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Making friends in Pakistan
Regular readers of this blog wont be surprised to hear that I've been banging on about ways to do something useful in Pakistan. Just for a change, this time, I've been at it over at Foreign Policy's afpakchannel. There are some quotes in there that haven't seen the light of day before. Such as:
"Of all the terrorist attacks carried out so far, no American culprit has been caught, no one from Britain and no Israeli. All those who have been apprehended belong here. And with great sorrow, I say that they have been men with beards (religious men)," said one speaker, who holds a high-profile position within Pakistan's religious education establishment."
And:
One of Pakistan's highest-ranking religious officials said of extremists; "In religious garb they organised hatred into a force. Now it is an organised force. These people are in society... The attacks on army installations were done by their followers who are in the army."
As well as:
In a madrassa in the rural hinterland of Punjab, an elderly former Barelvi leader with still considerable influence within the community's nationwide network said Barelvis should arm and organise a militia to take on the Taliban. "Our ideology is lying in its grave. And before long, if we do nothing, our lifeless bodies will be joining it," he said in Punjabi.
A few months ago, I read Hilary Synnott's International Institute for Strategic Studies report Transforming Pakistan. I thought at the time that Sir Hilary's suggestion that the international community basically take it on itself to transform Pakistan was unrealistic and an even bigger disaster waiting to happen. However, I'm beginning to think that a major game change is needed and the only question remains who the real domestic partners should be. The best option, and the most willing potential allies, are the general public. The question is how to approach them and how to tool the options avaiable to the international community so that they actually work effectively.
To see someone else expertly demonstrate what kind of mess we are talking about here, read (and watch) this great bit of reporting from Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times.
"..in Pakistan, the lack of a workable tax system feeds something more menacing: a festering inequality in Pakistani society, where the wealth of its most powerful members is never redistributed or put to use for public good. That is creating conditions that have helped spread an insurgency that is tormenting the country and complicating American policy in the region"
They just want more of our
They just want more of our hard earned tax dollars. Stop giving them money, let them fend for themselves.
"In a madrassa in the rural
"In a madrassa in the rural hinterland of Punjab, an elderly former Barelvi leader with still considerable influence within the community's nationwide network said Barelvis should arm and organise a militia to take on the Taliban. "Our ideology is lying in its grave. And before long, if we do nothing, our lifeless bodies will be joining it," he said in Punjabi."
this, a thousand thousand times.
Let me introduce Dr. Ghamidi to you Abu.
http://talkislam.info/2010/07/13/i-gotz-mail-just-when-i-think-im-rea/
"The question is how to
"The question is how to approach them and how to tool the options avaiable to the international community so that they actually work effectively."
use the local mosques where the local mosques are not taliban...the local mosque is the heart of the community.
Ask the Pakistan and Afghani clerical for suggestions.
talk to Dr. Ghamidi.
Rabi'a are you retarded, or
Rabi'a are you retarded, or just plain stupid?
Great. Pakistan needs more
Great. Pakistan needs more RFK-style "peaceful revolution." ("The alternative to violent revolution is peaceful revolution" - RFK.) Alliance for Progress, here we come!
That's American foreign policy for ya. If at first it don't succeed, the dosage probably wasn't high enough.
"Uncle Sam" is right. His Pakistan policy was stated long ago: "... not to interfere in the internal concerns of any of its powers; to consider the government de facto as the legitimate government for us; to cultivate friendly relations with it, and to preserve those relations by a frank, firm, and manly policy, meeting in all instances the just claims of every power, submitting to injuries from none."
200 years later, what would Monroe's wise (if disingenuous) words mean in Pakistan? Cut off all aid, military and civilian; retaliate punitively if Pakistani proxies keep killing American soldiers. What would the results be? Instantaneous coup by the Pakistani Army, who would rule the country indefinitely, Sri Lanka style, and give us no trouble at all. Chances of this happening: zero.
Astronomers have a fascinating concept called the Roche limit. This is the proximity at which a satellite will be torn apart by tidal forces. In a few billion years, our own dear Moon will suffer this sad fate, as its orbit decays. China will pull one half of it one way and North America will pull the other the other. Bwoosh!
This is exactly what's happening to our own dear Pakistan. America is full of people, right down to our own dear Rabbit, who want to aid Pakistan. But they all have their favorite clients in Pakistan. Ie, they all have different Pakistans they want to aid. Bwoosh! Tidal forces 101. Cut off the aid, and the planetoid turns back into a planetoid again. Unfortunately, because DC is DC, this will never happen.
