The disgrace of five million government emails "missing"

I’m still trying to internalize how five million White House emails could have gone "missing." (See last Thursday's entry.) If a hacker had gotten into the White House and destroyed five million emails it would have been a national crisis and an embarrassment to the administration. If a saboteur has gotten into the White House emails and destroyed messages, it would have been a national scandal.

Those files are secured in a multitude of ways: how could they just go "missing"? This “disappearance” had to have been done by someone in the employ of the White House, someone with many levels of clearance. So, an employee of the US government somehow “lost” or destroyed five million emails?

It is unthinkable that a government employee would have done such an act without authorization. There had to have been levels of responsibility in this action – not only whoever did it but whoever authorized it, and whoever ordered it. Can we imagine anyone doing such a thing without authorization from the highest echelons of government? There had to have been at least several individuals aware that government emails, contrary to law, were going "missing".

This is a disgrace. And to my amazement scarcely anyone seems to have noticed.

Comment:
Hannah said...
i have been reading through some of your older articles (i'd fallen behind), and i saw your article from 27 August about Anna Politkovskaya. Like you said, there are many other journalists in danger. Our vet's son was killed in Almaty in 1997, ostensibly in a bungled robbery, of course. i had forgotten about him until just a few days ago... it brings home the danger journalists face across the globe.http://www.internews.org/articles/1990s/19970118_washpost_gehring.shtm

Email Disappearances Reminiscent of Nixon Tapes, Only Much Worse

I am appalled at the news that the White House, spitting in the face of the law, would delete 5 million emails. It is hard to grasp, hard to imagine, that such an act of sabotage would be done by our own administration. You can't delete 5 million emails easily -- it's not 19 minutes of the tape that somehow gets wiped clean several times, a la the Nixon administration. One more time, when I think it could not get worse, it gets worse. What is to become of this country when its own administration flouts the law? John Adams said that this country is a country of laws and not of men -- apparently, no longer so.
RLC


Archive Sues to Recover 5 Million Missing White House E-mails
The National Security Archive

"The National Security Archive today sued the White House seeking the recovery and preservation of more than 5 million White House e-mail messages that were apparently deleted from White House computers between March 2003 and October 2005."
"White House officials ... have acknowledged ... that e-mail is missing from the White House archive, and that the [Executive Office of the President] in 2002 abandoned the electronic records management system put in place by the Clinton White House."
"Whistleblowers ... have alleged that more than 5 million e-mail messages are missing from the White House servers. 'The Bush White House broke the law and erased our history by deleting those e-mail messages,' said National Security Archive director Tom Blanton. 'The period of the missing email starts with the invasion of Iraq and runs through the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.' "

Click on the title for the whole article

An Addendum to comments by "Afghanistanica"

“C,” who runs the blog “Afghanistanica” has written some nice notes about my work. As I could find no way to add a comment on that blog I will place my comment here, in hopes that “C”, a graduate student somewhere, will see it.

He notes that it is hard for folks in Afghanistan to get access to materials written about that country, and of course he is right. This is why I have tried to put as much material of my own on the web. The easiest way to get access to them is to go to my “home” page [http://artsci.wustl.edu/~canfrobt/home.html] where there are links to my publications and recent writings, some of which are not yet published. I have put most of these works on the web specifically for anyone in Afghanistan who might want to see them.

He also says that some of his Afghan friends are surprised that any non-Hazara would be writing about the Hazaras. They claim to know Mousavi’s work but clearly have not read it, as Mousavi gives a lot of attention to the work of many others who have written on the Hazaras. “C” cites many works that anyone interested in Afghanistan would want to see. To his list I have a few additions.
• Two short articles by me on the Hazaras have just been published this summer: “Recollections of a Hazara wedding in the 1930s” and “Trouble in Birgilich” [In: Jeff Sahadeo and Russell Zanca (eds), Everyday Life in Central Asia. Bloomington: Indiana University].
• The most important monograph on the Hazaras to have been published in many years is Alessandro Monsutti, War and Migration: Social Networks and Economic Strategies of the Hazaras of Afghanistan, Middle East Studies: History, Politics, and Law, translated by Patrick Camiller (New York / London : Routledge, 2005). My adulatory review will soon appear in Iranian Studies.
• Another important work – embellished with many fine pictures and maps -- that gives a lot of attention to Hazaras has just been published, Klaus Ferdinand, Afghan Nomads: Caravans, Conflicts and Trade in Afghanistan and British India 1800-1980. The Carlsberg Foundation’s Nomad Research Project, vol. 11. Rhodos, 2006. Ferdinand has published studies on the Hazaras that are now classic, and much of that material is reproduced or updated here; his death before the book could be published deprives us of one of the great authorities on Afghanistan. Of course the main preoccupation of the book is Pushtun nomads, a topic on which Ferdinand and other Danish anthropologists have made major contributions for years. My appreciative review will appear in Journal of Asian Studies.
• For those who are interested, another work directly bearing on Afghanistan soon to appear is edited by Robert Crews and Amin Tarzi, entitled The Taliban and the Crisis of Afghanistan (Harvard University Press) http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/CRETAL.html ; my contribution to it is called “Fraternity, power, and time in Central Asia.”

