Musharraf's Waco
international |
rights, freedoms and repression |
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Tuesday July 10, 2007 15:30
by io
We don't know at what stage the branch davidian group of fundamentalist christians of mount Carmel in Waco, Texas crossed the line of extremism. Most people don't remember what the suspected crime was which brought the US federal agencies complete with tanks and psychological weaponry to lay seige to the compound & demand its leader David Koresh to surrender. Was the illegal fully automatic weapons which neighbours professed to hear or the rumours that Koresh had taken unto him as wives all the females (some barely adolescent) in the compound to mother his children? Few will tell you that the Oklahoma bombing of a Federal social security office by Timothy Veigh & others as revenge for the Waco massacre was first atttributed to Islamic fundamentalists. We now know the FBI regretted the crises as soon as the charred remains of the children were brought out of the rubble. Musharraf's attack on the Lal Masjid or Red Mosque of Islamabad is comparable.
Waco saw the use of armed force and military intimidation with heavy weaponry deployed alongside megaphone negotiation. Those within merely saw their own apocalyptic and fundamentalist religious prejudices against the federal state confirmed. Waco saw the walls of the compound breached to facilitate the dispersal of teargas which forced those within into the furthest confines of the building from which hten later they couldn't escape the fire. Waco saw the use of sound recordings played constantly through the day and night at altering speed to disorientate those within the compound.
& so has Lala Masjid been the same?
Waco saw Koresh spit fury through his telephone link as water and power lines were cut to the compound of divine vengance and the willingness of his community to accept a martyrdom which would resonate amongst extremists Christians at least till this very day.
The Red Mosque has had its walls breached to facilitate tear gas. The Red mosque has children inside. The Red mosque has had its power and water cut. The Red Mosque has been surrounded by tanks, heavy weaponry and subjected to the same psychological sound disorientation tactics. Those within the Red Mosque have also invoked a divine vengance and martyrdom and promise that same will resonante amongst extremists for years to come.
The siege they tell us is finished. But all the dead haven't been brought out & it is now they tell us we see if Musharef can stay on as dictator. (you need popular support for that these days).
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Pak_Lal_Masjid_death...6.cms
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/FullcoverageSto...+dead
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/10/world/asia/10cnd-paki...world
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6283240.stm
So what was the crime that brought the Tobacco Feds to Waco? Why were they shot at when trying to serve a warrent? Wasn't that why the FBI came in & did their thing? Did the Feds really kill Jesus? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_Siege
Likewise now we may wonder what is it this compound of a Sunni Deobandi muslims with their two madrashes - one for boys and one for girls have done? Are they really bad bad people?
Did they support the Taliban? Were they hiding Al Qaeda? Are they somalians? Did they have London tube maps & passes to the POD? Did they smash buddhist statues and cut opium poppies? Have the girls of the Jamia Hafsa madrasah been denied an education and expected to spend all their time beating or abducting chinese prostitutes instead of learning maths? What was the crime which brought Musharref to power? Didn't we shun him before 911? Wasn't 911 in the wake of Okahoma which followed Waco linked for a few moments to the plotting extreme right of patriot anti-federalist? Wasn't that why the patriot act got its name?
None of these questions will be answered. The mosque and the school are not the college of rhetoric of Rhodes - the ancient of Greece or the modern of Africa. Instead we see a masacre being justified by a timeline and we read speculation on how this means the end of Musharref's dictatorship & marks yet another collapse in the Bush/Cheney led inteference in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. WE see tippy toppy analysts remind us of the resolution which brought us into Afghanistan to stop the Taliban and Opium remind us they are more both more extensive and virulent now than back then.
Strange that isn't it? More Taliban & More Opium but less Chinese & military dictators in suits who need popular support to hold onto power.
links to other pithy thinking men & womens coverage :-
rolling blog from some backpacker
http://islamabad.metblogs.com/
good German English language coverage "Is Musharraf Losing his Grip on Pakistan?" (By Rüdiger Falksohn)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,493276....html
some guy with an Irish name doing a radio report on them shooting each other on balconies
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/podcasts/2007/07/audio_decl....html
the world drug report "drugs are down but production of cocaine and heroin are booming"
That might seem like a paradox but it isn't. You see we used not count sniffing tobacco as a drug. Horrible vice which it is, thankfully it is now nearly eradicated... Hence drug consumption is down. Whereas more coca and opium are grown meaning more cocaine and heroin are made - we can't forget more coca and opium plants are destroyed meaning less is produced. More Drugs means Less Drugs % if you don't get it - you need a degree. If you have a degree - you need another one.
http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/world_drug_report.html
Comments (8 of 8)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8Counter Currents has articles about this, heres a selection.
