We can best stop terror by civil, not military, means

My editor, Aaman Lamba, sent me a note about the great Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen's column in the Guardian about how to stop terror using civil rather than military means. It was prescient because in a forthcoming essay, I will be talking about how a purely military orientation towards fighting terror is misplaced. And in this case, I think the good professor errs on the other side, by trying to aim for political participation, dialogue, inclusion, media and communications, education and concentrating on young people, as well as a multilateral framework to fighting terrorism. Nice idealistic ideas, but they would not work. The way to fight terror, as I have spoken here and here, is to have a judicious mixture of the two. And the military means, I am afraid, come first .

I have to admit that the article was pretty heavy going. That man has quite a way with words, heavy words, that is. Here's an example.

They can nevertheless hugely contribute to generating a political climate in which the most peaceful of people come to tolerate the most egregious acts of intolerance and brutality on some hazily perceived grounds of self-defence, or retaliation, against the identified "enemy"

Now, I do not know about you, but it took me three re-reads before I could figure it out and I am still not sure. Here's another example:

Central to the civil approach is the recognition of the need to overcome the influence of confused and flammable readings of human relations that generate group-specific disaffection and hatred.

But besides the fact that he needs a good editor (perhaps TBS could help out?), this report, commissioned by the Commonwealth Commission, was released on November 9, 2007. Unfortunately, no electronic copy is available, only a printed copy. I have purchased a copy so let's see what it says, but in the meantime, all I can do is to comment on the CiF article, the speeches and the blurb to the book (If my opinion changes after I get the book, I will post a followup).

While giving a nod to the fact that they think terrorism is a criminal exercise, they concentrate on a single overwhelming idea, that jaw jaw is better than war war. And just to show his breadth of vision, he wants to talk about everything like religion, identity, civilization, language, economics, etc. Everything with everybody! To put it in his 'official' terminology, the recommendation is :

‘Civil Paths to Peace’ argues that the solution to conflicts within the Commonwealth should be rooted in the association’s agreed principles of human rights, democracy, gender equality, the rule of law and a transparent and accountable political culture.

The report recommends new forms of political participation, an emphasis on non-sectarian non-parochial education that expands rather than reduces the reach of understanding, and greater support to young people, who represent over half of the Commonwealth’s 2 billion citizens.

Very good sentiments! It's just too bad, that they are not really very well grounded in reality. Take the Commonwealth Commission itself. Can somebody point to anything substantial that it has actually managed to deliver? All I can think of is that it provides for a way for the heads of assorted manky British ex-colonial leaders to meet up, have cucumber sandwiches and take photographs. This multilateral organisation is useless. So if the founding principles behind the Commonwealth were to be used as an example, then what would the good professor point to as a successful example? Well, I will have to wait for the book, but based upon my limited understanding of the history, I cannot think of any instance that the commission has actually managed to push for a resolution of a terrorist campaign.

Further, the reason the commonwealth has survived is because they really didn't say anything to anybody. Like ASEAN. No interference in anybody else's affairs. The commonwealth saw rioting and genocide, ethnic cleansing, corruption, autocracy, despotism, tyranny, heavy pressure and removal of the freedom of speech and media and so on and so forth. So no, I am not very hopeful.

Also, if you look at how UK dealt with terrorist campaigns in Malaya, Aden, Northern Ireland, Rhodesia, Islamist terrorism in Afghanistan, insurgency in Iraq, terrorism in the UK itself etc., I am not really very sure if these high sounding principles have been or can be implemented in the UK itself.

In a way, the comment they make that people are more complex than we think is right. So for example, if we look at British Muslims purely as Muslims and that too of the Islamist variety, then they WILL assume that this identifier is primary and will react accordingly. So to point to British Bangladeshi Muslims as Muslims only is missing the benefits of seeing them as Bangali's (as Professor Sen and I are) or as Britishers. So the point that they are making is that we should be looking at people from multiple angles, such as nationality, language, gender, parenthood, hobbies, education, social standing, etc. and this might avoid the problems.

Good idea, Professor, but terrorism usually emerges through a single vector of religion or language or nationalism or an ideology etc. And the uglies usually do not care about the other vectors. Can you imagine going to OBL and saying something like dont kill me because I am Muslim as well, or I am a father like you, or I speak Arabic like you, or I like to follow football like you, or I am an engineer like you.... What exactly do you think he is going to say?

So to end the note, what I have basic problems with is this downplaying of the military/security angle and an extremely idealistic reading of the terrorist landscape, I am afraid. In every counter-terrorist campaign that has succeeded (Northern Ireland, Germany, Punjab, Malaya, etc.), both civil and military means were required.

I have to also caution, whenever only / or mainly military means were used, they always failed (Rhodesia, Kashmir, Iraq, Palestine, etc.). But first, the military means were required to thump the opposing forces into some kind of situation where they became willing to listen to civil means.

Technorati Tags: Commonwealth , Terrorism , Counter-Terrorism

A brilliant poem on Diwali (see if you can make out the various layers!)

DIWALI --- Vikram Seth

Three years of neurotic
Guy Fawkes Days-I recall
That lonely hankering-
But I am home after all.

Home. These walls, this sky
Splintered with wakes of light
These mud-lamps beaded round
The eaves, this festive night,

These streets, these voices...yet
The old insensate dread,
Abeyant as that love,
Once more shifts in my head.