Also, several of us have a book on Central Asia under review that has a number of articles on Afghanistan.

A late addendum to this post, added a few days later:
I should have included the work of Harpviken in the above list. This is one of the most valuable recent contribution to Hazara studies:
Kristian Berg Harpviken, "Political Mobilization among the Hazara of Afghanistan: 1978-1992," (Oslo:Institutt for Sosiologi, Universistetet i Oslo (M.A. Thesis, 1986).

Envoy's Letter Counters Bush on Dismantling of Iraq Army

By Edmund Andrews

New York Times



"A previously undisclosed exchange of letters shows that President Bush was told in advance by his [L. Paul Bremer] in May 2003 of a plan to “dissolve Saddam’s military and intelligence structures,” a plan that ... referred to dismantling the Iraqi Army."
"Mr. Bremer provided the letters to The New York Times on Monday after reading that Mr. Bush was quoted in a new book [Dead Certain] as saying that American policy had been 'to keep the army intact' but that it 'didn’t happen.' "
"The dismantling of the Iraqi Army ... stoked rebellion among hundreds of thousands of former Iraqi soldiers and made it more difficult to reduce sectarian bloodshed ... In releasing the letters, Mr. Bremer said he wanted to refute the suggestion in Mr. Bush’s comment that Mr. Bremer had acted to disband the army without the knowledge and concurrence of the White House."

Click on the title for the whole article



Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush


Robert Draper, a former senior editor for the Texas Monthly, has authored a new book on the Bush presidency, entitled "Dead Certain." In addition to six interviews with the President, Draper also interviewed outgoing White House adviser Karl Rove, Vice President Dick Cheney, Laura Bush, and many senior White House and administration officials. Bush tells Draper that his Iraq strategy is to "get us in a position where the presidential candidates will be comfortable about sustaining a presence," and, he said later, "stay longer." Some other highlights from the book: Rove told Bush he should not tap Cheney for Vice President; Bush hopes to make a lot of cash delivering speeches after his presidency is over; Bush "can't remember" one of the biggest mistakes in post-war Iraq; the White House staff, including Dan Bartlett and Rove, were "constantly at war" with one another; and Bush cries a lot.

Comment:
Anonymous said...
If there is one thing that we can count on our president for, its lying. I'm very angry by what I've read here. But shocked? No I am sorry to say that I am not surprised at all. Keep up the good work Bob and Tom, I for one am grateful!

Spinning the Facts in Advance of the Iraq Progress Report

The Progress Report: Snow Job Summer
by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, and Matt Corley
Center for American Progress Action Fund

"With its report due to Congress in just one week, the Bush administration has used the month of August to mobilize its ... allies to spin the facts on the ground and create a false impression of progress in Iraq. The administration has watered down ... reports that undercut ... claims of ... progress. It has also arranged highly-orchestrated congressional delegation trips for conservative lawmakers who come back heralding President Bush's policies, even though they never leave the Green Zone and are often on the ground for less than a day. With all these attempts to create the appearance of success, it's no surprise that the administration plans to use Gen. David Petraeus's testimony before Congress next week to claim that escalation is working. As the Center for American Progress has argued ... Iraq is currently engaged in multiple internal conflicts that American military power cannot resolve."

