The Public Toilet

No matter what efforts the US-allied Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf puts in, it will never suffice a continuous unconditional amicable response from the West. The government has stooped down to levels such that the former Education Minister Zubeda Jalal single-handedly decided to exclude significant portions from the religious syllabi of schools just because they taught about ‘Jihad’, litterally translated as spiritual struggle. In late 2006, Musharraf’s regime bombed madarsa’s (religious schools) in Northern Pakistan to prevent the country from potential terrorists. He is also liable for all the lives lost in Afghanistan because of the Air base offered to the US Airforce. On March 30, 2007, an Islamic Radio Station was shut which was aparently set up by pro-taliban clerics. Every time the US pressurizes Pakistan to prove its pet-tish nature, the Pakistani military holds pretentious peace talks with Waziristan’s residents which undoubtedly result in the capture of a few prospects to fill the ‘vacant’ Guantanamo Bay prisons.

It clearly demonstrates the level to which Pakistan’s current government is ready to give up its dignity and little respect that it may once have had. But will any of this be enough to receive continuous patronage and support from the West? And if it is, how much more of the constitution will be amended, how many more lives lost, how many years till Pakistani leaders comprehend the irregularity of Western-aid to Pakistan? It has for years, been an on-and-off event; whether Pakistan was allied or not, US and other foreign aid has been inconsistent through out history. Even today, after all these measures were taken, newspapers, critics and Western leaders continue to demean Pakistani alliance and never appreciated the extent to which Musharraf’s regiment sidelined all religious hardliners. Why is it, that these politicians choose not to learn from history?

No matter how ‘pleasant’ international relations may be,current affairs within Pakistan demonstrate extreme state instability in the interiors of this politically-befuddled nation. The Chief Justice vs President case seems to be beating the bush in convoluted terms and the aim of each has now been resigned to dirtying the other’s professional records. The MQM audaciously continues to threaten, now not only the lives of political figures but also all journalists involved with the coverage of this case and the May 12th incident.

What does the government do to implement its Western agenda without the public’s intervention and criticism? They introduce an ‘American Idol’ into the country, contrasting only to suit the different audience of the country. The Imam of the Ka’bah, Adbul Rahman Al-Sudais is invited to the country which attracts not only the most religious peoples’ attention but also that of the semi-religious and even that of ‘Islamic modernists’ to whom such events represent the full extent of religious fervor and devoutness. But the question holds, who, amongst the following short-listed nominees will win the Pakistani Idol:

1. The President Pervez Musharraf and his pawn government electives
2. The Chief Justice and his Opposition supporters
3. The MQM and their incessant juvenile tactics to ‘liberate’ muhajirs (immigrants) and separate Karachi from the rest of the country
4. The innocent Pakistani citizen who needs no more than a peaceful economic environment to subsist

The result is in the hands of every Pakistani civilian. Cast your vote now because by remaining apolitical, one exhibits apathy for oneself and one’s own future generations.

What is Pakistani politics coming to? Why is the government restricting the opposition’s efforts to secure support of a few thousand people when they are confident of their own strength and authenticity? What are they afraid of?

An insight into the history of current affairs should provide us with sufficient answers.In chronological order, it starts with the CJ’s denial of the Steel Mill’s privatization and exclusion of other by-laws which he considered judicially discrepant and erroneous.All this went against the President’s reign, leading to the government’s heightened embarrassment. It gave way to his displeasure and subsequent attempts to force the CJ to either take back his decisions or quietly resign. The CJ’s refusal of both options aggravated the government’s reaction and they filed a ‘fundamentally strong’ case against the CJ. The allegations included the usage of a private plane on several occasions and the appointment of the Chief Justice’s son as medical officer in the Provincial Health Department, as a member of the Police Services of Pakistan, and the nomination of his son for a foreign course on combating international terrorism.

How do these allegations compare to the millions of rupees taken as loan by several members of the national assembly and parliament and written off with the President’s consent? Leaving that issue for another time, lets head back to the issue at hand today, the inter city rallies taking place all over Pakistan. The rallies taken out by the CJ and his supporters in the northern parts of the country were done so peacefully without any riots. However, when the same rally is channeled to Karachi with the backing of the country’s most didactic and respectable professionals, they face government resistance! The government’s puppets, better known as Muttahida Qaumi Movement, took full advantage of being in power in Sindh. The Adviser to Chief Minister for Home Affairs, Waseem Akhtar, warns the CJ that his life is in danger upon his arrival in Karachi. Unless Waseem Akhtar and his fellow MQM-ers decide to take such drastic measures, there is no harm to the CJ’s life. The opposition is in favor of the Justice, why would they want to hurt him in any way? And if in retaliation to the opposition’s rally, MQM wanted to take out its own, why didn’t the central government hold back its pet dogs? Not only did they decide to take their own rally out, they blocked all routes which the Chief Justice had decided to take, jeopardized the opposition’s vehicles, and kept the Chief Justice Iftakhar Chaudhry, Aitezaz Ahsan and all other lawyers stranded at the airport until they had no choice left but to accept boarding passes back to Islamabad! In the meantime, the Karachi police was stripped of all their powers to stop riots on the potential throngs on the streets. They shamelessly watched the massacre with fellow rangers. As if that was not enough to quench their thirst for power, they chose to shoot a few individuals to make their point LOUD AND CLEAR!

