Latest Updates: US military RSS

  • johnpi 2:21 pm on February 20, 2010 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , translators, US military

    Army finds no evidence of poisoning plot at Fort Jackson.

    A U.S. Army program at the center of a probe into allegations that Muslim translator trainees threatened to poison soldiers at Fort Jackson was moved to a post in Arizona last month.

    Spokeswomen at both Fort Jackson and Fort Huachuca, Ariz., confirmed the program — which trains non-citizen native speakers of languages such as Arabic and Farsi to become soldiers and translators — has been relocated.
    ….

    On Thursday, a report by the evangelist Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcast Network and Fox News stated that five Muslim translators had been arrested at Fort Jackson in December for threatening to poison other soldiers. The Army has not reported making any arrests.

    A statement Friday from the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division confirmed an investigation into the allegations has been ongoing “for almost two months.”

    “But … we have not found any credible information to substantiate the allegations,” the statements said.

     

  • johnpi 10:42 am on February 11, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , , , US military

    Pentagon quietly explores de-citizenship of US citizen terrorists.

    At the highest levels of the US military, a quiet discussion is going on about putting in place a legal framework that would permit the US government to strip American citizenship from terrorists.

    The case of Las Cruces, New Mexico born al Qaeda commander Anwar al-Aulaqi, who has been a key organizer and recruiter for the terrorist organization in Yemen is the primary driver of this exploration of possibly modifying US law to allow “de-citizening.”

    As the Washington Post’s Dana Priest recently revealed, al-Alaqi was added recently to a short list of other Americans for whom there are kill orders in place.

    A senior Member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has told me that to his knowledge, there has been no serious discussion in the Committee of stripping US citizenship from terrorists, but a senior Pentagon official has confirmed that some in the military are exploring the upsides and downsides of such a more routenized mechanism for stripping citizenship.

     

  • johnpi 10:37 pm on February 8, 2010 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , US military

    An experienced military trainer who taught US Army soldiers about his Muslim faith has been suspended from working on military bases pending a continuing criminal inquiry, according to a report in the Dallas Morning News.

    The [Louay] Safi affair reveals the deep divisions within the U.S. government over how to combat terrorism and over what constitutes moderate Islam.

    Some believe insight into Islamist thinking can be gained only by engaging a wide range of people in North America’s close-knit Muslim community, where leaders may well have ties to extremists – ties that do not necessarily signal alliances or support. Others argue that engagement should be limited or shunned to avoid legitimizing radicals or embarrassing the government.

    Safi is a senior official of the Islamic Society of North America, the country’s largest Muslim organization. ISNA has been consulted for years by Washington and is described as a partner in the fight against terrorism. In addition to serving as ISNA’s communications director, Safi runs its program certifying Muslim chaplains for work in the U.S. military and prison system. He publicly denounces terrorism and advocates peace.
    ….

    “You have a schizophrenic government and a schizophrenic institution,” Zelikow said, referring to ISNA. “The schizophrenia cuts right into how the government views the whole Fort Hood affair. We don’t know whether to treat him [Hasan] as part of an international conspiracy or as a lone wolf who happened to have gotten solace from a radical imam.”

     

  • johnpi 1:47 pm on February 3, 2010 | 6 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , US military

    More info on that blast in Pakistan this morning that killed 3 US soldiers outside a girls school that was celebrating opening day.

    Two US army trainers were also amongst the 131 wounded, most of who were school children. Two journalists accompanying the convoy were also wounded.
    ….

    Condemning what it called vicious terrorist bombing, a US Embassy statement said the Americans were US military personnel in Pakistan to conduct training at the invitation of the Pakistan Frontier Corps.

    They were in Lower Dir to attend the inauguration ceremony of a school for girls that had recently been renovated with US humanitarian assistance, the statement said.

    Amongst those killed were four school girls and a paramilitary soldier. “Our teacher was teaching us Islamic education when the explosion caused the roof of our class to cave in”, Samina, a 5th grade student of the school said.

    The official said that the American soldiers were trainers training the Dir Scouts of the Frontier Corps in Dir.

    “They usually wore Pakistani dress, shalwar qameez, and Chitrali caps to conceal their identity”, the official said.

    The Americans were traveling in an armoured vehicle with electronic jammers.