Click on the title for the whole article

The news that does not lie

We are now in the period in which the “surge” in particular and the progress of the war in Iraq generally is to be evaluated in Washington. But without embellishment, some statistics will tell a tale that the American administration are unlikely to mention:
• American military killed in Iraq in August, 85 (up from 36 in the same month in 2003);
• Iraq civilians killed in the same month, 2,500;
• civilians “newly displaced” in August, 80,000. [NYTimes 9/4/07].
Whatever the rhetoric will be, the numbers tell a tragic story.

And if we want similarly empirical indications of how it’s going in Afghanistan and Pakistan, consider these conditions:
• several hundred Pakistani troops are now being held hostage (kidnapped) by pro-Taliban tribesmen in Pakistan’s tribal areas;
• and just today [9/4/07] two different bomb blasts in the garrison city of Rawalpindi (“a military zone”) have killed more than two dozen people. Click on the title for this article.

Not only are the political figures creating an unsettled situation in Pakistan, the military – always before the one stable and stabilizing institution in the country -- seems unready and unprepared for an insurgency posed against it from within. The military have been so focused on India and the dispute over Kashmir that they have failed to notice that the Islamists in the tribal areas whom they have cultivated as cannon fodder for war with India have turned against them. They have not minded that the Islamists were attacking folks inside Afghanistan, but now they are attacking folks in Pakistan – not only civilians but the military itself in its own territory.


Comment:

Anonymous said...
Prof. Canfield - Do you think that this could represent a real break in the alliance between the Army as an institutional power and the jihadis in the FATA, even in Kashmir?
Also, to what degree do you think the Pashtun officer corps in the Pakistani Army is politicized and Islamicized? For instance, would a sustained offensive in the FATA by the Pakistani Army be viewed as an ethnic affront by Pashtun officers? I have read in Jamestown that Pashtuns constitute "between 15-22% among officers and between 20-25% among the regular rank-and-file". What is your sense on this issue?
Jamestown article: http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2370188

Tequila

Response to Tequila:

As to the second question, I think there is no doubt that the offensive in the tribal areas did create a crisis for many in the military -- certainly it did for the Pushtuns in the army, who are well represented in the army, as the Jamestown aritlce by Abbass indicates. We can only feel for how horrible it must be to be asked to turn your weapons against your own relatives and friends.

As to the first question, it seems evident that there are many worrisome fissures in Pakistan society now. The army and the Islamists fought in the Red mosque, Islamabad, and the break seems all the more evident in the recent attack in Rawalpindi.

Thanks for your comment.

Girls, Women Trafficked in Asia for Commercial Sex Work Emerging as HIV/AIDS Risk

by Anuradha Bhattacharjee
Development Gateway Foundation

"Young women and girls in Asia who are trafficked for commercial sex work are emerging as an HIV/AIDS risk factor, according to a report released by the United Nations Wednesday at the 8th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific ... An estimated 8.6 million people living in the Asia-Pacific region are HIV-positive.
... The report ... focused on the estimated 150,000 to 2000,000 people from South Asia trafficked and forced into labor annually, usually as sex workers
... the number represents only 50% of the people who are trafficked in all of Asia.

Click on the title for the whole article.


Comments:
FemFatal said...
As a student of women's issues, I have been repeatedly saddened by the U.N.'s half-hearted attempts to fight the trafficking of women in Asia. I have become a subscriber to the belief that nations will only act in their self-interest and that until the trafficking of women becomes a significant problem for the nations involved, no serious effort to thwart these crimes will take place. While your latest post about the spread of AIDS through trafficking worries me, I also can't help but wonder, will the spread of AIDS wake up the governments in some of these countries to take serious action against trafficking? Could this be, dare I say, a blessing in disguise?

The U.S. Counter-propaganda Failure in Iraq

Andrew Garfield of the Middle East Quarterly provides us with a helpful analysis of the situation in Iraq. Unfortunately, like virtually every other report about the site, other than that of the administration -- which has a clear interest in how the picture is presented -- the picture is grim. Still, better to know the truth than to live with an invented fantasy. The public has been given idealistic assessments for too long.

