Category: activism

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – Eight Taliban militants were among 14 people who died in a missile strike Tuesday along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, a Taliban spokesman said Wednesday. Full article.

at the risk of being labeled a taliban sympathizer by my pakistani friends who send me disturbing images of policemen being beheaded by what looks like 12-14 year old boys and tell me to watch obaid chinoy’s alarmist documentaries, i have been suspicious of the military action in swat from the start. of course images of taliban brutality are grotesque, surreal, terrifying but i think that all of this wanton violence and its simultaneous promotion both in pakistan and the u.s., have to be seen in a broader context.

to me certain facts are obvious:

1. the u.s. is interested in establishing a permanent presence in south asia (afghanistan and pakistan) due to geo-political reasons. this is supported by the obscene amounts of money obama is spending on building double-walled, steel-reinforced fortresses in major pakistani cities. these will house american consulates but also american residences, following the baghdad model.

2. although there is no danger of the nukes “falling into the hands of the taliban”, the u.s. and its allies will feel better if they can monitor/block the potential sharing of that technology with any other islamic country. iran happens to be a neighbor. go figure.

3. the war on terror is a perfect cover for an indefinite u.s. occupation. the taliban had virtually nothing to do with 9/11 (they are not al qaeda) but our collective memory seems to fail us as usual. from annihilating al qaeda, our mission has expanded to annihilating the taliban and therefore by inference the pushtun people of afghanistan and now pakistan. the taliban have never been involved in international terrorism. their goals are local. they are mostly interested in regaining control of their territory. but who cares. the war on terror has become such a catchphrase for doing the unthinkable, that zardari tried to pass a moronic law whereby sharing jokes about him over the internet could be punishable by a 14 year prison sentence! the logic behind it? u guessed it: humor can hinder the serious work of fighting the WOT.

4. using the pakistani army to wage this war on terror makes excellent economic sense – it is dirt cheap both financially and in terms of american casualties. the idea of the pakistani army as a mercenary force used to accomplish american objectives in the region is nothing new. unleashing the army on its own people, on pakistani soil, at the behest of the pakistani state is nothing new either – the baluchis know that better than anyone and of course, bangladesh was created out of the same kind of military mayhem. let’s not forget that pakistan is a notoriously non-nationalist country.

5. what we call the “taliban” is not a homogenous entity but a loose group of ragtag disenchanted, disenfranchised people who have diverse agendas. the taliban movement is part class struggle in an economically depressed, harshly stratified environment, part resistance to state and imperialist violence, part independence movement, part power politics, and part gang-related crime. islam might be used as a rallying cry but it is not at the center of what the taliban are after. here i have to make special mention of american drone attacks which have had the most direct, most positive impact on the swelling ranks of the taliban. like chechen black widows who lost their families in the russian onslaught that killed some 80,000 civilians, drone attack survivors can also find it judicious to become suicide bombers. as i watched an al-jazeera video of young children, orphaned by drone attacks, weeping over the destruction of a quran and vowing to avenge its desecration, i was nauseated not by their evil intentions but by the older men standing around them at this chaotic time, egging them on quietly but firmly. if the existing taliban, whatever their sub-classification may be, have become the de facto guardians of bereft, emotionally fragile young children, then what hope do we have for their future?

6. there is a local form of homegrown imperialism at work in pakistan. the pakistani government and elite are just as far removed from the lives of the common man, especially outside of lahore, karachi and islamabad, as are the americans. in a recent lecture on obama’s wars, snehal shingavi spoke eloquently about how islamophobia has completely devalued the lives of ordinary muslims, so that it becomes a matter of achievement, or at the very least of indifference, to claim the death of baitullah mehsud’s wife, who’s only crime was to be married to the man. i think it goes beyond islamophobia, for the same sort of cavalier disregard for the suffering of ordinary muslims is also exhibited by a large number of their muslim compatriots – at least 41% of them (who support military action) as shown by a recent gallup poll. so the displacement of 3 million refugees is justified. the razing of villages and the destruction of crops is acceptable. but the migration of refugees to cities outside of pashtun NWFP has been problematic. in karachi, pakistan’s largest city, port and financial center, the dominant political party, the MQM, has aggressively turned refugees away under the pretext of protecting the city from the most-invoked, international boogeyman, the taliban.