     

  • johnpi 8:06 am on February 3, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , US military

    Pakistan blast kills US troops, children, say local officials.

    Three U.S. soldiers traveling with Pakistan security force members were killed Wednesday and one wounded in a roadside bombing in northwest Pakistan that also injured dozens of schoolgirls, officials said.

    The soldiers were in the region as part of a small, little-publicized U.S. mission to train members of the paramilitary Frontier Corps to better fight al-Qaida and Taliban militants, Pakistan’s army said.

    The U.S. Embassy declined to comment. If the deaths are confirmed by American authorities, they would represent a major victory for militants close to the Afghan border who have been hit hard in recent months by a surge in U.S. missile strikes and a major Pakistani army offensive.

    The attack, which killed at least four other people and wounded 70, will draw attention to the presence of U.S. troops on Pakistan soil at a time when anti-American sentiment over perceived violations of sovereignty is running high. U.S. and Pakistani authorities rarely talk about the training program out of fear it could generate a backlash.

    The blast hit a convoy close to a girls’ school celebrating its opening in the Shahi Koto area of Lower Dir district, which like much of the northwest is home to al-Qaida and Taliban militants. It was unclear where the convoy was heading.

     

  • johnpi 9:47 pm on January 28, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , US military

    US troops kill Afghan cleric.

    U.S. soldiers shot and killed an Afghan cleric as he drove Thursday with his young son near an American base on the eastern edge of Kabul, underscoring the dangers facing civilians despite NATO efforts to minimize casualties.

     

  • johnpi 7:13 am on January 21, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , US military

    Muslim anger over military ‘Jesus’ scopes.

    Muslim groups reacted angrily Wednesday after it emerged that the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan were using rifle sights inscribed with coded Biblical references.

    The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) called on US Defense Secretary Robert Gates to immediately withdraw from combat use equipment found to have inscriptions of Biblical references after it emerged that Trijicon has contracts to supply over 800,000 of the sights to the US military.
    ….

    A Muslim-American soldier, who declined to be named due to fears of persecution, said he was “ashamed” and “horrified” by the writings on the gunsights of weapons he used during deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    “There are many other soldiers who feel as I do. Many are Protestant and Catholic and they fear reprisal just as much as I do for trying to stand up to the Christian bullies in uniform who outrank us,” he said in a letter dated January 14 and addressed to Weinstein and his foundation.

    The Secular Coalition for America demanded the US military end its contracts with Trijicon.

     

  • johnpi 10:37 pm on January 20, 2010 | 4 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , US military

    Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’, Kubrick’s ‘Apocalypse Now’ exemplars of the new American war policy in Afghanistan.

    A US special forces major who published a paper last fall advocating that US Special Forces “go native” has been hired to implement the idea. Major Jim Gant’s experience with “going native” was described recently in the WaPo:

    In an unusual and unauthorized pact, Gant and his men were soon fighting alongside tribesmen in local disputes and against insurgents, at the same time learning ancient tribal codes of honor, loyalty and revenge — codes that often conflicted with the sharia law that the insurgents sought to impose. But the U.S. military had no plans to leverage the Pashtun tribal networks against the insurgents, so Gant kept his alliances quiet.

    No longer. In recent months, Gant, now a major, has won praise at the highest levels for his effort to radically deepen the U.S. military’s involvement with Afghan tribes — and is being sent back to Afghanistan to do just that.

    A writer at the Small Wars Journal lit into Gant’s paper back in November:

    Where to begin? The paper is a collection of nativist mythologies that have run as a theme throughout the West’s imperial age. Last of the Mohicans? Lawrence of Arabia? Dances with Wolves? They’re in there. So is an element of Stockholm Syndrome, for that matter. The problem arises not with Lawrence, of course, but with his evil twin, Kurtz, who has already served as a symbol of colonial-era (Heart of Darkness) and modern American (Apocalypse Now) hubris.

    And if that seems like hyperbole, consider that Gant’s narrative begins with his apparently arbitrary and unilateral decision to take the side of one tribal chieftain over a rival group from within the same tribe, based solely on his gut feeling.

    Or as this blogger points out, “…going in blind and picking winners and losers actually creates insurgency, not the opposite.”