Five? Six? generations ago
Somewhere in the Punjab
My father's family,farmers,
Perhaps had a small shop

And two generations later
Could send a son to a school
To gain the conqueror's
Authoritarian seal:

English! Six-armed god,
Key to a job, to power,
Snobbery, the good life,
This separateness, this fear.

English: beloved language
of Jonson, Wordsworth's tongue-
These my "meridian names"
Whose grooves I crawl along.

The Moghuls fought and ruled
And settled. Even while
They hungered for musk-melon,
Rose, peach, nightingale,

The land assumed their love.
At sixty they could not
Retire westwards. The British
Made us the Orient.

How could an Englishman say
About the divan-e-khas
"If there is heaven on earth
It is this; it is this; it is this."?

Macaulay the prophet of learning
Chewed at his pen: one taste
Of Western wisdom "surpasses
All the books of the East,"

And Kalidas, Shankaracharya,
Panini, Bhaskar, Kabir,
Surdas sank, and we welcomed
The reign of Shakespeare.

The undigested Hobbes,
The Mill who later ground
(Through talk of liberty)
The Raj out of the land ...

O happy breed of Babus,
I march on with your purpose;
We will have railways, common law
And a good postal service-

And I twist along
Those grooves from image to image,
Violet, elm-tree, swan,
Pork-pie, gable, scrimmage

And as we title our memoirs
"Roses in December"
Though we all know that here
Roses *grow* in December

And we import songs
Composed in the U.S
For Vietnam (not even
Our local horrors grip us)

And as, over gin at the Club,
I note that egregious member
Strut just perceptibly more
When with a foreigner,

I know that the whole world
Means exile of our breed
Who are not home at home
And are abroad abroad,

Huddled in towns, while around:
"He died last week. My boys
Are starving. Daily we dig
The ground for sweet potatoes."

"The landlord's hirelings broke
My husband's ribs-and I
Grow blind in the smoke of the hearth."
"Who will take care of me

When I am old? No-one
Is left." So it goes on,
The cyclic shadow-play
Under the sinister sun;

That sun that, were there water,
Could bless the dispirited land,
Coaxing three crops a year
From this same yieldless ground.

Yet would these parched wraiths still
Starve in their ruins, while
"Silkworms around them grow
Into fat cocoons?", Sad soil,

This may as well be my home.
Because no other nation
Moves me thus? What of that?
Cause for congratulation?

This could well be my home;
I am too used to the flavor
Of tenous fixity;
I have been brought to savour

Its phases: the winter wheat-
The flowers of Har-ki-Doon -
The sal forests - the hills
Inflamed with rhododendron -

The first smell of the Rains
On the baked earth-the peaks
Snow-drowned in permanence--
The single mountain lakes.

What if my tongue is warped?
I need no words to gaze
At Ajanta, those flaked caves,
Or at the tomb of Mumtaz;

And when an alap of Marwa
Swims on slow flute-notes over
The neighbours' roofs at sunset
Wordlessly like a lover

It holds me-till the strain
Of exile, here or there,
Subverts the trance, the fear
Of fear found everywhere.

"But freedom?" the notes would sing...
Parole is enough. Tonight
Below the fire-crossed sky
Of the Festival of Light.

Give your soul leave to feel
What distilled peace it can;
In lieu of joy, at least
This lapsing anodyne.

"The world is a bridge. Pass over it,
Building no house upon it."
Acceptance may come with time;
Rest, then disquieted heart.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

Imprison the EU Commissioners for Fraud

Well, if you were running a public company spending hundreds of billions of Euro's and for thirteen years, your auditors were refusing to sign off on your accounts stating that your accounts were not fit for purpose, full of fraud and corruption, you would be chucked into jail, no? You would not swan around in expensive suits, be photographed in the media shaking hands with the great and good, no?

No, well, here's the European Commission which is full of crooks. Nobody is responsible and this is the organisation that Gordon Brown wants us to sign up to without a referendum?

Crooks and Thives! I quote:

A report by the European Court of Auditors (ECA) criticises nearly every major area of the EU's expenditure.
According to the auditors, the commission has failed to maintain effective supervision of expenditure on major infrastructure projects, the BBC's Jonny Dymond in Brussels says.
In all, nearly 80% of the EU's 106bn-a-year euro budget (£75bn) fails the auditors test.

And I dont care that it is because of complex technical requirements. Public companies manage to do this. And if the EC cant manage its own accounts, then how on earth is it managing the EU? the mind boggles at the sheer stupidity of the excuses that these morons put forth.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

Starvation Deaths in Southern Africa

Here' something that the various assorted protestors would not complain about. People escaping the anti-imperialist heaven of Zimbabwe and then dying like a starving dog on the streets of the other wonderful socialist heaven of South Africa. I suppose that is also the fault of the US and UK? I quote:

Adonis Musati, 23, worked as a police officer in eastern Zimbabwe until recently before joining the great trek of those fleeing economic hardships and political persecution to settle mostly in South Africa.
He collapsed and died of hunger close to the Home Affairs Refugee Centre where he had been trying to get a temporary asylum permit to enable him to live and work in Cape Town. Like many desperate Zimbabweans, Mr Musati had reportedly been sleeping in a cardboard box near the centre for a whole month during which he had been trying to get the permit.
Fellow Zimbabweans who said they had queued with Mr Musati for several weeks as he tried to get the work permit told the Cape Times he had starved to death after failing to get anything to eat for two weeks.


