The Kerry Lugar Bill

There are a multitude of Pakistanis who are all in strong support for the Kerry Lugar Bill on many grounds. The reasons for their arguments were two-fold: by debunking the reasons of the opposition and supporting their own motives on the basis of building constructive allies and social/economical perks.
Apathetic with the side of Pakistanis defending the bill, Shakir Hussain used the analogy of ‘Bakra eid’ to illustrate the oppositions poor manners. “It's Bakra Eid and your neighbor sends you some meat ..But then you send it right back saying that you didn't like the cut which was sent over, the tray was also not acceptable, and the neighbors should have put a better cloth to cover the meat… This is exactly the discourse which is happening all over Pakistan today… this is the stuff which Opposition politicians are using to hammer the government from all sides without mentioning that they loved Uncle Sam's dollars when they were in power.
Welcome to the Bakra Mandi where "analysis" occurs without even reading the content of this bill which is supposed to "erode" Pakistan's sovereignty.”
Concordantly, Sadiq Saleem talks about the political opportunism practiced by the so called ‘Ghairat’ lobby of Islamist political parties and right-wing conspiracy theorists who insist that the Bill is just another excuse on Americas’ part to control Pakistans army. Yet who had no problems when in 2007 US aid was provided only if Pakistan had agreed to “undertake a comprehensive military, legal, economic, and political campaign to” “eliminate” groups like Taliban, al-Qaeda and others and Americans saw proof of the same.
However, the staunch defenders of the Kerry Lugar Bill, unsatisfied with disproving just the oppositions claims proceeded to illustrate the objective and logical pros the bill presented Pakistan with. According to Muhammad Ahsan Yatu “Our economy may be big but our population and problems are much, much bigger. Given our resources which are almost negligible we need help. It is up to us to reject the Bill. The US can find new and willing friends; we cannot find a single friend who is willing to help us with as many dollars as are coming from the US.”
To those idealistic people who believe that Pakistan has a habit of relying on foreign aid and that is the only cause of its problems he replied “We should reduce our security and administrative expenditures and tax the rich as It will help us generate at least as much capital as we require to feed ourselves. However if neither army nor bureaucracy cooperate we cannot collect the additional taxes either. The wealth and asset distribution in Pakistan is grossly disproportionate to what a functional state must have. The 5% among us own whatever wealth and assets Pakistan has and the rest live either below or on the poverty line. The irony is that our civil-military bureaucracy and landed and moneyed elites, who are also our rulers, make up our privileged 5% class”.

The Kerry Lugar Bill shows great potential in financial assistance and in the words of the Bill defenders bring developments in the social sector and will pave the way to democracy.

References = http://www.new-pakistan.com/2009/10/14/growing-number-of-pakistanis-
defend-importance-of-kerry-lugar-bill?gclid=CPbJxJ3q-p0CFYwA4woduDbkpQ

Pakistans apparently 'falling' air industry

Since June, this year, three airplane crashes have taken place. This gives Pakistan some cause for concern as it will obviously affect its intercity flying clientelle and international flights. One wonders whether its technical issues at fault but since the planes involved are not locally made, it can be the environment or flying conditions in Pakistan.
Whatever it is, Pakistan seems to be knee deep in struggling from bomb blasts, plane crashes, firing, floods, and unrest.
The latest crash happened on the 28th of November, when a Russian cargo plane into buildings under construction in the Dalmai neighbourhood, where the air force and the navy have apartments and offices close to Jinnah International airport.
The multi-purpose cargo aircraft was often used to take humanitarian aid to developing countries, as well as other large items. Which makes this incident even more tragic because the poor people (may their souls rest in peace) were here in Pakistan to offer help and distribute aid to poverty struck areas.

All of the 8 Russian crew members were killed on impact and their bodies were discernible from the burning debris and wreckage of the plane. The bodies of three construction workers were identified as Shahid, Khuda Bux and Ejaz. Two of them were married, and one was the father of three children.
The explosion caused by the crash was so loud and powerful, creating a ripple much like a bomb blast that people thought a bomb had exploded and about a hundred people gathered at the site of the crash to see the tragic accident that had occurred.