"Defeat of the insurgency and terrorism in Iraq requires not only a military approach but also a political component ... To defeat the insurgency, coalition forces must persuade the Iraqi population to reject extremism and deny safe haven to those fighting the new Iraqi political order. This will require dialogue, inducements, and the proportionate use of force to win the battle for 'hearts and minds' ... the insurgents and militia groups are adept at releasing timely messages to undermine support for the Iraqi government ... They are quick to exploit coalition failures and excesses ... To show their prowess, the insurgents often distribute sophisticated videos of an attack on coalition troops within hours of the operation ...
... Coalition information operations are a shadow of their opponents. While the coalition has spent a hundred million dollars on advertising in Iraq, the strategy of re-awarding huge contracts to advertising firms ... who cannot demonstrate effective audience penetration is questionable.
...Too often, the coalition has used democracy promotion, citizenship, legitimacy of the Iraqi security forces, or demonization of the insurgents as their major themes. None of these, however, have direct relevance for most Iraqis.
... a counter-propaganda campaign ... should extol the virtues of the Iraqi government and the coalition and bolster morale shaken by three years of violence while also highlighting the insurgency's vices.

Betrayal of trust

Bill Moyers has pointed out that even while Karl Rove "asked God to bless the president and the country, ... reports were circulating that he himself had confessed to friends his own agnosticism; he wished he could believe, but he cannot." So the great political strategist is indeed only that: he is ready to manipulate the good Christian people on the right for political ends.

Few trends are more worrisome than the uses now being made of biblical terms and images in politics. Politicians deliberately and calculatedly proclaim their devotion to God. Would that it were true! – at least would that an authentic appreciation of the biblical texts as they are would be reflected in the discernment and wisdom of those who lead. The NIV translation of Psalms 139:20 reads, referring to God, “They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name.” Even people who know nothing about the Bible or have no use for it consider the new prominence of religious claims in politics to be cynical, like the Psalmist here. We are all disgusted by the pious use of grand moralistic rhetoric for insidious and self serving ends. As it happens, I find the policies and practices of the current administration unwise, shamefull, and frightening. Who can deny by this time that they have led our country into disaster? Already we don't know how to help those faithful Iraqis who have supported our activities and now must flee for their lives.

Administrations do blunder of course, like us all, but the absence of wisdom in this administration can be attributed to human qualities (arrogance, obstinacy, if not deliberate ignorance) that no one would consider moral, much less “Christian.”

So what will my dear friends on the Christian right feel as they discover they have been used for partisan reasons by a skeptic, a secular manipulator? Indeed, hardly any of those in this administration appear to be "believers". This is why the neo-cons in this administration have no moral qualms about legalizing the torture of prisoners in American care.

It is hard to understand why so many good, upright Americans have been willing to accept the justifications given by this administration for abusing human rights and misrepresenting the truth, as it has done over and over again. As time goes by we are going to find out that many of those who shaped American policy were nothing other than political manipulators -- managing the goodwill of the American public. Most Americans, like people everywhere else, are busy with their own problems. At least in the democracies, people can leave the management of state affairs to those whom they have elected for that purpose.

Few people have the time or inclination to follow precisely what leaders are actually doing; they accept their leaders by faith. What this American public is going to discover over time is that they have been betrayed over and over again. They will discover betrayal as they find out about many others besides Karl Rove who have manipulated their good will: Ralph Reed, Senator Larry Craig, Paul Wolfowitz, and many others in this administratin who have insisted on making false claims in the face of truth (Cheney), framed policy without doing the necessary homework (Rumsfeld, Bush), and placed our faithful military personnel into impossible situations at the risk of their own lives.

Even the Republication leaders are appalled at the enlarging pile of mess-ups. As Scott Reed put it in his recent critique of his own Republican party, "no one could make this up."

Good news: the hostages are being released by the Taliban.

The agreement came after direct talks between representatives of the Taliban and the Korean government. The release of the hostages was conditional upon withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan this year and a termination of missionary activities. The Korean government was already planning to withdraw its troops by the end of this year. In fact, it will be a loss to the Afghanistan people because those “troops” were mostly engineers and medical workers. As for the sending of missionaries, that part of the agreement is ambiguous because the government does not send missionaries: Is the Korean government going to restrict individuals from leaving Korea to do missionary work?. A spokesman has said, "The hostages will be released, but the conditions are not as clear cut as that."

Click on the title to see the Al Jazeera report on the release.

The advancing cancer: the betrayal of whistleblowing

We are all familiar with high-sounding ideals – like we should reward whistle-blowers. But when it comes to actually putting such clichés into practice, it seems not to be working out as we think it does [or should]. Here is one more case in which the costs of whistleblowing these days have become devastating. Too bad for the individual involved. Too bad, also, for all of us, because in the long run the costs of allowing fraud and deception to go unexposed will bring all integrity in our society to an end. Then the fabric of integrity that enables this country to function, for all its high-sounding appearances, will be fatally weakened.