What is coming out of all this, other than the clash of dirty politics? Innocent people who decide to take a stance that they believe is right, are dying.On the other hand, the President himself addressed the general public in Islamabad from a bullet proof glass box with his toy Prime Minister and pawn government officials where the Police and Rangers positioned were alert and maintained security efficiently.What a democracy where one has to fight for one’s own life to support policies that do not follow the government’s agenda, where one has to die for having an independent opinion!

The President claims this is not a political matter. Tehrik-e-Insaaf’s chairman, Imran Khan, claims it IS a political war. Politics,by definition, is matters between the state and citizens.Who could represent that relation better that the Chief Justice who maintains law between the state and citizens. So, addressing definitions, it IS a political issue. Had the political parties not amalgamated their political with lawyers and judicial powers, the Jamali chapter would repeat itself.

Tomorrow is Black Day in Karachi, followed by God knows how many days of strikes by several agencies. Are we going to see further bloodshed? Where are the law enforcement agencies of the country? What comes of the people who lost their lives innocently? Why could MQM not have taken out its rally a day before or after the 12^th of May? Was this manslaughter planned? Who is responsible? Is the country on the brink of civil war?

I share the outrage expressed in the British press over the treatment of our naval personnel accused by Iran of illegally entering their waters. It is a disgrace. We would never dream of treating captives like this - allowing them to smoke cigarettes, for example, even though it has been proven that smoking kills. And as for compelling poor servicewoman Faye Turney to wear a black headscarf, and then allowing the picture to be posted around the world - have the Iranians no concept of civilised behaviour? For God’s sake, what’s wrong with putting a bag over her head? That’s what we do with the Muslims we capture: we put bags over their heads, so it’s hard to breathe. Then it’s perfectly acceptable to take photographs of them and circulate them to the press because the captives can’t be recognised and humiliated in the way these unfortunate British service people are.

It is also unacceptable that these British captives should be made to talk on television and say things that they may regret later. If the Iranians put duct tape over their mouths, like we do to our captives, they wouldn’t be able to talk at all. Of course they’d probably find it even harder to breathe - especially with a bag over their head - but at least they wouldn’t be humiliated.

And what’s all this about allowing the captives to write letters home saying they are all right? It’s time the Iranians fell into line with the rest of the civilised world: they should allow their captives the privacy of solitary confinement. That’s one of the many privileges the US grants to its captives in Guantánamo Bay.

The true mark of a civilised country is that it doesn’t rush into charging people whom it has arbitrarily arrested in places it’s just invaded. The inmates of Guantánamo, for example, have been enjoying all the privacy they want for almost five years, and the first inmate has only just been charged. What a contrast to the disgraceful Iranian rush to parade their captives before the cameras!

What’s more, it is clear that the Iranians are not giving their British prisoners any decent physical exercise. The US military make sure that their Iraqi captives enjoy PT. This takes the form of exciting “stress positions”, which the captives are expected to hold for hours on end so as to improve their stomach and calf muscles. A common exercise is where they are made to stand on the balls of their feet and then squat so that their thighs are parallel to the ground. This creates intense pain and, finally, muscle failure. It’s all good healthy fun and has the bonus that the captives will confess to anything to get out of it.

And this brings me to my final point. It is clear from her TV appearance that servicewoman Turney has been put under pressure. The newspapers have persuaded behavioural psychologists to examine the footage and they all conclude that she is “unhappy and stressed”.

What is so appalling is the underhand way in which the Iranians have got her “unhappy and stressed”. She shows no signs of electrocution or burn marks and there are no signs of beating on her face. This is unacceptable. If captives are to be put under duress, such as by forcing them into compromising sexual positions, or having electric shocks to their genitals, they should be photographed, as they were in Abu Ghraib. The photographs should then be circulated around the civilised world so that everyone can see exactly what has been going on.

As Stephen Glover pointed out in the Daily Mail, perhaps it would not be right to bomb Iran in retaliation for the humiliation of our servicemen, but clearly the Iranian people must be made to suffer - whether by beefing up sanctions, as the Mail suggests, or simply by getting President Bush to hurry up and invade, as he intends to anyway, and bring democracy and western values to the country, as he has in Iraq.

· Terry Jones

Original post: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2046991,00.html#article_continue

Does he think he is Macho Man or does he really think his witty sarcasm will divert Western attention away from the Iranian nuclear program?

I must applaud Ahmadinejad’s untimely sense of humor though, for releasing ‘the 15 detained British sailors and marines on Wednesday as an Easter season gift to the British people.’ He also jokingly mocks Prime Minister Blair’s government by asking him not to punish the sailors for having recorded the ‘truth’ on taped confessions in Iranian detention. Where will this ridiculous satire get him? But more importantly, where does he want it to take him?