Preventing More Lal Masjids
By Pervez Hoodbhoy
http://www.countercurrents.org/hoodhoy110707.htm
Lal Masjid underscores the danger of runaway religious radicalism in Pakistan. It calls for urgent and wide-ranging action
Lal Masjid Not The Only Threat
By M B Naqvi
http://www.countercurrents.org/naqvi110707.htm
What do the Islamic extremists inside Lal Masjid stand for? They stand for enforcing an Islamic shariah of their own conception immediately. It is literalist Deobandi interpretation of Islamic tenets. It rejects modernist interpretations of Islam. They are bereft of modern education, indeed they reject the knowledge of pure and applied sciences and modern thought on social subjects. They want to take Pakistan back to early years of Islam. For that reason they are a big and growing challenge to most Muslim countries
Musharraf's Bloodbath At The Masjid
By Abid Mustafa
http://www.countercurrents.org/mustafa110707.htm
What is transpiring at Lal Masjid has all the hallmarks of becoming a template for Musharraf to deal with other religious schools and institutions- a recipe for civil war. Not to mention that the timing of the crisis suits Musharraf, as it deflects the public's attention away from the secular opposition and the government's disastrous response to the floods in Balochistan
Last evening the RTE news covered the siege at the Red Mosque and the Prime Minister
gave an unequivicoal statement that no bodies of women nor children were found in the
compound. He lied. The global news tonight is preparing the world's onlookers for the
discovery of remains of child martyrs and child victims of a suicide bomber in one locked
classroom. Mucsharaff was photoed at the funeral of the military police officers at
about the time the unequivicoal statement was released. The excerise in damage limitation
has begun, but before people get too testy about support for the factions in this-it is
evident that the US has reached political penetration in that regime as much as they have in the regimes
of Arroyo, Ahern and Blair , to name a few. Where it is convenient to bastardise the religious will
of a people and reduce them to an absurdity in order to profit from resource to benefit the
globalisation process. The US ability to foment civil war through secularisation and reduction of
philosophies to cartoonish representations of tribal enmity is a case study in itself and the
men who seek to lead carry the blame as much as the administration that they have sold
their integrity to.
http://www.rte.ie/news/index.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/pakistan/Story/0,,2125492,00.html
[of course Arroyo's masaccres against Muslim dissenters happened on primetime TV,
this siege ending is more Beslan than Columbine]
IHT reports that dozens of parents are still trying to locate
their children, as is usual with this the Musharraf forces have
cleaned the scene and stated that 19 bodies remain
unidentified beyond 'recognition'.
These were discovered in a locked classroom.
The work of a suicide bomber.
The Musharaff regime has gone from unequivocal denial
of child fatality to damage limitation.
Another perspective. Full article at the link.
On 10 July, after an armed standoff, the Pakistani army assaulted the Red Mosque (Lal Masjid) in the capital city of Islamabad. The room-to-room fighting lasted 36 hours. Although most of the people inside chose to leave (1-2,000, according to varying news accounts), about a hundred were reported killed. Their identity and the circumstances of their death have not yet been disclosed.
The government of Pervez Musharraf began putting pressure on the Red Mosque in January when it declared that the mosque’s religious school (madrassa) for women had been constructed illegally. In response, students at the men’s and women’s schools challenged the regime’s Islamic credentials. They tried to forcibly impose what they considered an Islamic way of life in this relatively secular city, and especially the area around the mosque, the heart of the capital and site of many government and military buildings. Squadrons of burqa-clad young women armed with lathis (long sticks) rampaged through stores and stalls selling music and films and made bonfires of “un-Islamic” books. They kidnapped and allegedly tortured Chinese women working in a massage parlour. They also denounced women running in marathons as equivalent to prostitution.