     

  • johnpi 7:54 pm on January 19, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: US military

    US Army officials said Tuesday they will investigate whether a Michigan defense contractor violated federal procurement rules by stamping references to Bible verses on combat rifle sights used by American forces to kill enemy fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    A military spokesperson tried to diminish the controversy by comparing the verses to being similar to the phrase “In God we trust” stamped on currency. TPM responds:

    …since the scopes reference passages in the New Testament, a better analogy would be if currency bore the motto “In Jesus We Trust.” That’s not to mention the symbolic weight of guns versus currency.

     

  • johnpi 4:01 pm on January 18, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , US military

    Thousands of rife scopes in use by the US military in Afghanistan and Iraq have had Bible verse references printed on them by the Christianist manufacturer.

    ABC is reporting that soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan have been using rifle scopes that bear abbreviated references to Bible verses, including lines like “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

    That verse is rendered on tiny letters on the the scopes, made by Wixom, Michigan-based Trijicon, as “2COR4:6″ referring to chapter 4, verse 6 of the Second Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians
    ….

    The company is not shy about its belief system. It confirmed to ABC that its scopes have the Biblical codes. Trijicon’s Web site even says under a section titled “Values” that, “We believe that America is great when its people are good. This goodness has been based on biblical standards throughout our history and we will strive to follow those morals.”.

    Here’s a link to see a slide show of images of the Biblical references.

     

  • johnpi 11:33 pm on January 17, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , US military

    Elite US troops ready to combat Pakistani nuclear hijacks.

    The US army is training a crack unit to seal off and snatch back Pakistani nuclear weapons in the event that militants, possibly from inside the country’s security apparatus, get their hands on a nuclear device or materials that could make one.

    The specialised unit would be charged with recovering the nuclear materials and securing them.

    The move follows growing anti-Americanism in Pakistan’s military, a series of attacks on sensitive installations over the past two years, several of which housed nuclear facilities, and rising tension that has seen a series of official complaints by US authorities to Islamabad in the past fortnight.

    “What you have in Pakistan is nuclear weapons mixed with the highest density of extremists in the world, so we have a right to be concerned,” said Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a former CIA officer who used to run the US energy department’s intelligence unit. “There have been attacks on army bases which stored nuclear weapons and there have been breaches and infiltrations by terrorists into military facilities.”

     

  • johnpi 9:00 am on January 14, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , US military

    Republican senators urge special screening procedures for Muslim soldiers.

    The committee spokesperson suggested some conduct that, ipso facto, makes someone an ‘Islamist extremist.’

    The letter did not spell out what such warning signs might be, but committee spokeswoman Leslie Phillips said they could include viewing jihadi websites or reading jihadi literature.

    They could also include making statements that a service member’s loyalty is to fellow Muslims first and to the United States second, or that Muslim-American soldiers have a religious obligation not to fight in conflicts against Muslims and to disobey any related orders, she said.

     

  • johnpi 11:49 am on January 13, 2010 | 2 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , US military

    Rabbi seeks US Army waiver of beard policy to become chaplain.

    Rabbi Menachem Stern wears a beard for religious reasons.

    Originally he was informed that the Accession Board had approved him, but then he received a phone call saying that the approval was an error because he could not enlist while wearing a beard.

    Apparently the chaplaincy branch is willing to have Stern wear a beard, but the Army’s chief of personnel along with the chief of staff object. Rabbi Sandy Dresin, executive director of chaplains at the Aleph Institute, says that currently there is a shortage of Jewish chaplains in the military. He says that the 8 Jewish chaplains in the Army could be doubled if the Army relented on its policy on beards.

    This case has obvious significance for Muslims who believe wearing a beard is mandated.

     

  • johnpi 10:14 am on January 2, 2010 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , US military

    2009 was deadliest year for U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

     

  • johnpi 5:00 pm on December 30, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , US military,

    US military readying to launch a retaliatory strike for Christmas Day suicide attack on passenger jet, if Obama orders one.

    The US also now has an agreement with the Yemeni government that it can fly cruise missiles, fighter jets and unmanned drones anywhere over the country with the consent of the government.

    Some details remain to be worked out:

    One of the officials said Yemen has not yet consented to the type of special forces helicopter-borne air assault that would put U.S. commandos on the ground with the mission of capturing suspects for further interrogation.