"and to preserve those
"and to preserve those relations by a frank, firm, and manly policy"
I have a feeling Josh Foust would have a totally different interpretation of what "manly policy" is. "Frank" and "firm" might also be open to interpretation.
Rabi'a I recently heard a
Rabi'a
I recently heard a fascinating two-part interview program, from Australia's ABC Radio National, regarding some of the problems faced by women in this part of the world.
The first interview was with a heroic Afghanistan woman, who has led an education revolution under the noses of the Taliban.
I am pretty certain you will love this interview. Inspirational.
The second interview was with a Jordanian-born woman, who did her PhD disertation on honor killings.
Some of her observations, regarding her prison-interviews with actual perpetrators, have to be heard to be believed.
Link: The Spirit of Things
Which is what it will take
Which is what it will take for the Rabbit and her ilk to believe Islams hard hand against women.
on the subject of making friends: sure. As long as it doesn't cost money.
CBO has calculated that one
CBO has calculated that one friend in Pakistan costs the US taxpayer $10.
Clinton was in Pakistan making many friends recently at the rate of $100's of millions of dollars. Then she went to Vietnam to make more friends. Meanwhile all the US's friends in Afghanistan are busy packing up all their loot and sending it Fedex to Dubai. One of our forward people on the ground found proof of our Kabul friendship one of the packers said, "you good friend JOE you bring more and be really good friend tomorrow RIGHT we got more boxes to pack". "Maybe you pay to get our trillion dollars in minerals out of the ground and we treat you really GOOD JOE make you pay more like your friends in IRAQ did. You so good friend JOE. Maybe we give you a job JOE. It is not looking too good for you at home JOE."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870442130457538309260804152...
With all the friends that the US is printing why are we still at war? Are the people in the US that stupid?
Visitor 1007 Men oppress
Visitor 1007
Men oppress women, not Islam.
Consider misogynistic creeper Ross Douthat and his support for banning abortion.
If we cannot have control over our own bodies, we are slaves.
Douthat wants to treat us like retarded children incapable of making responsible decisions for the consequences of our actions. If he thinks aborion is murder, then he should seek to prosecute women that have abortions. easysauce.
Consider the hijab bans in europe-- muslimahs are protesting for their right to cover...all the protests i have seen at least.
banning hijab, forcing hijab, two sides of the same coin flipped by men.
give us liberty to choose.
But in the Koran, there is a
But in the Koran, there is a provision to hit your wife if she is disobedient (amongst other violent provisions). Wife boxing was Allah's favourite past time. Hence Arab and Muslim men love wife boxing too.
Does Jesus ever say violent things like that in the New Testament? Read it, Rabi'a.
Rabi'a banning hijab,
Rabi'a
banning hijab, forcing hijab, two sides of the same coin flipped by men.
Western legal traditions have never permitted citizens to walk around masked.
The ability to identify a person on sight, in the public space, is an essential part of our legal theory of personal accountabilty of the individual before the law and the state.
It is one of the foundations of our individual legal identity under secular law:
- An honest citizens has no nead to conceal their identity. Only criminals wear masks.
This is why there are no collective or tribal penalties under Western law.
Only individuals are personally accountable for their actions.
So the individual must always be identifiable by the officers of the King or state.
- Or by other citizens as witnesses in any court, inquest, or trial.
Don't the Europeans have a right to protect their legal traditions too?
Their individualistic legal tradition is also centuries old.
Let's all pitch in to
Let's all pitch in to transplant Rabi'a to Saudi or Pakistan, so she knows what being a real Muslim woman entails. Wear a helmet and some groin protection, because marriage is a one sided contact sport over there. The difference between Mexicans hitting their wives when drunk is that with Muslims, they can justify their actions in the Koran.
Rabi'a al-Adiwyya: Why
Rabi'a al-Adiwyya: Why advertise your bona fides as a hopeless been nowhere, done nothing type? Concerning recent head-scarf and burka restrictions in France, key proponents of the measures have always been Muslim French women. Turns out many of them didn't appreciate the locals in the banlieues taking an "open season" approach to rape, harass, and abuse insufficiently "modest" women. Oh, and then these women undertook [successful] political action--imagine that.
If you ever mange to drag your sorry self to France, you might drop by the local "Ni Putes Ni Soumises" chapter for a visit. But it will not go well for you: suburban mall-rat types in desperate need to "shock" are never appreciated by cosmopolitans who have actually done things in our world.