7. the relationship between india and pakistan, and therefore the conflict in kashmir, is at the core of what happens in that part of the world. by talking about “af-pak” as if india is irrelevant is absurd. america has not only taken india out of richard holbrooke’s portfolio, after a massive lobbying effort by the indian government, but it has gone further by engaging india in trade and nuclear deals. growing indian presence in afghanistan as evidenced by the disproportionately large number of indian consulates in that country is also fomenting angst in pakistan. newspapers are filled with accusations of heavy-handed indian support for the taliban and for baluchi separatists. unless these allegations are dealt with, unless there is some rapprochement between the two countries, pakistan’s innate fear of indian malfeasance and aggression will not be quelled and mutual troublemaking will continue to spark wars and counterinsurgencies.

8. u.s. occupation is not the answer. as i hear of blackwater guards in quetta, i am appalled. this is not the direction we want to go in, unless we want a repetition of iraq. whenever a country is occupied, it produces resistance, some kind of counter-insurgency. such is human nature. this has nothing to do with the ruggedness and pride of the pashtuns, or the islamic teachings of the quran, it has nothing to do with terrorist cells or how much people hate american freedoms. when people are occupied and bombed, they resist. by being an occupying force in south asia, the american government has added another layer of complexity to an already explosive situation. it’s hard for the pakistani and afghan presidents to fight the taliban when the extremists are the ones standing up to an occupying force and their own governments are seen as servile and indifferent (allowing the bombing of their own civilians). this is a war that zardari and karzai cannot win. it is a war that the pakistani army cannot fight. it is a war that many people in pakistan and afghanistan cannot support. it is an american war. it is an american occupation.

A fact-finding mission of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan to Swat has documented accounts of extrajudicial killings by the security forces, discovery of mass graves in the conflict-hit region and the unabated suffering of the civilian population. Full article.

300,000 people displaced by the fighting in Sri Lanka are held by the government in de facto detention camps. They cannot leave the camps, where conditions are “appalling” according to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon.

Call on the Sri Lanka…n government to immediately allow the displaced civilians freedom of movement: those who wish to leave the camps should be free to do so. Article and petition.

Aung San Suu Kyi is found guilty and sentenced to 18 more months of house arrest. Full article.

The American empire has not altered under Barack Obama. It kills as brutally and indiscriminately in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan as it did under George W. Bush. It steals from the U.S. treasury to enrich the corporate elite as rapaciously. It will… not give us universal health care, abolish the Bush secrecy laws, end torture or “extraordinary rendition,” restore habeas corpus or halt the warrantless wiretapping and monitoring of citizens. It will not push through significant environmental reform, regulate Wall Street or end our relationship with private contractors that provide mercenary armies to fight our imperial wars and produce useless and costly weapons systems. CHRIS HEDGES

Full article.

When respondents were asked what they consider to be the biggest threat to the nation of Pakistan, 11 per cent of the population identified the Taliban fighters, who have been blamed for scores of deadly bomb attacks across the country in recent years.

Another 18 per cent said that they believe that the greatest threat came from neighbouring India, which has fought three wars with Pakistan since partition in 1947.

But an overwhelming number, 59 per cent of respondents, said the greatest threat to Pakistan right now is, in fact, the US.

Full article.

“By far the most reliable way to be criminalized by poverty is to have the wrong-color skin. Indignation runs high when a celebrity professor encounters racial profiling, but for decades whole communities have been effectively “profiled” for the… suspicious combination of being both dark-skinned and poor, thanks to the “broken windows” or “zero tolerance” theory of policing popularized by Rudy Giuliani, when he was mayor of New York City, and his police chief William Bratton.” Full article.

“We profess to being shocked at one or another of these outlandish crimes, but the shock wears off quickly in an environment in which the rape, murder and humiliation of females is not only a staple of the news, but an important cornerstone of t…he nation’s entertainment. The mainstream culture is filled with the most gruesome forms of misogyny, and pornography is now a multibillion-dollar industry — much of it controlled by mainstream U.S. corporations”. Full article.

Already, Barack Obama has approved adding 20,000 more active duty troops to the 1,473,900 already on duty. Without public protest, the escalation of the war in Afghanistan is certain to continue. However, if the people who poured into the streets to… protest Bush’s war are truly opposed to war, then they should also make an appearance in those same streets now that the war is Obama’s. Full article.

The Taliban may have been decapitated in Pakistan, but their success is not about the leadership of any one man. Full article.

When ill-conceived military adventures look doomed, their advocates tend to grow more strident about honour, especially if it can be upheld to the last drop of other people’s blood. Richard Nixon’s “peace with honour” primarily co…nsisted of devastating Cambodia in addition to Vietnam; for some years now, maintaining honour in Afghanistan has amounted to little more than the Talibanisation of nuclear-armed Pakistan. Full article.