     

  • johnpi 11:19 am on December 30, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , US military,

    Karzai says foreign troops massacred teenagers and two adults in Kunar province.

    “A unit of international forces descended from a plane in the Narang district of Kunar province and took 10 people from three homes, eight of them school students in grades six, nine and 10, one of them a guest, the rest from the same family, and shot them dead,” the statement said, quoting the head of the investigating team.

    The investigation was headed by Asadaullah Wafa, an advisor to Karzai and a former governor of Kunar province.

    Politics may be involved.

    “When this story first broke, the local officials were adamant that they were all Taliban” until several members of parliament from the area called Karzai, the NATO official said.

    Whether true or not, it’s great recruiting propaganda for martyrs the world over.

     

  • johnpi 10:35 am on December 30, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , , , , US military, , ,

    Abdulmutallab praised the 9/11 attacks as a teenager.

    The bomber also praised the 9/11 terrorist attacks when he was a teenager, telling one schoolfriend they were “an act of war”. The unnamed friend said: “We were talking about 9/11. I was saying under no circumstances could it ever be OK to kill all those innocent people. He was much more equivocal.

    “He called 9/11 an act of war – American troops were on Saudi soil and had humiliated Muslim countries so these actions might be necessary. That’s the only time I had an argument with him.”

    US troops were invited into Saudi Arabia by the royal family. There is precedent for making military alliances with Western nations. No less an authority than Ibn Abd al-Wahhab (Mr. Wahhabism) and Ibn Saud entered into an offensive alliance with the English to help bring down the Ottoman empire, since it was unconscionable to them as ethnic supremacists that a Turk could be considered equal to an Arab, let alone govern Arabs. “Abd al-Wahhab was, in part reacting to the old ethnocentric belief tht only Arabs can represent the one true and authentic Islam.”

    You can’t condemn one and not the other without being a hypocrite, but hypocrisy was never a problem for Wahhabis:

    While consistently condemning non-Muslim influences and rejecting any form of cooperation with the West, in reality the Wahhabis were incited and supported by English colonialists to rebel against the Ottomans, which effectively meant that Wahhabis sided with non-Muslim Englishmen against their Muslim Ottoman enemies. Moreover, while condemning all forms of nationalism as an evil Western invention, in reality Wahhabism was a pro-Arab nationalistic movement that rejected Turkish dominance over Arabs under the guise of defending the one true Islam.

     

  • johnpi 11:02 am on December 28, 2009 | 2 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , US military,

    The US has opened up a “third front” against Al Qaeda in Yemen.

    Citing an unnamed former top CIA official, the newspaper said that a year ago the Central Intelligence Agency sent many field operatives with counterterrorism experience to the country.

    At the same time, some of the most secretive special operations commandos have begun training Yemeni security forces in counterterrorism tactics, the report said.

    The Pentagon will be spending more than 70 million dollars over the next 18 months, and using teams of special forces, to train and equip Yemeni military, Interior Ministry and coast guard forces, more than doubling previous military aid levels, the paper noted.

    US blogger volunteers for the soon-to-be-opened British front in the GWOT.

     

  • johnpi 6:46 pm on December 25, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , US military

    Afghanistan: Marines move in to stop Taliban infiltrating from Pakistan.

    As part of Obama’s Afghanistan war surge, some 9,000 marines are moving into small Afghan towns near the border to stop Taliban soldiers and supplies coming from Pakistan. The view from this new front.

    Also: The Taliban blew up three more schools today in Pakistan.

     

  • johnpi 10:05 am on December 22, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , US military

    A report on why Bush’s ‘enhanced interrogation’ program failed.

    The section heads pretty well summarize the report.

    I. TORTURE DOES NOT YIELD ACCURATE INTELLIGENCE
    • Military, intelligence experts: Info from enhanced techniques is unreliable
    • The interrogations of Zubaydah and KSM: Enhanced techniques produced no actionable intelligence
    • Enhanced interrogations led to false claims of Iraq/Al Qaeda link

    II. TORTURE MAKES AMERICANS LESS SAFE
    • Enhanced interrogations recruits terrorists
    • Enhanced interrogations puts American soldiers at risk
    • Enhanced interrogations ruin credibility of intelligence agencies
    • Enhanced interrogations strain alliances
    • Interrogations ruined America’s moral authority
    • Enhanced interrogations makes terrorists unprosecutable

    III. HISTORICAL LESSONS CAUTION AGAINST ENHANCED TECHNIQUES
    • Enhanced techniques derived from ineffective communist tactics

     

  • johnpi 8:10 pm on December 21, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , US military

    US forces mounted secret Pakistan raids in hunt for al-Qaida.