All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

now newspapers are targets of spammers and malware artists

Now this is curious but I suppose inevitable. Newspaper online sites are quite heavily trafficked and people come there from a broad spectrum of online users. So it does make sense to target the site with malware, adware and virus’s. So web editors and website owners need to make sure that they have security very tight on their sites as I believe that bloggers refuse to link to sites which show malware or other “bad things”. And these boycott campaigns can go viral very quickly. You don’t want your google or alexa rank to drop, do you? J

Here’s the technical story. I quote:

Times of India website cleaned of malware

Updated, Nov. 12 at 5:22 p.m. EST

The website of a heavily trafficked Indian newspaper is clean of malware, just days after hackers launched a nearly impossible-to-detect cross-site scripting attack that infected users' machines with a variety of malware.
The Times of India's website was hammered with a Web 2.0-style attack in which the malware writers compromised several pages with malicious scripts. The scripts pointed to a remote site containing IFRAMEs, which pointed to two other malicious sites.
"That would start this automatic chain of exploit, and all of it was invisible to the user," Mary Landesman, senior security researcher at ScanSafe, one of the first security firms to detect the attack, told SCMagazineUS.com today.
She said that at least two of the exploits took advantage of a Microsoft vulnerability, patched last year, involving Data Access Components. Mark Miller, director of security response for Microsoft, told SCMagazineUS.com today in an email that none of the software giant's customers or partners have reported being affected by this attack.

But she is unsure of the origin of some nine other exploits that ScanSafe researchers identified in the attack, although it is likely they were created using the Metasploit Framework, an open-source framework for developing exploit code.
Infection began when a trojan was installed on the victim's machine, Landesman said. That initiated the dropping of more than 430 unique files, including binaries, cookies, Flash and web files.
"This is sort of reminiscent of the adware sieges we saw a few months back," she said. "Most of the malware we see tends to be much more surreptitious. Whoever these attackers were, I would have to characterize them as clumsy. While I said that the visitor to the site who may have been victimized may not have been aware of any downloads, certainly the performance on their system would have been impacted."
The situation was exacerbated because traditional security solutions did little to deter the attacks.
"Detection of this was extremely low by anti-virus vendors," Landesman said.
This is the second major website compromise to hit India in recent months. In September, the Bank of India website was disabled for four days after hackers embedded malware on its home page. Experts said the site was distributing 30 types of malware, which served as the payload for two types of previously patched Windows vulnerabilities.
The Times of India is an English-language site that has global reach. Alexa ranks the site as the world's 481st most trafficked site.

Technorati Tags: Media , Security , Internet , Technology , Web 2.0

Christian Terrorism in India

I have discussed Christian Terrorism earlier (in India and elsewhere). My forecast is that Christian-based terrorism is on the upswing and we will see far more of this phenomena. Right now, we have three situations, in India, Indonesia and Uganda, but given the seeds, it is perfectly logical to expect the trajectory to move up. They have money, committed people, an ideology, and a clearly defined enemy with clearly defined objectives, and viola, the perfect breeding grounds are there.

Also, if more proof is needed as to why I hate conversions, this will provide the justification that funding from American Christian Evangelists is funding terrorism in India. Now, I can be pretty sure that the American Government will do nothing about this issue, absolutely nothing, nor will the Indian Government do anything about this. Simply because the American Government, despite its pretensions of being strongly secular, has a strong evangelical bedrock and underpinning. I mean, the President starts off all cabinet meetings with a prayer and confesses to receiving guidance and talking to God. Nothing wrong with that, but you cannot expect a state and a government to go against the majority's religion like that. So expect this funding and ideological push to continue and increase. The probability that other parties might get involved (I am specially thinking about the South Koreans) is also getting progressively higher.

On the other hand, the Indian Government is quite happy to keep the terrorist low level pot boiling and keep it far away from the public eye with the help of the draconian Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 and other bits and bobs. Mind you, India doesn’t want to raise silly things such as terrorist financing with USA, it has bigger things to talk about, like climate change and WTO etc. Don’t forget that this is another reason why India will not upset the Burmese Generals. The Burmese Generals keep these Nagas in check by periodically obliterating their camps in the wild frontier regions. And I am now hearing about the fact that the Muslim minorities in that region are murmuring about the Christian Missionary work. These are simply rumours and internet chatter at this moment, so no confirmation as yet, but if that does happen, then you will have a perfect storm of terrorism, religion, separatism, militarism, narco-terrorism, armed conflicts, wars and and and in that tiny region.

See this report: Some quotes:

The NSCN (Isak-Muivah)’s well-oiled publicity machine has flooded the video-sharing Internet site YouTube with pro-Nagalim propaganda, including a two-part interview with an American sympathiser who is introduced to viewers as the “honorary ambassador to Nagalim”.

The video clippings show the interviewer, representing an organisation that calls itself Conflict Solutions International (CIS) Inc, asking Grace Collins about the Naga community’s struggle for “independence” from India. “Nagalim is a Christian nation founded by American Christians in the Northeast region of India,” says Collins in the first clip.

