and hate among even more people.”
Getting rid of them this way for a reason is different than how they do it for no reason. It is better when there is a reason to punish them. They need to be a lesson to the others. Look how the number of militias and insurgents in Iraq went down. When the crackdown took place, many fled and peace is coming back gradually to Iraq.
Nadia, “More innocent men, women and children will be killed now from all sides.”
The Iraq war taught me that no peace comes without war. There will always be causalities until peace is achieved. Those causalities will be the very reason of why peace is sought. You need to suffer to understand the real meaning of peace. I know people in Iraq who gave up the idea of revenge because it won’t get them any good. Now, Iraqis understand what ‘peace’ is. My friends and family tell me that because there were so many people killed, they decided that they will not think of ‘killings’ anymore because they want to live their lives normally and peacefully.
Nadia, “Fix the lives of people to a better one. Give them roads, give them infrastructure, give them homes, medical care, schools, work, youth centres and recreation areas.”
How can you do that when there are people like the Taliban who behead innocents for trivial reasons? Where can you bring the labor hands to build the infrastructure if they themselves believe that modernity and civilization is evil western values? How can you build a youth center when they consider some sports and activities, like thinking, HARAM (forbidden)?
You can do all of that when you get rid of them!
Bassam you and I just have to agree that we disagree on how to change things for the better.
I think your way of solving it will make Pakistan another failed state like Afghanistan.
When my Swedish grandmother was born it was forbidden for women and poor to vote. There were many people who worked hard to let it be that way, since they had the "fundamental thinking and belief" it was the right thing. Thankfully no one suggested that these people should be crushed and bombed to death- its primitive solutions in my view. The way for Sweden was talks and improving all peoples lives, hard work and not always easy to do!
I just have to look at the mess in Afghanistan, I really do not want that in Pakistan? Even their president who many see as puppet says it almost every week now that foreign armies are killing too many innocent civilians and things are just getting worse.
Enough is enough. Its a failed strategy in Afghanistan let us learn from that. Just last night I saw a comment from a US representative in Afghanistan that talks are needed with the Taliban and work to bring them into politics. GOOD that is the way to go. Lets do that in Pakistan too, now.
With it strait away put as much effort that we have put on having a war in Afghanistan ON building houses, roads, schools, healthcare, provide electricity, easy access to clean water, infrastructure and provide work to the people in these rural areas so that they get their hope and dignity back!
Nadia,
You still haven't told me what the means of 'sustainable peace' are.
Also, had the fundamentalists in Sweden behead, tortured and terrorized the poor and the women?
The Afghanistan and Pakistan are not Sweden, and the Taliban are not like the Swedish fundamentalists. The fighting approach is different here.
As a human being who lived what religious fanatics' rule in my own country, I think there is no way in fighting them other than getting rid of them by force.
You cannot reason with someone who is uneducated and whose main purpose in life is destroy, not build.
Bassam you should know by now that I have lots of family in Iraq and I am very well aware how things are there.
"The Afghanistan and Pakistan are not Sweden, and the Taliban are not like the Swedish fundamentalists. The fighting approach is different here."
I see the people Basasm. They are all still human beings. Fathers, brothers, mothers, daughters and grandparents.
In Sweden those who worked against women's and poor people’s rights were most of the time the rich and those with power.
The approach is different from the taliban or the racist groups in the US, but these groups their goals were the same, namely:
some people are worth more then others.
Let me say strait out Bassam. In my view you and any other human being have no what so ever right to take the lives of men, children, women, fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, grandparents and siblings just because they act and think in a way that is different from yours.
Because when you give yourself that right you are in no way different from the people you say you want to get rid of – both of you work to destroy.
Look at the history of lynching in the US. No matter that you had a civil war, you still had people who tortured and terrorised African Americans. So did the European Union and people living there as a foreign power suggest in the fifties that US people with these racist views in the US (south) should be bombed, crushed, killed and hanged? Thankfully no.
US people worked with public education, protest, meetings, campaigns and demonstrations and many African Americans were given a chance to a better life and/or to move up north. And this work is still going on today in different ways.
Working on strengthening the healthy parts in a society gives you a lot more then going after and wanting another failed war to get started.
"Because when you give yourself that right you are in no way different from the people you say you want to get rid of – both of you work to destroy."
And that's the very reason why I said what I said. They deprive me from my right, so why should they have that right?