Click on the title for one example.

Seventy-two million dollar salary for “a useless pile of rubble”

Rolling Stone has an article about the Bush contacts who have made huge amounts of money in Iraq while our troops and thousands of Iraqis are fighting a war. A small group of well-placed friends are walking away from this fiasco with unconscionable amounts of personal cash. More shame. The American administration has piled shame upon shame in the last 6 years.

Click on the title for the documented source.

The killers of Anna Politkovskaya found?

BBC is reporting that ten people have been arrested in Russia over the murder of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Many of us have suspected – of course without a shred of evidence ourselves – that President Putin could have had a hand in her murder, since she was a persistent critic of his war in Chechnya. That there is any movement on the case surprises some of us [cynical as we are]. Let hope that the real criminals are found and punished. Anna Politkovskaya has to be one of the heroes of the journalism community – but of course she was only one of hundreds who have been killed because of their attempts to confront the extant systems of power. She was notable because she seemed to be undaunted, un-awed, by the imperious power of the Russian state.

Click on the title for the whole article.

The Pakistani cabal

Nothing reveals more clearly how small the cabal that runs Pakistan is than the private deals being made between Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto. The two act as if it were merely a matter of their coming to an agreement and then they will pull it off. And they will call it a democratic process. The Chief Justice’s move to allow Nawaz Sharif to return as well as Bhutto is a finger in the eye of both Musharraf and Bhutto. But the prospect that Bhutto and Sharif – both of whom have stayed outside of Pakistan in part because they are subject to trial for corruption – will via for control of Parliament further reveals how small the circle of “deciders” is in Pakistan. It is as if the “key three” – Musharraf, Bhutto, Sharif – will work out what to do among themselves and so resolve how to manage the affairs of that strategically important nuclear-powered country. So how many – or how few – key people actually have their hands on the mechanisms of power in that country? It seems only too evident that Pakistan has been and is being managed by a tiny group of elite folks acting in their best interest and calling it a kind of democracy.

This helps us to understand the strange contradiction: On the one hand this small cabal can manage affairs for the whole country among themselves; on the other hand, they lack the resources to find Osama Bin Laden. At least so they say.

For a late assessment of the situation click on the title.

Twice or thrice displaced Palestinians, still without a home.

Robert S. Eshelman has pointed out that as many as several hundred Palestinians have been forced to flee Iraq because of the war there, forcing them to arrive back home with no place to stay. Currently they are in a refugee camp. Whereas they have lived for many years in Iraq, apparently rather comfortably, now they are living in tents. Those in one camp survive only because aid organizations are providing them with water, pre-cooked meals, and other supplies. But a larger camp seems to be getting no support whatever. The Palestinian refugees from Iraq “have no nation to return to,” he says. There was a period when Iraq was a place for displaced Palestinians to flee to, but now that the Shia of Iraq have become militant they have been threatening the Palestinians, accusing them of being Wahhabis, even takfiris [refers to an extremist Islam embraced by Al Qaeda, not as Eshelman says, unbelievers], and forcing them out.
Click on the title for the whole article.

Another tragic rape: What will be the consequences?

The sad story of rape, again. One thing that would be nice to know is whether race or religious sect, as locally defined, had anything to do with it. There are Shia and Sunni and Hazara and Pushtun in Jaghori. One of the most interesting features of this story is that there seemed to be no attempt to deny the rape. In some other places, not far away, officials would have behaved differently. We all hope the two rapists will be punished. Yes, it is a shame on them and their families – all the more reason to make the story public. Unfortunately, the girl is often treated as damaged goods from here on.
Click on the title for the story.

The price of ignorance and arrogance

This comes from a recent interview reported by Josh Marshall. Ahmed Rashid, author of the famous book on the Taliban and of many other works about the course of events in Central and South Asia, has stated that the Bush administration has "actively rejected expertise and embraced ignorance." Such a statement is of course not new, at least to some of us, but the price of this truth worries me. Our highly trained professional military have paid dearly for this commitment to ignorance.