Collins, in her interview, takes pains to explain that Nagalim is on the eastern border of India and includes parts of Myanmar, too.

Technorati Tags: Christianity , Terrorism , India , USA , Terrorism Supporters

Asking for Democracy in Pakistan is stoooopid!!!

This is the most fascinating document which I have read. Now this clarifies what Khilafa means and what is the status of democracy within this dreamland of Islamist thought. For some reason, people keep on thinking that the problem with Pakistan solely lies with the elite Army, political parties and business people and feudals. Rest of them are just fine and would love to have secularism. Here's what I wrote to on an online mailing list when there was a claim that the ordinary Pakistani wanted secularism.

With no proof, XXX, you keep on making this mistake. Every election in Pakistan has been rigged so your point about voting percentages is meaningless. No political leader has ever claimed secularism as a political objective. No textbook claims secularism as even a political objective for the past 40 years. No religious leader has said so. Nobody in the urdu press is asking for it. Just where is this mythical chimera suddenly going to emerge in Pakistan?

This public policy is dangerously askew. And for you to ask this from Pakistan is doubly dangerous because of you Americans desire for secularism pushes the political parties to flirt with religious bodies like Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto did. Your foreign policy aid is dangerously askewed with the top three countries (Israel, Pakistan and Egypt) being totally unsecular. And incidentally, Mushy is clean?

You guys are making the situation worse in Pakistan with the inconsistent, immoral and frankly hypocritical stance. You will suffer for it, more American citizens and soldiers will die, your tax payer money will be wasted.

Well, take a look at this argument. The argument is that 70% of the Pakistan people are poor peasants and they dont really know what they are voting for or who. So if that is indeed the case, the elite (including the crusader Americans and Brits) will never allow democracy to let Islam take root! Very very interesting arguments.

Open letter to Mutahida Majlis-e-Ammal (MMA)
Saturday, 10 November 2007
The following letter was issued before the imposition of emergency rule in Pakistan.

Open letter from Hizb ut-Tahrir to Mutahida Majlis-e-Ammal
The British legacy of the Kufr democratic system can never give birth to Islam
ِسْمِ الله الرَّحمَنِ الرَحيم


Respected members of the Mutahida Majlis-e-Ammal! Assalam-o-Alaikum wa rahmatullahi wabarakatuhu,

Hizb ut-Tahrir, sent you an open letter exactly five years ago, on the 1st of November 2002 which was also widely distributed amongst the masses. The letter was entitled “Hizb ut-Tahrir’s advice to the Mutahida Majlis-e-Ammal”. In the letter we advised you and warned you of the dangers of participating in the current system, in the light of the hadith of RasulAllah صلى الله عليه وسلم where the deen was described as advice. It was then that we reminded you: “In the light of the Sharee’ah rules, as derived from the seerah of the RasulAllah صلى الله عليه وسلم, we understand that the implementation of the Islamic system is not possible through democracy. The bitter experience of the Islamic parties of Turkey and Algeria demonstrates the same point. Legislation in a democratic system requires a 51% majority, a condition which contradicts the Islamic ruling system … In reality, the biggest obstacle to the implementation of Islam in Pakistan over the past fifty years has been the democratic principle of majority approval as a condition for law, and today this condition will be an obstacle in your way… we call upon you to adopt the method of RasulAllah صلى الله عليه وسلم to re-establish the Khilafah.”

Moreover, we knew that due to your participation in the system and governance you will have to compromise on Islam and this is why we warned you in following words, “In a system of vested interests such as democracy, principles are sacrificed through sugar-coated terms like “compromise”, “flexibility”, “adjustment” and “national interest”… any kind of compromise, flexibility or deviation from these [Islamic] principles would amount to treachery against the Ummah… the Qur’an has strictly forbidden the partial implementation of Islam and compromising its integrity.

أَ فَتُؤْمِنُونَ بِبَعْضِ الْكِتَابِ وَتَكْفُرُونَ بِبَعْضٍ فَمَا جَزَاءُ مَنْ يَفْعَلُ ذَلِكَ مِنْكُمْ إِلاَّ خِزْيٌ فِي الْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا وَيَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ يُرَدُّونَ إِلَى أَشَدِّ الْعَذَابِ
"Do you believe in a part of the Book and reject the rest? What else, then should be the retribution of those among you who do this than that they should live in degradation in the present life, and that on the Day of Resurrection they should be sent to the severest chastisement?" [Surah Al-Baqarah 2:85]”

As predicted, we are afraid to say, all our aforementioned fears were realized! In your politics instead of Islam, democracy became an end in itself, for which you had to sacrifice Islam and Muslims. The most glaring example in this regard was the Seventeenth Amendment. The worst part of this amendment wasn’t providing the constitutional cover to the rule of the treacherous and usurping Musharraf, rather the most shameful aspect of this amendment was providing legal cover to Pakistan’s support of the ongoing brutal American aggression in Afghanistan. As a result of this amendment, all actions taken and policies enacted during Musharraf’s rule were declared legal and all Pakistanis were barred from challenging these policies in any court of law. Due to which the U-turn on the Kashmir policy, the disallowing of the collection of funds for Jihad by declaring it terrorism, the handing over of more than five hundred of your Muslim brethren to Kafir America, becoming a frontline state in the massacre of Afghanistan, granting America military bases in Pakistan and providing America with the intelligence regarding the Muslims of Pakistan and Afghanistan, all of these Haram acts became Halal and legal due to this amendment! Not only this, providing munitions and provisions to the American war machine became lawful under the ambit of providing ‘logistic support’. Hence we observed that your government in NWFP and the Balochistan did not see it fit to even verbally threaten to stop the supply of the bombs and Hellfire missiles let alone putting any hurdles in the way of these convoys. Through the provinces you control the American war machine was amply supplied with ammunitions and all manner of provisions, including eggs! And with no resistance from the provincial governments of any sort. Therefore, the American bombs and missiles that came from Afghanistan targeting Masajid and innocent Muslim children in Bajaur and Waziristan actually reached there after passing through Pakistan and your provinces. This was supporting a clear Haram, which you did because of your participation in the system, whether willingly or unwillingly! Do you still think that Islam can be brought about through the current kufr system?