There is an interesting
There is an interesting subject suggested by the last quote in the main post, having to do with orderly procedures in a society.
A substantial body of literature developed during the 1980s and 1990s on the handicaps nations imposed on themselves by not having clear systems for establishing private property rights. These handicaps mostly had to do with economic growth and land use: someone with money won't invest if he doesn't know he's entitled to the profits of his investment, governments can't plan urban growth if they don't know who owns what land and so forth. The absence of such a system could have other consequences, though: legal title to property not being sufficient in itself, those with wealth might seek to secure it directly, using means on a spectrum stretching from bribes through force. The government's rules not being sufficient to assure property rights, its claim on revenues from property and income might be seen as less legitimate. Potentially, this could both hobble a government and stimulate the growth of competing concentrations of power.
Ironically, one reason so many nations have resisted establishing straightforward systems for establishing private property rights is that elaborate regulatory structures that ostensibly require citizens to get government approval for every step related to the purchase, sale or use of property employ large numbers of people. Making these people redundant would be seen as a step toward weakening governments. What it would actually do is present problems for those in power at the moment; government as an institution would more likely be strengthened by restricting itself to establishing "rules of the road" for economic activity, and otherwise leaving private interests to manage their own affairs.
It would be interesting to get a Pakistani perspective (or, for that matter, an Indian one) on this subject, given the tradition inherited by subcontinent countries from the Raj and its Indian Civil Service. I refer that task to Londonstani, for his future posts; I'm sorry to say that the comment threads on this blog have become increasingly predictable and uninteresting, with a few posters just chattering away trying to score the same debating points on one another over and over again. Over the life of the Internet this has been a proven way of ensuring that commenters with something to say start looking to say it somewhere else.
Retard 1:12 j'ai visite la
Retard 1:12
j'ai visite la France beaucoup de fois, imbecile.
tais toi, tete du merde.
http://boingboing.net/2010/03/31/bikini-protest-of-fr.html
like I said, anti-abortion activists in the US are the isomorphs of french burkha-banners.
STFU and let the XX decide for themselves.
"commenters with something
"commenters with something to say start looking to say it somewhere else."
by commenters do you really mean conservaitve commenters exhibiting fact-blocking and backfire-effect?
http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2010/07/political_dissonance.php
I guess the slip started
I guess the slip started when making interest on investments became "Sharia Compliant".
Since it's your body Rabbit, do try trapsing around the banuellie in a f*cking thong.
Anything else the Koran sanctions, oh reverted one ?
retard 2:28 im an american
retard 2:28
im an american grrl...i can wear a hijab or have an abortion as i please.
an' you can't do ANYTHING about it.
:)
Why don't you try being
Why don't you try being Muslim in Saudi or Pakistan. See if it's cool there too. Like the attention of wearing a hijab walking around in American malls, try not being able to take it off in the Muslim Middle East.
Go live out in the sand box.
retard 5:51 why dont you try
retard 5:51
why dont you try thinking?
and let me REPEAT-- it is not your damn bidness what anyone does in the ME, especially women.
You have to talk about how horrible Islam is to women because that is your only rationale for being there now.
Otherwise you have to admit we spent 5000 american soldier lives and a trillion dollars because Bush was too stupid know that muslims like Islam.
and im an american muslimah. that means i can choose my religion, wear hijab, have abortions, and fuck the cute arab guy that sits next to me in advanced supersymmetry and string theory if i want to.
i can even post opinions on the abu muqawma blog that dumb white guys disagree with.
imagine that!
ummm....londonstani, not
ummm....londonstani, not that i cant take of myself just fine, isn't retard 5:51 being a jerk?
"and im an american
"and im an american muslimah. that means i can choose my religion, wear hijab, have abortions, and fuck the cute arab guy"
Holy shit. Sure. Do that. He's only cute because of the sexy beast part. That and the self hate they teach in schools.
Seriously Jahil Troll, go live there....
Why can't we just ban Rabi'a?
Why can't we just ban Rabi'a?
"Why can't we just ban
"Why can't we just ban Rabi'a?"
You have to be out of your mind. She is the best thing that has happened here since Mr. Exum joined the establishment.
@Bacha Bozo: Dude--Pakistan
@Bacha Bozo: Dude--Pakistan teeters on the brink of imploding into a nuclear-armed Islamist free-for-all, and you mock Dr Josh?