The question now is, is our government -- the administration and the congress also -- really doing any better? One has the feeling that, whereas the Bush administration has eschewed the knowledge that might enable competence, the democratic congress rushes to make decisions that are politically attractive to the American public with little regard for the long term implications. Surely the sentiment of a public, however importance it is for the political process, cannot be the ground for wise decision making about affairs on the other side of the world.

In our age, what has become of statesmanship? It is too easy to suppose that the American supremacy will continue as it has in the past. How many other great powers presumed themselves to be so secure and powerful that they did not need to care about affairs in the wider world? Or cared little what their arrogance might cost? How many of them have been wrong in the past? The United States is young by comparison with the great imperial systems of the past: Rome, the Ottomans, the Muslim empire of the 8th-10th century, the Yuan dynasty, etc. Will the modern world as we know it -- or as we think we know it -- survive without wise and competent leadership?

Click on the title for the interview and comment by Marshall.

Russia's growing clout in world affairs

The news that Russia is now sending its bombers on long-range flights as military exercises reflects the new confidence of the Putin regime. "We have decided to restore flights by Russian strategic aviation on a permanent basis," says Putin [in BBC report]. “Today Moscow's coffers are stuffed full of oil money,” says the BBC, and it wants “to show it is still a military power to reckon with.” Couple that with the July 4 report of the BBC indicating that the Russian economy is flourishing, at least the upper crust. According to the BBC retail sales rose 13% last year, well ahead of the rest of Europe. “And almost half the Russian people believe it important to be fashionably dressed.” “Last year, the number of so-called ‘high net worth individuals’ - people whose spending power exceeds $1m (£500,000) - in Russia rose 15.5%” about twice that of similar class folks around the globe. With all that wealth, Russia can afford to show that “it is still a military power to reckon with.” The strategic position of Russia – between energy hungry Europe and energy hungry China – may enable the Russian economy to continue to grow and for the country to again become a powerhouse, energy-wise if not otherwise.

Click to these sites for the full articles:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6950986.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6265068.stm

‘Islamic Creationism’: A Turkish cultural export to the Muslim world

Sami Siddiq has been following the Islamic creationism issue. He has prepared the following analysis. I thank him for allowing me to put it here; it is his work alone. RLC

Sami Siddiq
August 5, 2007

Perhaps the most prolific propagator of ‘Islamic Creationism’ active in the Muslim world today is a Turkish man who goes by the pseudonym of “Harun Yahya” (real name: Adnan Oktar). In that he claims to have published over a hundred or so ‘books’ (read tracts) it’s more than likely he is merely the front man of a much larger outfit committed to the proliferation of contemporary Muslim apologetic literature. Whatever the case may be, it does not seem that Yahya could possibly corner the market on Islamic creationist publishing without a little help from some friends.

On his web-site, www.harunyahya.com, one can find Yahya’s hostile opinions regarding almost every religion/ideology in the world other than Islam (I personally was unaware of negative Muslim views on Buddhism until I read what this fellow and his cohort had to say about it). Somehow, in every book that he ‘authors’, he manages to almost always sneak in a word (if not an entire chapter) denouncing Darwinism/ evolution. Even when the primary topic has no relation whatsoever to human evolution, Yahya finds a way to put the pieces together.

A rather deceptive ploy, used quite frequently in such writings, is the selective appropriation of testimonials/evidence against evolutionary theory in the form of outdated and disavowed concepts. Turkish creationists (dishonestly) attempt to link modern evolutionary theory with incorrect theories (such as Jean-Baptiste Lamarck’s “inheritance of acquired characteristics”) that were disputed by Charles Darwin himself or by later discoveries. The intent of such deliberate falsifications must be to confuse non-technical readers with misrepresentations of the history of evolutionary thought rather than present any scientific evidence contradicting it.

Also on exhibit in glossy pictures are the historic evils of perverted Darwinian thought such as Herbert Spencer’s “Social Darwinism” used to rationalize and thereby justify European colonialism, as well as the American Eugenics movement whose ideas were brought into practice in Nazi Germany. It is obvious here that Yahya would like us to understand that a dogmatic acceptance of natural history as interpreted by evolutionists will inevitably result in the replacement of God and morality with Science and moral relativism if not complete amorality. If godlessness alone does not frighten you, then perhaps the dread of totalitarian regimes reliant upon incredibly subjective scientific “theories” alone for legitimacy might as well do the trick.