You had to pay a heavy price in participating in the electoral politics in the current system by doing ‘seat-adjustment’ with secular parties, whom the Islamic parties had been mockingly calling ‘small and big evil’ in the past. In this way your image and reputation was given a severe blow. The people saw you as just another “knight” fighting for the throne in the pitch-dark night of oppression rather than a savior trying to liberate them. Then the people also witnessed that one of your member parties fielded a joint candidate for district Nazim of Peshawar who belonged to secular party, which supports socialist ideas. These are the kind of “compromises” which all parties will have to undertake if they decide to partake in this kufr system. Hence this system hand-cuffs these parties with such laws, so that these parties can implement only kufr, but never Islam. After this bitter experience do you still think that Islam can be brought about through the current kufr system?

The system that you joined, to provide it with Shar’i legitimacy, broke all records of tyranny and you failed to take any substantial steps apart from thumping desks and walking out. Which only succeeded in making it even easier for the rulers to undertake oppression and force. These assembly politics distanced you from the people. You know that it makes little difference to the colonialists and their masters, as to how many of a minority boycotted or opposed the bill in the assemblies. However, they are always fearful that this minority may mobilize tens of thousands of the masses in the streets. Therefore, your sitting in the assemblies is beneficial for the rulers, as opposed to you mobilizing the masses. As for some people entering the system, so that the “political field is not left empty,” we remind you that the political field of the Islamic politician is not the air-conditioned assemblies and MNA hostels, but the scorching heat in the streets, upon which the people are mobilized. If we do not acknowledge our real field, then we will be playing according to the rules of the enemy, where there is no chance in winning. This is the reason that the political parties in occupied Kashmir avoid entering the system, because they know that by doing so they will provide legitimacy to the puppet regime and system. And until today no one has accused these political parties of leaving the field open for the Indian-backed puppet political parties!

The Qur’aish tried to stop the movement of RasulAllah صلى الله عليه وسلم by offers of participation in the system and ruling. One of the offers was for RasulAllah صلى الله عليه وسلم to become not just the opposition in the assembly of the time, Dar un-Nadwa, but its head. The Qur’aish were even ready for a political deal based on “your God for one year and our god for the next,” however Allah سبحانه وتعالى through revealing لَكُمْ دِينُكُمْ وَلِيَ دِينِ “to you your deen and to mine, mine” forever closed the blind alley of entering the system and compromise. Alas if we prefer our own desires and wisdom to that which came in the Shari’ah rules, then we achieve nothing but humiliation and failure.

As far as implementing Islam through the democractic system, your five year term has ended any doubt, that may have remained in the minds of a few, about this ever happening. In the two provinces under your rule, Balochistan and NWFP, the system inherited from the British was implemented, just as it was during the rules of the secular parties, which preceded you. You implemented policies such as usury based banking, maintaining corrupt cinemas, demanding non-Islamic taxes and the war against terrorism, just as in other provinces. Remember also that presenting Islam to the assemblies in the forms of Hisba and Shariah bills, to be accepted or rejected based on the whims and desires of the people, is making a mockery of Islam. After Allah سبحانه وتعالى has decided on a matter, nobody has the right to vote on the matter, let alone the right to reject it. Consequently, you absolutely failed to implement Islam through the democratic system throughout your five years. The Pakistani constitution, which makes the majority sacred, continued to provide sanctity to the implementation of kufr, by claiming that the majority of the assembly did not want the implementation of Islam. So, how do you still think that Islam can be brought about through the current kufr constitution?

As for “Islamic democracy,” it does not exist in reality and it is in fact just a type of Western democracy. In democracy any good or bad law cannot be made into the law of the land, until the majority of the members of the assemblies endorse it. The same is true for “Islamic democracy.” In “Islamic democracy” an Islamic rule does not automatically become the law of the land even though it has been ordered by Allah سبحانه وتعالى and RasulAllah صلى الله عليه وسلم. Instead, it only becomes law of the land upon the acceptance by the majority of the representatives. It is for this reason that qat’i haram, such as usury and nakedness, are halal in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, just because the Arbaab min Doonillah sitting in the assemblies have not declared them to be Haram. In such a situation, does the sovereignty lie with Allah سبحانه وتعالى or the 500 graduates sitting in the assemblies? , in “Islamic democracy”, the people are given the authority to either to accept or reject the laws of Allah سبحانه وتعالى based on majority decision, after voting over it. Even though Allah سبحانه وتعالى has revealed,