I understand what you are saying. Sometimes I think they should get some rehab first before thinking of crushing them. If rehab does not work, then I will do everything in my power to stop their terror.
Look at how they destroyed an entire former secular country like Afghanistan. How about the sons and mothers who were tortured and beaten in the streets and stadiums of Kabul in front of other people?
I can't comprehend the fact that they should be alive. They have caused so much horror that I think getting rid of them will leave a little space for peace, peace of mind at least.
Bassam : )
Here is a Pakistani who in my view in his article represent a person who wants to improve and strengthen healthy parts in his society. By working for efficient equal justice under civil law. He uses peaceful means to strengthen important parts in his society.
He says while the outside world is focused on talibans, the Pakistanis see their elite partakes in the anarchy; bureaucrats, politicians, and military officers regularly loot the treasury and disregard the constitution.
**
Islamabad must now curb the spread of social Talibanization elsewhere by demonstrating that civil justice can also be speedy and effective.
It should leverage the popular, national demand for the rule of civil law by bolstering the reform of the judicial system and ensuring the judiciary's independence.
A good start would be to implement the Charter of Democracy (COD), signed by the late Benazir Bhutto and opposition leader Nawaz Sharif in 2006. It provides a non-political method of appointing judges and handling judicial misconduct.
Beyond the COD's stipulations, the government of Pakistan should:
- Expand the capacity of the judicial system by establishing night courts, offering public defenders, and increasing the number of judges and local courts;
- Increase the education and training of judges and lawyers;
- Provide the public with the means to report corrupt judges and lawyers, such as a toll-free hotline;
- Strengthen law enforcement with higher salaries and better forensic investigative training and tools.
In the euphoria of Chaudhry's restoration, many Pakistanis have said their country has come alive again. But to remain alive, Pakistan needs serious judicial reform.
The provision of equal justice under civil law has the potential not only to reverse the fracturing of the Pakistani state, but also to curb Talibanization. The black-coated barristers are, in a sense, a bulwark against the black-turbaned Taliban.
http://pakistanpolicy.com/2009/03/18/victory-for-civil-law-in-pakistan-a-first-step/
Arif Rafiq is a Middle East and South Asia policy consultant and edits the Pakistan Policy Blog.
**
Arif Rafiq is so right to be working for efficient equal justice under civil law. I wish him all the best!
: )
"Iran is also anti Taliban"
Can you provide sources for this please?
from abc news last year in a story alleging iran was shipping arms to the taliban:
Iran and the Taliban had been fierce enemies when the Taliban was in power in Afghanistan, and their apparent collaboration came as a surprise to some in the intelligence community.
"I think their goal is to make it very clear that Iran has the capability to make life worse for the United States on a variety of fronts," said Seth Jones of the Rand Institute, "even if they have to do some business with a group that has historically been their enemy."
iran was also very helpful after 9/11 rounding up some AQ members and made offers to help the US at that time.
i first heard about the strategic geopolitical fortunes of baluchistan a few years ago when viewing the armed forces 'new map'. at that time i was warned by someone to watch out for the US to be concerned about 'terrorists' there. so my ears picked up about a week ago when i heard the announcement we were invading the region due to assertions regarding certain 'taliban'. here is a pakistani writer reporting in Dawn. Pakistan's newspaper of record, it is considered to be something of a national institution.
i recommend reading the entire article
- Balochistan
Why aren’t we acting now?
To consolidate the NDN, officials from US, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey met in Baku on March 9-10, 2009 to establish a supply spur in the Caucasus. Even so, the closure of the Manas airbase outside Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan in February has been a severe blow to US supply capabilities from the north.
A solution to these problems can be found by creating an independent corridor to the Arabian Sea in Balochistan. This corridor, together with the occupation of Afghanistan, would also ensure US access to Central Asian crude oil, the raison d’etre of the so-called war on terror.
The groundwork for this scenario has already been laid by influential US groups in the military and intelligence community: comparing Pakistan to Yugoslavia, predicting civil war and advocating break-up supported by a map in the 2006 US Armed Forces Journal. These proposals would be endorsed by US Vice President Joe Biden, who supports the division of Iraq along ethnic lines. The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), trained and financed by US and British intelligence services (among others), is said to be Washington’s chosen model to be replicated in Balochistan.
.....