In a similar vein, Karl Marx’s materialist view of history is also merged within this category of “fascist” evolutionism and also condemned for disastrously genocidal policies in Stalinist Russia and Maoist China. If one follows what Yahya suggests here, even Communism, a social philosophy much discredited since the end of the Cold War, which no longer provides a viable doctrine for would-be revolutionaries, is still a menace to be feared by individuals if not states. Gentle readers are ostensibly warned to heed the lessons of history and recognize the evils that Darwin’s evolutionary path may quite possibly lead to yet again.

It bears mentioning here that evolutionary thought has not always been a contentious issue of public import among Islamic societies, especially not in the latter half of the last century until quite recently. One reason for this might be the lack of scientific achievement in the Islamic world over centuries of societal stagnation, colonialism, and post-colonial mediocrity that made evolutionary theory a non-issue for mostly illiterate and impoverished Muslims. As one of the few Muslim countries to have wholeheartedly embraced a secular modernity, it would follow that it is Turkey’s Islamists who are now, rather belatedly, at the forefront in attempting to critique it.

Another explanation for this previous lack of criticism could also be that the Quran provides a much more ambiguous account of the Creation than the explicit narrative found in the Old Testament. Whereas many Jewish and Christian theologians and scientists have advocated the benefits of a less literal reading of biblical scripture, the Islamic version while not explicit, remains somewhat open to interpretation and therefore also does not necessarily have be in conflict with scientific theory. Nevertheless, a popular misunderstanding of the theory in which men supposedly descended from apes has traditionally limited public discussion and understanding.

Seen within this context, Harun Yahya is truly a pioneer of sorts, although by no means an original thinker. A comparison of books belonging to the American creationist genre and Yahya’s own corpus of works might reveal some unsettling similarities between the two in terms of the choice of selective quotation from scientific and pseudo-scientific sources. While the bibliographies may be identical, the only obvious difference one can spot is that in Yahya’s works biblical citations are replaced with quotations from the Quran.

Plagiarist or not, fending off wicked Darwinist ideas to keep them from achieving hegemonic status within Turkish public discourses happens to be his forte (more likely his only schtick). He claims to do this out of a sense of pious duty in defense of the faith. I suspect this may in reality have a lot more to do with a not so indirect critique of Turkish secularism and the overwhelming influence of the military in matters of state and society.

Feigning moral outrage over the bogeyman presented by a Darwin makes for a less threatening statement vis-à-vis the Turkish establishment than directly accusing army generals of apostasy. Instead, science professors in Turkish universities have been targeted in a campaign of defamation and demonization in which faculty have suffered harassment and blacklisting as materialists or atheists in a predominantly Muslim society. In that it is much too easy to pick on naive and unsuspecting academics for allegedly popularizing evolutionary theory in the national education system, Harun Yahya and Co. found the perfect scapegoats for their witch-hunt; from whom there is little fear of physical retribution. Now that’s the kind demagoguery people see as courageous, no doubt.

In avoiding any discussions of politics or history related to the immediate condition of Muslim world, Yahya’s creationist fashion themselves as an otherwise non-subversive, quietist movement. However, in the minds of the faithful, of which there seem to be many these days if one considers the increasingly growing role of Islam in current Turkish political trends that have empowered Islamists against the avowedly secular state safeguarded by the military. Yet despite this strategy of subtlety, Yahya and friends have frequently found themselves at the receiving end of state harassment and have been arrested on a series of charges unrelated to their publishing duties.

What is odd though is that these Islamic creationist ideas are relevant even in Muslim countries far more backwards in scientific research in relation to Turkey itself, never mind the rest of the world. Translations can be found in several languages both online and in print courtesy of regional publishing and distributor offices around the world. Although many of these affiliates are located in some of the more obvious places like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, there are several other conduits through which these books find their way to the West, e.g. France and Britain, as well as in the United States via publishers in Canada.

Most interesting (or disturbing) of all is that not only is much of the foolishness one finds in these books heavily borrowed from American creationist and ‘Intelligent Design’ literature, but the fact there is also a great deal of mutual cooperation between American and Turkish creationists. Unable to export their anti-evolutionist ideas elsewhere in the West, American creationists have found kindred spirits among Turkish Muslims who are more than happy to sample their wares.