وَمَا كَانَ لِمُؤْمِنٍ وَلاَ مُؤْمِنَةٍ إِذَا قَضَى اللَّهُ وَرَسُولُهُ أَمْرًا أَنْ يَكُونَ لَهُمْ الْخِيَرَةُ مِنْ أَمْرِهِمْ وَمَنْ يَعْصِ اللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُ فَقَدْ ضَلَّ ضَلاَلاً مُبِينًا
“It is not befitting for a believing man or woman to have any choice in a matter, when it has been decided upon by Allah and His Messenger.” (Surah Al-Ahzab 33:36)

So, even if 100% of the assemblies consists of God-fearing people and were presented with Islam’s definite laws such as forbidding of usury, alcohol and fornication etc. for voting upon, and the laws were endorsed by the 100%, even then this mechanism of law making would be considered haram. This is because in the aforementioned ayah, Islam has forbidden the Muslims from having any choice in the matter, so the believer does not have an option to say “yes or no” but is only charged with the duty to implement it. In other words, the condition of the endorsement by 51% to make an Islamic law into the law of the land, is against Shari’ah. In the era of the Khilafah Rashida, we do not find a single incidence where the implementation of an Islamic law was conditional upon the majority opinion.

There was a time when the people used to come out on the streets upon a single call from you. We saw this clearly over the problem of Qadiyani and the issue of Nizam-e-Mustafa in the past. But today, the people are not ready to come out today in response to your calls. This is not because the people have become unfeeling or uncaring about their political issues or they are no longer wishing for Islamic laws. The only reason is that you have lost your excellent status by entering the system. The people are so frustrated with the system that independent organizations acknowledge that in the last elections only approximately 20% of the voters cast their vote. So, why don’t you represent the feelings of the 80% and reject the current system? So, why don’t you stand outside the system and give a final knock to this collapsing system that brings it down? The people have already rejected Musharraf’s enlightened moderation and their hearts are with Islam and nothing else. They know that Islam can never arise from this democratic political process, bearing in mind that 70% of the population that is rural is still slave to the wadera, braderi and jagirdar. So, holding on to the idea that this majority would be able to use its vote to bring about Islam is nothing but holding on to a false dream.

We give you advice that you do not just reject participation in the current system but also announce publicly that this system is kufr. The people see you as part of this system and then start to become unclear as to its un-Islamic nature. Today if you were to turn away from the system and declare it to be non-Islamic, the present system would collapse due to the lack of confidence of the people in it. This is the system where the Islamic Hudood can be desecrated, where the UN resolutions carry more weight than the Qur’an and the Sunnah, where usury and fahishah is halal, where the British judicial system continues to be implemented, where those who calls for the implementation of Shari’ah are burnt alive by firepower and phosphorus, where Darwin’s kufr theories are etched on to minds of innocent children and where Islam’s friend is insecure and its enemy protected. This is the system where if the majority of the assembly decides, the plunderers of billions of rupees become pious with a single stroke of the pen. This is the system where under the banner of reconciliation, looters and murderers can be made rulers. Dear gentlemen, democracy is the system for the fulfillment of man’s whims and desires. In this system, the sovereignty belongs to man instead of Allah سبحانه وتعالى and this is why it is kufr. So, how can anyone consider this system as Islamic? So, do you still think that Islam can be brought about by securing the kufr system?

We call upon you to direct all your efforts towards re-establishing the Khilafah and furthermore emulate the method of RasulAllah صلى الله عليه وسلم through which he صلى الله عليه وسلم was able to establish the first Islamic State in Madinah. This Shar’i methodology entails building public opinion for the implementation of Islam through intellectual and political struggle, to mobilize the people through political awareness and demanding unconditional support for the implementation of Islam from the people of power by convincing them. And after all, we ask Allah سبحانه وتعالى to accept the giving of this advice and to grant all of us the tawfeek to implement Islam through the establishment of the Khilafah.

وَمَا عَلَيْنَا إِلاَّ الْبَلاَغُ الْمُبِينُ
“And our duty is only to convey clearly (the Message)” (Surah Ya-Sin 36:17)

Hizb ut-Tahrir
Wilayah Pakistan
1 November 2007


All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

BAe again in the corruption spotlight - this time in South Africa

His Eminence, Thabo Mbeki, is accused of having his hands completely dirty in the South African Arms Deal Bribe Scandal. BAe, the company which is already accused of being corrupt in a variety of other cases, is neck deep in this issue.

Read and Fulminate!

Mbeki 'blocked investigation into £1.5bn BAE arms deal'

President Thabo Mbeki blocked a parliamentary investigation into alleged bribery by BAE Systems and other weapons firms in South Africa's biggest ever arms deal, according to a former MP who was driven out of the ruling African National Congress for spearheading the inquiry.
Andrew Feinstein, the former ranking ANC member of parliament's public accounts committee, says the presidency killed off its investigation, pressured the auditor general to change a report criticising the £1.5bn deal to buy planes from BAE as "flawed", and stymied an inquiry by the director of public prosecutions into whether the ruling party accepted bribes to fund its election campaigns.