To conclude, then, there are good reasons to believe that a US-Israel-India axis is in pursuit of a coordinated plan to balkanise militarily consequential Muslim states (next Pakistan, then Iran — the order reversed by Musharraf’s weak military policies); ‘secure’ Pakistan’s nuclear weapons; support Baloch irredentism not only to open a corridor both for logistic support of its troops in Afghanistan and for export of Central Asian crude oil, but also to weaken Iran and Pakistan in the long-term; coerce the Pakistan Army into a civil war (advocating suppression of the Taliban by force in Pakistan, while admitting the failure of exactly this policy in Afghanistan); and further consolidate its hold over civilian leadership by creating the kind of financial dependency that would allow it to control ‘democratic’ elections, and to annul their results if they were unfavourable (as Israel did with Hamas).
Reportedly, Obama is expected to consider and approve options soon, and increased US military activity should take place once the snow melts. One hopes that a small group of patriotic officers in Pakistan are also asking themselves what can be done, and why aren’t we doing it now.
very interesting. the taliban provide our 'ticket in' for this strategic region, therefore it does not surprise me if 'support', at the expense of the people, may comes from 'outside' 'friendly' sources. rome wasn't built in a day, nor was the taliban or hamas for that matter. they were nurtured before they became so powerful, by whom you might ask?
why are we invading balushistan?
i see that the Dawn has taken down that link. hmm. well here is another site that copied it.
more baluch news. nyt today can pakistan be governed
Pakistan feels as if it’s falling apart. Last fall the country barely avoided bankruptcy. The tribal areas, which border on Afghanistan, remain a vast Taliban sanctuary and redoubt. The giant province of Baluchistan, though far more accessible, is racked by a Baluchi separatist rebellion, while American officials view Quetta, Baluchistan’s capital, as Taliban HQ. American policy has arguably made the situation even worse, for the Predator-drone attacks along the border, though effective, drive the Taliban eastward, deeper into Pakistan. And the strategy has been only reinforcing hostility to the United States among ordinary Pakistanis.
this is a long article which begins and ends w/a rather funny portrait of Zardari, who seems like a rather odd guy. sandwiched in between the author gives us a rather jumbled history of contemporary pak politics. not an easy read.
baluchistan/killing of nationalist leaders
QUETTA: A police constable was killed and at least 12 other people were injured in firing on Thursday as Balochistan slid into violence after the bodies of three Baloch nationalist leaders were found in Turbat.
The decomposed bodies of Baloch National Movement (BNM) chairman Ghulam Mohammad Baloch, Lala Muneer Baloch and Sher Mohammad Baloch of the Baloch Republican Party (BRP) were found in Pedarak, near Turbat, late on Wednesday night.
Kachkol Ali, an advocate and former leader of the opposition in the Balochistan assembly, had alleged at a press conference four days back that the three leaders had been whisked away by security officials from his chamber on April 3. They had gone to the court to attend the hearing of a case against them.
it would be very unfortuneate if a civil war broke out in baluchistan, and a coincidence also since the US military have just recently arrived there chasing the taliban.
bassam,
i really like your new theme, who designed it?
Thanks, Abbas! You can find it and much more here: http://freethemelayouts.com/
Bassam,
When did you run off and join the Republican party? Sheesh, gone for a little while and I miss everything!
Pakistan isn't looking to good at the moment. That's what appeasing the Taliban in Swat gets you.
Bassam,
Hope you are doing well.
Do you think that reaching out to the Takfiris in Pakistan and being nice to them might work? You Iraqis are the experts in dealing with Takfiri.
Take care Akhoiya!
I think it is fascinating that non-Muslims equate what the Taliban and Madrassa's brand of learning as "dark ages" frankly, Islam was flourishing during Europe's dark ages. We need to be careful not to ascribe a euro-christo cultural relativism to other historical streams of other places and people.
Another side note is that I recently came across an interesting survey which showed that Muslim women are the most highly educated out of any religious group within the US! :)
Jenna, good points. The West should thank the Islamic world for bringing (or re bringing) civilization to the west ;-)
You are also right that Muslim woman are among the most successful Americans of any category!
Although the fighting in Pakistan's Swat valley has ended and some refugees have started to head home. Pakistan re-opened schools over the weekend in the Swat valley where troops have been fighting Taliban guerrillas for over three months.
Sumaiya
my site
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