The Western world has not and will not easily forget his childish fun-poking; ‘Satan inspires Bush’, ‘Britain Arrogant’ and ‘Israel acting like Hitler’ are only few of the many blatant name-calling incidents tied to the Iranian President. What makes him think that denying the holocaust and wanting to wipe Israel off the world map will do him any good? All he manages to do is continuously attract more attention towards their nuclear program which is already under the Western World’s critical eyes. His unfaltered belief in upsetting the world’s most powerful lobby is sinking him and his country deeper into the invisible quick sand better known as the “War Against Terror”!

Kudos to his bravado, but nonetheless, he should really watch his back. Afterall, the Iranian nuclear program in its small-scale entirety is ‘ever so harmful’ to the greatest nuclear power on the planet!

“Man Who Killed Two In Random Nightclub Shootings Sentenced To Life In Prison”

“Canadian Doctor Recovering From New Orleans Shooting that Killed his Wife”

“A Gunman With A Mysterious Grudge Kills Four Girls At An Amish School In Pennsylvania”

“Mass Murder & Suicide Rocks City Of Brotherly Love”

All these and many more stories are taking place EVERY SINGLE day in North America yet none of these criminals are termed terrorists or fundamentalists or extremists or what not. The question is why not? And the answer is just as simple as the question. 

Behind all that anti-discriminatory talk and multiculturalist attitude portrayed by the Americans, lies a white person who is NOT colorblind and does not hesitate to point fingers at other colored skins! Hence an American creating havoc in malls and on the streets by randomly deciding to shoot a few innocent civilians is obviously NOT a terrorist. He is but a mentally unstable individual. He had a traumatic childhood and has no control over his emotional state. So, he decides to take it out in a rather harmless way by killing a few random people. The world IS getting over-populated afterall!  

However the Iraqis, Afghans, Palestinians, Somalis who kill to protect their homes and families against foreign infiltrators, who kill to bring home just enough food to keep their young ones alive, who kill to free themselves of foreign occupation, who kill to prevent their women from being raped, who kill to defend their land, and kill not only others but are willing to sacrifice their own lives to make the world realize their pain and sufferings ARE the real terrorists. Not only are they a threat to their own people but somehow a ‘major threat to US security’

In what sort of a country are people’s definitions this far from the truth? A country who’s President needs to address its people in a national press conference to remind and reassure them that they are a ”decent and honorable nation, and a resilient one too”. God save us all from their definitions of ‘decent’, ‘honorable’ and ‘resilient’!�

After watching Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and various other northern African countries’ fates, any layman would consider it foolhardy to try and lure Western attention to their own Islamic state! Iran, on the other hand, does not seem to comprehend such a predicament and chooses to make the same mistake time and again. Even after witnessing the disastrous end its neighbouring ex-president and former dictator, Saddam Hussain went through, it ‘innocently’ continues to ignore the harsh relaities of world politics and instead it plays a major role in contributing towards its own downfall.

‘Daddy’ Bush has already stamped Iran as a part of the “Axis of Evil”, and openly accused it of seeking nuclear weapons and supporting terrorism; being not only a significant supplier of oil, but also one of the founding members of the OPEC, it would be suicide to make any public statements regarding their military strength. However, taking none of this into consideration, Iran is drawing more attention to its oil reserves everyday. By buying forbidden military equipment from the United States itself, Iran has now pushed its very last bit of luck and has also successfully managed to disturb troubled waters, ensuring its position at the top of the ”next Islamic state to-be-’democratized’ ” list!

The situation raises the alarming question : Why would the United States sell equipment which should be de-milled and that too, to a country which it fears is a terrorist state? Here is the extremly unsatisfactory yet much wanted answer provided by CNN :

The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, found it alarmingly easy to acquire sensitive surplus. Last year, its agents bought $1.1 million worth — including rocket launchers, body armor and surveillance antennas — by driving onto a base and posing as defense contractors.

For a country that claims to be the biggest super power and have the strongest intelligence agency, America’s surveillance sure is weak! So, I guess this would have to be one of the third biggest glitches its intelligence agency can be blamed for. First, they were never able to pinpoint the location of notorious Saudi national Osama Bin Laden but did manage to conveniently kill a few thousand civilians and finally bring in a pet government in Afghanistan. Then they discovered WMDs in Iraq ‘by mistake’ and ended up staining their hands with the blood of another few thousands innocent Iraqis whose lives are obviously not as important as the few hundred American soldiers who died and realized only too late that they are victims of their own presidents’ greed for becoming ‘Alexander the Great’ of the 21st Century. And now, their security systems are so weak, that they can be breached by Iranians ‘posing to be defence contractors’.

It is a shock that Iran seems to be falling for the bait that the American Government has so carefully laid out for them. Is it actually possible that the Iranian government officials are unable to decipher the conspiracies that the US has designed when it is crystal clear to you and I? Or is this the smaller picture of yet another political mishap, or masterplan so to say, to be disclosed?