In a new book, After the Party, Feinstein, a Cambridge-trained economist, for the first time reveals the extent to which Mr Mbeki was directly involved in stopping his committee's investigation in 2001. Feinstein has since moved to London and is cooperating with an investigation by Britain's Serious Fraud Office into £75m in payments made to the former defence minister, Joe Modise, senior officials in his office and others in South Africa at the time BAE won a contract to supply planes at nearly twice the price of a rival bidder.

Feinstein said investigators working with his committee uncovered evidence that Modise received at least 10m rand (£740,000) in bribes from BAE and a German weapons firm but that there was paperwork to suggest up to 35m rand (£2.6m) in illegal payments to the former defence minister, who has since died.

"Other key government players in the deal are alleged to have received millions in bribes," Feinstein writes. "In addition, speculation has refused to go away that the ANC received millions of rands from the successful bidders, money that was probably used in our 1999 election campaign."

Feinstein said his committee's investigation initially had support from powerful ANC figures, including the speaker of parliament and the director of public prosecutions. But that fell away as the investigation progressed and the presidency grew increasingly concerned to the point of "apoplexy".

The first pressure to curb the probe came from the ANC's chief whip, Tony Yengeni, who became "intimidating". ANC members of the committee were called before party leaders including Essop Pahad, a minister and longstanding friend of Mr Mbeki, who "launched into a ferocious diatribe". "Who the fuck do you think you are, questioning the integrity of the government, the ministers and the president?" he said, according to Feinstein.

Other ANC members of the committee were called in by Mr Mbeki and "effectively told who they could and could not investigate". Feinstein said one senior party official told him not to embarrass the ANC because some of the bribes funded its election campaign.

"The situation was out of control. I was being bullied into accepting the leadership's line, and if I didn't it would be clear that I was a traitor with an agenda of my own," he wrote. Yengeni sacked Feinstein as head of the ANC delegation on the public accounts committee and told other members that "the ANC, from the president downwards, will now exercise political control".

"The ANC went to such extreme lengths to prevent an unfettered investigation into the deal because they needed to conceal corruption involving the head of procurement in the defence force at the time of the deal, at least two senior ANC leaders and probably the party itself," he writes.

Yengeni was later convicted of accepting bribes from a German arms manufacturer, after the press exposed the dealings, and sentenced to four years in prison. He was released after just four months. The final public accounts committee report proved to be a whitewash which said there was no evidence of irregularities.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

Another opinion on Mullah Radio!

I am afraid Mullah Radio isnt going to be on too many people's Eid Card lists, at least in the english speaking media of Pakistan. To top it all, Mushy went and released all the taliban terrorists that they had captured at huge cost of lives in the first place. How spectacularly stupid of him, but then, never let it be said that power hungry and greedy people are smart, all they want is to cling on to power. If you have caught a bloody terrorist, stick him into jail!, do not release him because that creates a moral hazard as we have seen so many times.

Here's an example.

What next after Swat? By Adil Zareef

http://www.dawn.com/2007/11/12/op.htm#4


AS the western capitals sheepishly wake up to the dynamics of the emergency the people of Swat — like their compatriots in Waziristan — have been subjected to the worst kind of state terror and brutalities of the (state-sponsored) Taliban who have now been ‘rewarded’ with a truce dictated by the militants and ‘approved’ by the caretaker NWFP government, headed by a former Wapda chairman, whose only distinction to win this position was to toe the federal government’s line on the Kalabagh dam.

While civil society members, the legal fraternity and legitimate political forces feel the ire of the state apparatus, the leaders of radical parties (foremost amongst them Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s JUI) have been mandated to broker the dubious deal.

As the Musharraf regime clumsily grappled with the legal challenge to his presidential nomination, he trained his guns on the idyllic valley of Swat to justify his edict. By now the antics of Mullah Fazlullah have been well-documented like his predecessor’s — Mullah Sufi Mohammad. A creation of the state, from 1994 onwards he surfaced every summer at the height of the tourist season, with his ragtag army of militants to demand ‘nifaz-i-sharia’ in the Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (Pata).

The symbiotic relationship between the powerful timber mafia, the Taliban militants and some agencies involved in timber and narco-trafficking is an open secret. Tourism, the mainstay of the once lovely valley, poses a threat to the unfettered control of the virgin forests and mineral resources by this unholy nexus that has successfully served to undercut all conservation and development efforts of the neglected region for tourism as it checks their criminal supremacy.

It is ironical that like their predecessors in Afghanistan, the Taliban first destroyed vestiges of the rich cultural heritage of Gandhara and are now brazenly denuding the mostly protected forests of Matta, Malam Jabba, Nek Pekhel, Kabal and Marghazar in connivance with the powerful timber mafia and local officials. In the atmosphere of militancy, the forest departments have abandoned their duties, ceding to the ruthless militants and the timber mafia who carry on this nefarious duty unchecked.

As in the case of Waziristan, where the state had a free hand in creating unrest in the name of the Sharia, the same game was repeated in Swat. For months, a buildup of heavy and sophisticated ammunition for the state-sponsored insurgency in the area was witnessed. Reports of indiscriminate massacres started pouring in. Thousands of girls were taken out of school with Taliban-style threats being made against education in the entire district. Women’s mobility was restricted and men forced to grow beards. Barber shops, video and audio businesses were blown up to create unrest and fear.

With the increase in suicide attacks on security personnel and check posts, Maulana Fazlullah’s forces began taking control of several tehsils in the district so effortlessly that it was too good to be true for the militants. The total surrender of the security apparatus to this unruly mob appeared as being scripted to the minutest detail.