For a sober reflection on the Lal Masjid debacle, see:
http://playingagainstthespin.wordpress.com/2007/07/17/w...stan/
In the last four months as I stayed ever mindful of that table of almost maojong quid pro quo which is increasingly appearing to be the way the great powers of both the world and Asia deal with their projected 21st century, - ( deep breath stifle the sigh ) I wondered was the last comment a wee bit barbed. Oh though the sensitive part of me it's easy for people to point at journalists or academics who measure their careers & salaries in inches or kilo-dollars & say "now that's sober commenting & analysis". Thanks for bringing our attention to the lascitude of surrealism & nonsense yet again Iosaf with your disinformation & mis-spelling. If we're interested in how North Korea, Iraq, Pakistan, India, Burma, China, the stans, Borat, Gas, Oil, Smack, nuclear waste, generation, weapons & missile shields are shaping up & stacking up exactly how the Bush / Cheney clan hoped they wouldn't - we'll read our trused sober columnists who are masters & doctors in their chosen field of specialisation & only wish people paid more attention to how their patch of knowledge based economic futurology really matters.
I prefer staying un-sober & seeing the big picture.
Accordingly as Musharraf declares emergency rule & the military surround the supreme court which sounds so serious (but he aint gone on telly yet in either uniform or suit or make-up like Bhutto), I thought to ping this thread. It's more important to your future than the ambition of Gummy Gormley, the damage wrought by Big swinging mickey mc dowell or the presidential future of Barthelomew Ahern.
wipe the sweat off your brow.
we're not going defcon 1.
trust me I can deal with bleepers & newsflashes in volatile states with nukes.
We'll have Bhutto in Islamabad & as soon as Sonja Ghandi comes down off her China trip we'll have elder women prancing across the Asian super stage. & yes, there will be room for Aung San too. Now as soon as anyone can find a presentable Iraqi or Kurdish lady we're on our way to anarchosocialist style consumerist tv led utopia. After that it will only bit of gene tweeking before we're all truly content.
The forthcoming elections are to be suspended whilst Musharref goes on telly & tells whoever takes him seriously that he's doing what he's doing to stop Pakistan committing suicide. I suppose he has a vision of a noose suspended from dreary winter sky.
There are admittedly some mornings when awaking from filthy chemical hangovers I honestly neither wonder nor care to know whether Washington DC, from its shining war memorials & racially segregated cemetary to its glistening boardway has been utterly pulverised by the power of either fusion or fission atom. Thus I consider stated my poor qualifications to comment on the latest confirmation that the USA has lost its bid for 21st century hegemony. Millions of people know what "agah bakhabar" means. It mightn't be the first language of all those gathered under Pakistani borders & technical sovereignty, but it's a cute phrase from one of the ten most spoken (if not written) languages on Earth.
Yale never really did a Urdu department. So if your swotty neighbourhood scholarship winner talks about being accepting an Ashram study grant at Yale, just warn them their chances of getting into Skull & Bones aren't that high. Thankfully these people don't rule the world, so stop betting on them. There are plenty of other long term jobs & financial security options out there, one for everyone's pocket & tastes & quite a few could offer "rights based" societies. Supporting US world policy especially as it has been articulated in the brief period that entity allowed itself to believe it had won a superpower contest to remain unique is a very foolish long term strategy. Long before any of you really wake up & worry for Washington DC's nuclear chances your bread, milk & cheese will have turned as bitterly sour as the peeled face of golden freak boy Tutankamhun. & because your future breakfast table will have been so viciously sided with one interpretation of who the oil or soil with which you grow, harvest & cook your food belongs to - I really doubt anyone else will be coming to the rescue & dropping you bags of rice on parachutes.
"They should have seen it coming"
"Agah Bakhabar".
This article above should point anyone who has difficulty understanding the videoclub circuit which is called "AlQ" and the futility of the US Republicans' foreign policy in Asia to the exact week it all went pop. Of course fine minds are talking about judges. I'd just point out the timelag. Here we are looking at the Ottoman Turks and Iranians want to plough the plucky Kurdish mountain fighters whilst the Pakistanis don't want either a nice military dictator or that lovely woman Bhutto. Why haven't they been doing all this world destabilising scary stuff for these last four months? How did it all come to this? Didn't we try and help them or at least allow Yale to plan their best interests?
The answer is simple.
You don't get wars or military rule in Summer Holidays.
if you want to be bakhabar you know which way the wind is blowing & if not exactly what day of the week it is, you keep an eye on the moon's waxing, waning & gibbous qualities. Stay in touch with your garden. We'll soon be too chilly up the mountains for a proper war. The grannies need to knit legwarmers whilst the conflict smoulders a bit.
Oh! but it's not a war - sorry. It's just a general & dictator in a suit pretending to be a democrat because he's on Bush's side against Osama. What a ridiculous comment I've just managed to write. Our brekkies are safe. This is Eire's Brekkie century.
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suspension of elections
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7077727.stm
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