    A former Nato officer said the incursions, only one of which has been previously reported, occurred between 2003 and 2008, involved helicopter-borne elite soldiers stealing across the border at night, and were never declared to the Pakistani government.

     

  • johnpi 9:19 am on December 16, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , US military

    The other Afghan surge – New troops will be accompanied by up to 56,000 new ‘private contractors.’

     

  • johnpi 10:43 am on December 15, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , US military

    US military and intelligence officials think the real reason that the Pakistani military won’t go after the Quetta shura and militants in North Waziristan is that such actions would escalate what is already a “low-grade conflict” within the military into a civil war.

    “Even if he wanted to moved against Haqqani, I think General Kiyani is concerned the move will spark the nationalist elements of the Army and ISI [the Inter-Services Intelligence] to side with the pro-Islamists, and spark a civil war within the military,” said a senior US intelligence official contacted by The Long War Journal.

    There is already a low-grade conflict within the military and intelligence services over the Pakistani Army’s move against the Mehsud branch of the Taliban in South Waziristan and the tribal areas.

    “The reality is the Taliban have been able to successfully conduct attacks against secured targets, particularly GHQ [Army General headquarters] in Rawalpindi, because they’ve had inside help,” the official continued. “The military at least can say the TTP [the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan led by Hakeemullah Mehsud] is conducting attacks against Pakistan; Kiyani can’t make that argument with the Haqqanis or the Quetta Shura. It would be a bridge too far.”

     

  • johnpi 7:46 pm on December 14, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , US military

    Drumbeat goes on.

    The top US military commander has said he is increasingly concerned about the threat posed by Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters sheltering on the Pakistani side of the Afghan border.

    Speaking on a visit to Afghanistan on Monday, Admiral Mike Mullen said violence in Afghanistan was likely to get worse before it gets better, with fighters holding the upper hand across about a third of Afghan provinces.

    “I remain deeply concerned by the growing level of collusion between the Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda and other extremist groups taking refuge across the border in Pakistan,” he told reporters in Kabul.

     

  • johnpi 7:16 pm on December 14, 2009 | 3 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , , , US military

    Refreshing honesty from the Pakistani military.

    Demands by the United States for Pakistan to crack down on the strongest Taliban warrior in Afghanistan, Siraj Haqqani, whose fighters pose the biggest threat to American forces, have been rebuffed by the Pakistani military, according to Pakistani military officials and diplomats.

    The Obama administration wants Pakistan to turn on Mr. Haqqani, a longtime asset of Pakistan’s spy agency who uses the tribal area of North Waziristan as his sanctuary. But, the officials said, Pakistan views the entreaties as contrary to its interests in Afghanistan beyond the timetable of President Obama’s surge, which envisions drawing down American forces beginning in mid-2011.
    ….

    The demands have been accompanied by strong suggestions that if the Pakistanis cannot take care of the problem, including dismantling the Taliban leadership based in Quetta, Pakistan, then the Americans will by resorting to broader and more frequent drone strikes in Pakistan.

    But the Pakistanis have greeted the refrain with official public silence and private anger, illustrating the widening gulf between the allies over the Afghan war.

    Because the Pakistani military would like to have their own proxy, easily controllable government in Afghanistan – but for some reason we don’t call Pakistani meddling in Afghanistan foreign interference.

     

  • johnpi 10:37 am on December 9, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , US military

    The built environment of the US military will probably leave the greatest urban footprint on the land of Afghanistan since Mongol descendant Timur the Lame conquered much of western and central Asia in the 14th century.

     

  • johnpi 11:18 am on December 6, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , Saudi intelligence agency, , , US military

    US in back-channel negotiations with the Afghan Taliban.

    The ISI and Saudi intelligence agency are facilitating.