The grisly slaughter of the security personnel by the mercenaries, reportedly the Uzbeks and Tajiks, (allegedly transported for these missions) in both Waziristan and Swat needs to be investigated by international human rights organisations and experts. Atrocities on the country’s citizens were choreographed to attract international scorn for Pashtuns (Taliban) and their eventual massacre has become an intolerable practice that simply should not carry on.

The Pashtuns find themselves in a bind. It is being impressed upon western allies in this ‘war against terror’ that Pukhtunkhwa is a breeding ground for terrorists, the Pashtuns are all religious extremists and that the situation could be best handled by none other than the ‘indispensable ally’ Musharraf.

The Mullah-Military Alliance (MMA) has played a key role in furthering this agenda in the province. Access to these areas by the independent media was restricted by the state to prevent the truth from coming out. An uninterrupted supply of ammunition to these areas was ensured and the militants were trained to carry out operations accordingly — playing with the lives of scores of innocent people and risking the lives and credibility of the Pakistani security forces.

It is saddening that the ‘democratic West’ seems to have bought Pakistan’s military-led government’s excuse of fighting the ‘war against terror’. The ground reality is the opposite: the militants have been given a ‘free turf’ in the NWFP as they consolidate their hold. Also, despite all the security at its disposal, the government is abandoning one region after another.

It also raises questions regarding the whole exercise of ‘emergency’ as the axe has fallen on the most ‘liberal, secular, democratic and educated’ sections of Pakistan. On the western front the most ‘radical, violent, diabolical and sinister’ forces have been given a free hand to assemble and broker a so-called truce. The most shameful part of this is the release and rewarding of Maulana Sufi Mohammad by the provincial government. This man is responsible for transporting thousands of innocent Pashtuns across Afghanistan for jihad to their inevitable death — while he himself fled the war zone.

He needs to be tried as a war criminal and his gang of wicked Taliban radicals should be treated with a strong hand. The appeasement and reward of radical criminals reflects negatively on the so-called ‘enlightened moderation’ of the military junta and also its western sponsors. Both have lost the moral high ground, and all double speak about the ‘merits of emergency’ amounts to hoodwinking world public opinion. The end result of this mayhem would be the total, irreversible loss of a once idyllic state and it precious environment which will take ages to find its way out of the abyss that it has plunged into.

adilzareef@yahoo.com



All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

How to solve the Afghan Drug Problem?

Well, one idea is to target the economics of the trade as I have already mentioned before. But if that is thought to be too theoritical, see here for an example. But I talk about certain changes one might want to think about after some extracts:

For years, backpacks crammed with cash have slipped north into Canada, followed closely by hockey bags packed with premium marijuana skating south into Montana. A favorable exchange rate (not long ago, one American dollar bought one and a half Canadian dollars) made the smuggling profitable, and thus popular.

But last month, for the first time in more than 30 years, the two currencies were at par, matched in value, and Sunday a Canadian dollar bought $1.06 U.S. The financial tables have turned, and global economics have done what U.S. law enforcement could not: Capitalism has stopped the smugglers in their tracks.

Call it Marijuanomics 101. America borrows itself deep into the hole, ratchets up its trade deficits, buries itself beneath subprime mortgage debt, devalues its dollar with interest-rate cuts, and the currency plunges. Meanwhile, Canada’s economy booms on oil, foreign investors turn north for stability, and the “Loonie” — Canada’s dollar, named for the bird on the coin — hits a 50-year high.

Suddenly, it’s far more expensive to buy Canadian exports, legal or otherwise, and smuggling profits disappear. “It’s very simple,” said Stephen Easton, professor of economics at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, B.C. “Canadian marijuana production costs are met in Canadian dollars, and those are worth more now.”

Previously, he said, pot growers could produce a pound of potent “B.C. bud” for about $2,000 Canadian and, with the exchange rate, smugglers buying with U.S. currency could sell it for a hefty profit south of the border. In those days, an American dollar in Canada was like a 50 percent discount card, and there’s nothing like a wholesale discount to bolster retail profits.

Production costs remain in the range of $2,000 Canadian, Easton said. But with the currencies at par, the profit margin is completely gone, unless Montanans are willing to pay 50 percent more for the prime northern bud. A smuggler’s risks and transport costs are no longer offset by profit.
“The upshot is that the Canadian marijuana is now less competitive against marijuana grown elsewhere,” Easton said. “This is a cost-driven business. With exports no longer viable, the British Columbia marijuana industry has certainly taken a hit, so to speak.”

Now of course, you wouldnt want to do the same thing with Afghanistan or Pakistan, they are far too pip-squeak a country to actually change the exchange rate. So what you do is to change the value of the drug and make it crash. Walk around with huge wads of cash in the interior of Afghanistan. And simply hand out cash and then take the drugs through to government sponsored drug distribution centres where you offer that for drug addicts at a subsidised price.

What you are doing is to remove the price differential. If the price on the London street is still high, then it negates the fun, but if the price crashes, as it would, then the Taliban will have no reason to use the drug money, they might as well as be trying to sell stones!. You could also grow large drug plants in the UK and distribute! :)

But there you go, just goes to prove that you cannot cheat the laws of economics.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!