Bomb Blast Patterns in Karachi - what do they mean?

As a resident of Karachi, that gets affected by the bomb blasts that occur almost monthly now, I get to notice certain similarities between the series of Blasts that have been occurring in the city for over a year now.
Firstly, the timing of the blasts is often at a certain time, a time when most people are out and busy, cars are jammed on the roads in an eternal traffic jam as people go home after work from their offices. It’s the time of sunset, a period of time in close proximity to the time of Maghrib, which is the prayer a muslim offers at sunset.
The twilight at this time is deceptively innocent and soft, but I have noticed a similarity between the last few bomb blasts; one at Abdullah Shah Ghazis Mazaar at Clifton and the one that exploded at the PIDC office on Ziauddin Ahmad road.
Since this time is one where many people flock to the mosques, it makes the perpetrators of these hate crimes quite heartless in the pursuit of their goal. We seem to believe that all these suicide bombers have been brainwashed by religious extremists to the extent that they believe they are doing this for Jihad and will go to heaven. But what kind of religious leader tells their followers to blow up a mosque full of innocent people who have no hand in the matter of their grudge against the government, other sects or the military?
It makes one really wonder who is behind the series of bomb blasts in Karachi, is the Taliban? A bunch of religious fanatics or is that simply what our media wants us to believe?

Wikileaks Strikes Again

Today is the day of the long awaited and massively hyped second major Wikileaks public release. With the sheer embarrassment of the leaks proving that the US, right up the accountability chain to the White House, knew acts of torture to Iraqi POWs were being committed under their supervision. Under International Law, it is the responsibility of the occupying force to ensure human rights are upheld in the area that they are occupying. Given that the US Chain of command chose to ignore such incident hung a heavy cloud on the US throughout the world and with their own citizens.
Naturally, the US would hope that such occasions would be a rarity, or at least the next one would be many years apart. This appears not to be the case. The Wikileaks is expected to have a much bigger impact. They are about to publish official documents of US Embassies and other diplomatic outposts all over the world. This is indeed a heavy dose of international gossip for the world to see. Personal assessment of leaders of numerous nations and states; of how the US spied against the then General Secetary of the UN Ban Ki-Moon (needless to say against UN conventions); and of how the Saudis have pushed the US to attack Iran.
In an ever increasing well informed global public the role of Wikileaks is a very central one. The very deceptions and myth that make up the nature of international of diplomacy is threatened. Many agents who advocate for human justice and political accountability of their leaders will find this as a treat to call for more transparency to hold their leaders to account for the lies they have told their public. The leaders themselves however, want to eliminate this “threat to national security” and have made steps to by attacking Wikileaks in cyberspace and branding the actions of the organisation as terrorism.

Kashmir Once Again Left in the Shadows

The United Nations list of “unresolved” issues represents every major global issue and long standing regional conflict across the world. The Kashmir issue is one of the longest running disputes in the world, with a history of more than 27 separate UN resolutions spanning back to 1948.
One cannot help but beg the question why is the Kashmir issue now removed from that list? This is even more of a prominent point when we have come to understand that 150,000 people have been killed, 40,000 women raped over the 60 year occupation and seeing the recent peaceful unarmed protest being slammed down violently by the Indian Army.
No doubt there has been some political maneuvering on this issue. What was it for? Is it because India sees new economic potential in the region?
Alas, this arises an even sadder picture. Despite Muslims now representing close to one in five people in the world, not a single Muslim country has a permanent place on the UN Security Council.
And yet we find the same people, (that is us), holding our heads in our hands murmuring weakly “what can we do?” Since when does a Muslim ever despair? Are we not taught that it is an obligation to strive to help the oppressed?
Is it time for Muslims in the world to break away from the United Nations in give it the same respect that it has give Pakistanis and Muslims? Or is it time for everyday Muslims to politically engage proactively into national and international politics?
Either way, we cannot simply sit in our comfortable despair.