Au contraire, amigo--It's time to get that diva into the fight: Long-festering Pakistani feelings of inadequacy, resentment, and rage will just melt away in post-coital bliss after enough low status PAK males have a chance to give Josh a vigorous butt-humping after his bacha bazi show comes through and intoxicates the village.
Maybe some expert in social-networking-theory can do the math and tell Josh how many low status local males he will need to please IOT bring peace to the region, empower the moderates, and happily resolve those always pesky land-tenure issues. Let's let Josh make it happen!
Dance, Josh! Dance like
Dance, Josh! Dance like you've never danced before!
Rabi'a, and fuck the cute
Rabi'a,
and fuck the cute arab guy that sits next to me in advanced supersymmetry and string theory if i want to
I don't know why, but this reminds me of the tragedy of Évariste:
"Après cela, il y aura, j'espere, des gens qui trouveront leur profit à déchiffrer tout ce gâchis."
(Later there will be, I hope, some people who will find it to their advantage to decipher all this mess.)
—The letter of Évariste Galois to his friend Auguste Chevalier.
These poor obsessive mathematicians.
Rabi: Sorry for the level of
Rabi: Sorry for the level of discourse here. The gay troll just never goes away.
"Gay troll"--Not another guy
"Gay troll"--Not another guy running around the FOB raping guys in the shower? That sucks.
Dr. Josh Foust is running
Dr. Josh Foust is running around the FOB, letting guys rape him? Go figure.
NYT: But in Pakistan, the
NYT:
But in Pakistan, the lack of a workable tax system feeds something more menacing: a festering inequality in Pakistani society, where the wealth of its most powerful members is never redistributed or put to use for public good. That is creating conditions that have helped spread an insurgency that is tormenting the country and complicating American policy in the region.
It's the same in Kabul, isn't it? A least a few McMansions set up behind security perimeters and financed by USAID contract cuts as well as opium and heroin sales. In the U.S., it's more legitimate - the McMansions might be financed by pharmaceutical opiates and military-industrial contracts, but the tax cuts on the wealthy? That's the same here as in Pakistan.
The original blueprint for these relationships was Saudi Arabia's petrodollar recycling support program for the Royals - they'd likely have a constitutional democracy by now, except that massive military and internal security assistance was given to these decrepit monarchistic holdovers from centuries past. Only a true idiot with no knowledge of history would believe Bush's "plan to bring democracy to the Middle East" - but that's our press, isn't it? FOX News is 25% owned by Saudi Princes, for example.
Indeed, the close associations between American plutocrats and Middle Eastern royalty seems to point towards a certain disaffection with American & British populist democracy and a hunger for Saudi-style "government by decree" by the "executive leader." This is how Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE tend to operate - with the religious police and the torture cells waiting for any dissenters. Yes, our dirty financiers might prefer this system - bribery is better than a jail cell. Their influence in Pakistan is quite large, too - in fact, that's who was financing the Taliban in the 1990s, right? They even had their private falconing compounds in Afghanistan - "The United Arab Emirates, whose senior princes regularly embarked on luxurious falcon-hunting trips in Taliban country..." (Ghost Wars)
Now, at the same time - the late 1990s - our old friend Unocal (now Chevron) was in Afghanistan, parked down the road from bin Laden, trying to negotiate a pipeline deal with the Taliban for exporting Central Asian gas... A joint partnership with Russian interests was of course out of the question - we won the Cold War, and to the victor go the spoils! That means Middle Eastern and Central Asian energy resources - we get them, right?
Yes, this kind of behavior does spawn insurgencies, often extremely radical and violent ones - Al Qaeda, recall, really began as an insurgency lead by Osama bin Laden against the Saudi Royals after they allowed U.S. troops into Saudi Arabia during Gulf War I. Without two factors - the corruption of the Saudi Royals and the abusive behavior of Israel - he would never have gained much following or popular support. 15 of 19 on 9/11 came from Saudi Arabia, recall?
Opportunistic power-hungry thugs gravitate towards such situations - so, if you want to get rid of the insurgency, change the situation by taking away their motivational points... and yes, that means reforming the apartheid Israeli-Palestinian state, as well as the Gulf monarchies, implausible as that might seem... along with the Iranian clerical theocrats, too. What a godawful mess...
guess Rabia the dim isn't
guess Rabia the dim isn't aware that Javed Ghamidi has been driven out of Pakistan (due to threats issued against him)
Making friends pakistan..
Making friends pakistan.. Keen :)
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