     

  • johnpi 10:12 pm on December 4, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Afghan refugee camps, , , , , , , , US military

    Invasion ‘lite.’

    Pakistani analysts express concern about US escalation into Pakistan – both drones and US troops – during next summer’s fighting season.

    With the Afghan winter traditionally making guerrilla warfare harder, there is effectively one fighting season left – the summer of 2010 – before US troops may start to scale down.

    Pakistan analysts say that next summer US military planners primed for war may get increasingly frustrated they cannot bring the battle to a Taliban just sitting across the border.

    ‘In that survival game, the Taliban may cross into Pakistan. Now there is a timetable, they might just avoid combat,’ said Tanvir Ahmed Khan, a former Pakistani foreign secretary and now chairman of the Institute of Strategic Studies.

    ‘If that comes true, the Americans would be really tempted to go after them at a scale we haven’t seen before, mostly likely with drones and perhaps also with special operations.’

    Related: US diplomat escalates accusations about Al Qaeda presence in Pakistan.

    A senior US diplomat on Friday went a step further than restating Washington’s assertion about the presence of Taliban shura in Quetta and insisted that some Al Qaeda leadership could also be there.

    Pakistan authorities are also worried that the likely areas where any action would take place are high-population refugee camps.

     

  • johnpi 6:57 am on November 13, 2009 | 29 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , US military

    Afghanistan women leaders – business owners, politicians, educators, school teachers, service providers – unanimously do not want NATO forces to pull out of the country.

    While Afghans wait to hear whether President Obama will indeed decide to send more troops to their soil, one group is watching especially closely: the nation’s women leaders, who worry about what comes next—and whether they will be able to hold on to the gains they have made since the international community flooded Afghanistan with dollars and development programs seven years ago. While they are not certain that additional boots on the ground are the answer to the grave problems facing their nation, these women say they are eager to see the Americans renew – rather than retreat from – their commitment to Afghanistan.
    ….

    Even while some political activists and pundits in Washington and London sound the call for a full troop withdrawal, women here argue that a complete pullback would only exacerbate the battery of formidable problems plaguing their struggling nation. Though nearly all say the international community could have done a far better job in securing a teetering Afghanistan, where practically every citizen can now rattle off a personal tale of corruption, few women say they believe foreign forces should go.

    In a series of conversations with a dozen women leaders spanning a range of sectors, from health care to business to politics, some of whom rarely speak to journalists, the consensus was that existing troops must stay for now—if only because things would be far worse were they to leave. Insecurity would rise, the Taliban would gain power, and women and girls would immediately lose ground.

     

  • johnpi 2:15 pm on November 11, 2009 | 14 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: 'Islam under siege', , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , US military, , ,

    Pakistani magazine article: The Saudi-isation of Pakistan.

    Soldiers, policemen, factory and hospital workers, mourners at funerals and ordinary people praying in mosques have all been reduced to globs of flesh and fragments of bones. But, perhaps paradoxically, in spite of the fact that the dead bodies and shattered lives are almost all Muslim ones, few Pakistanis speak out against these atrocities. Nor do they approve of the army operation against the cruel perpetrators of these acts because they believe that they are Islamic warriors fighting for Islam and against American occupation. Political leaders like Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan have no words of solace for those who have suffered at the hands of Islamic extremists. Their tears are reserved exclusively for the victims of Predator drones, even if they are those who committed grave crimes against their own people. Terrorism, by definition, is an act only the Americans can commit.
    ….

    Villages have changed drastically; this transformation has been driven, in part, by Pakistani workers returning from Arab countries. Many village mosques are now giant madrassas that propagate hard-line Salafi and Deobandi beliefs through oversized loudspeakers. They are bitterly opposed to Barelvis, Shias and other sects, who they do not regard as Muslims. The Punjabis, who were far more liberal towards women than the Pukhtuns, are now beginning to take a line resembling that of the Taliban. Hanafi law has begun to prevail over tradition and civil law, as is evident from the recent decisions of the Lahore High Court.
    ….

    Pakistan’s self-inflicted suffering comes from an education system that, like Saudi Arabia’s system, provides an ideological foundation for violence and future jihadists. It demands that Islam be understood as a complete code of life, and creates in the mind of a school-going child a sense of siege and embattlement by stressing that Islam is under threat everywhere.

     

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