Is the American war on Afghanistan clashing with the relevancy of the international humanitarian law?

The main aim of international humanitarian law is to minimize unnecessary suffering by regulating the conduct of hostilities and the treatment of persons in the power of the enemy.
The essential humanitarian function of humanitarian law is carried out through the parties to the conflict. They have rights and responsibilities. There can be no humanitarian law conflict without identifiable parties. “Terror” or “terrorism” cannot be a party to the conflict. As a result, a war on terror cannot be a humanitarian law event. This does not, of course, mean that humanitarian law cannot apply to the conduct of persons responsible for the September 11 attacks, it would just not consider it as an armed conflict; so the rules and treatments that is happening in Afghanistan with the civilians there is in no way justified by humanitarian law because, the operations are not held according to their laws and America is carrying the operations and treatment by their own customary law.
In our age as it has in the previous ones, Humanitarian law suffices as a basis to run a world in an orderly fashion. Its boundaries are properly drawn in a respectful balance among interests of state security, individual security, and civil liberties. But it is only effective when properly implemented. It’s very vitality and relevance in the War on Terror stems not from any claim that it is capable of encompassing all of the exigencies of terrorism and the efforts to combat it. The strength of humanitarian law lies, rather, in the fact that it is adequate to deal with such exigencies when they amount to armed conflict.

Reference:
Interesting Times for
International Humanitarian
Law: Challenges from the
“War on Terror”
Gabor Rona
Article published in "the Fletcher Forum of World Affairs", vol. 27:2, Summer/Fall 2003

The blasts at Abdullah Shah Ghazi

Karachi, on 7th october’10

According to the tribune, the express, the twin suicide attacks at Abdullah
shah ghazi shrine caused 8 to be killed and over 60 to be injured. In a similar
incident earlier in July, more than 35 people were killed in triple blasts at the
Data Darbar in Lahore.

Express News reports the Taliban have claimed responsibility for the suicide
attacks on the shrine. These jihadi groups as recently said on media are
funded by saudia Arabia undercover. Hence, as the mazhab of wahabism
is influenced in saudia Arabia, then this jihadi militant may be influenced
by wahabi ideology, which constitutes a large element of tauheed (oneness
of Allah) and refutes all sorts of worship on shrines and graves of saints.
However, under no circumstances regarding islam or otherwise can these
jihadi militants or groups justify these actions. These bomb blasts included
number of chidren, women and lives of innocent people, which is not
acceptable under jidad in islam. These acts are openly condemned by most of
the contemporary Islamic scholars and government should take some action
against them or at least make considerable agreements with them. After data
darbar, government didn’t do anything, and then after this attack on Abdullah
shah ghazi mazar, government still didn’t do anything, now is government
waiting for another attack? When Pakistani Taliban have confessed their action
what is stopping government to take some action?

Military operations and their lethality

In Eastern Afghanistan, US soldiers on patrol during a Western military operation have been found guilty of the death of ten Afghan civilians, eight of them school children.  This statement was reported by the Aghani President Hamid Karzai’s office. The president himself was extremely enraged by this incident and he condemned the killings appointing a delegation to investigate the incident. 

The initial reports ‘indicate that in a series of operations by international forces in Kunar province.. 10 civilians, eight of them school students, have been killed’. International forces have always been a source for unnecessary civilian death. Unfortunately however, their presence continues to haunt many people, parents, children and family. The reason for their presence is always the same, security and investigation. But their actions to the goals more than always seem to suggest the opposite.

Most of these incidents are not even reported, but once in a while, in a nation ravaged by war and unrest, some of the situations come to public notice. After this recent incident that happened on Saturday, the President’s own politicians were given the responsibility of creating a new cabinet to protect the civilian casualties.
Defending their purpose and stance, the Western military officials stated that they had been conducting operations against the militant insurgents  in the border regions of Kunar; that they have been killing a lot of Taliban and captured a few too.
Unless now school children are included in their criteria for defining and characterizing Talibans, in my opinion, they have not explained the intentions behind their unnecessary and violent attacks at all.