What makes this interfaith cooperation particularly odd is that while much of humanity today finds itself in the grips of eschatological warfare in which both reactionary elements on both sides, Christian and Muslim, see themselves in civilizational struggle à la Samuel Huntington. Perhaps if Christian-Muslim dialogue could also be promoted to work towards more constructive goals for the betterment of humanity and global peace as opposed to preaching faith as a justification for trivial denial. Locating common ground between Westerners and Muslims, who are today either antagonistic or otherwise indifferent towards one another, might help to arrive at mutual respect and understanding as a befitting service to God.

For more on American-Turkish creationist cooperation, see:
http://www.pitch.com/2005-05-05/news/your-official-program-to-the-scopes-ii-kansas-monkey-trial/1

Pakistan's endemic contradictions

Ilyas Khan of BBC News has recently summarized the contradictions that have plagued Pakistan from its very beginning. For anyone unfamiliar with the issues, this is a useful summary. The issues now facing Pakistan should worry all of us because this is indeed a very dangerous society, potentially destabilized by internal strife and armed with nuclear power.

Click on the title to see the whole article.

Finally, Musharraf admits what everyone has known for a long time

The BBC report on the recent “peace jirga” convened in Kabul by President Karzai indicates that Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf acknowledged that Pakistan's tribal regions “had harboured Taleban”. But the same article also says that the the Pakistan government denies that it has been “harbouring Taleban and al-Qaeda fighters,” pointing out, as always, that it “has arrested senior militants and is battling its own Taleban threat in its tribal areas.”

Such statements exemplify the contradictions entailed in this conference: Lots of promises and high sounding ideals [the signing of a declaration calling for “the suppression of the illegal drug trade and the promotion of economic projects in their border areas”] without the establishment of effective mechanisms for actually putting these ideals into practice. We can indeed hope that this conference will indicate that a corner has been turned, but we must wait to know if anything lasting comes of it. We have seen such things before.

On the importance of getting news from the field: The New York Times and other international news sources.

Some of my friends won’t look at the NYT because it is, they say, “liberal”. My problem with that is that many of them are not otherwise availing themselves of news about the outside world, which means they merely deprive themselves of the kind of worldly information that our country and our world must have if they are to deal with the emerging new circumstances we are all caught up in. We keep on looking backwards, believing the platitudes that our country and every country tells themselves while in fact the world, through the medium of improved information technologies and ever faster and cheaper transport technologies, is getting functionally more connected – “integrated” yes, as we are often told by those who delight in the internet, but in some ways less integrated than forced together, cheek by jowl, whether we like it or not, into a set of relations with peoples whose ways of life confuse and offend us, even threaten us, even as ours confuse and threaten them. All the more reason for us to seek sources of news beyond our immediate horizons – not only because it is significant but because it might help us anticipate the real issues coming upon us, even to give us some perspective on what is happening to us now, in our own setting, that worries and offends us.

I recommend the New York Times to my friends, not because it is right all the time but because it has so many real people on the ground in so many places that their reports are as close to the real situations going on as any other news source. The bias of an editorial board needs to be distinguished from the value of empirical reports from the field. Dexter Filkin’s article a couple years ago on how difficult it was to get the “truth” of a gun battle when he went to the site exemplifies the problem folks have if they are to know what is going on in the world: there are many versions of an event, and virtually every source has a bias. So merely to read sources that have already filtered the “raw” reports from the field is no answer. Even if the sources are flawed we need to know what is going on the world. For that reason we seek access to the sources closest to situations, to learn what they see and hear. The solution to bias is not to remain ignorant: it has to be to listen as we best can to those sources closest to what is going on. The value news sources that provide “boots on the ground” is that they, if anyone, can best help us grasp what is going on in the world, even if the news is not good.

It seems significant to me that, despite many efforts otherwise by this administration, it now is admitting what the international news sources have been saying for years: the policies and actions of the American government have been disastrous for the world, also for the American people, a fact whose consequences will weigh upon my country for decades to come. It is a legacy to the next generation. As they become aware of the squandering of good will and material wealth that has taken place in the last six years, will they not condemn this generation of leaders, and even the public who elected them uncritically, ignorantly, even basking in their own ignorance? I urge upon my friends who reject the New York Times because of its reports on international news to seek other sources of empirical information so that they can be informed as they best can. This could mean going to other international news sources: The Guardian, or The Independent in Britain, Le Monde if they know French, or otherwise to make a point of looking at the best news sources around the world (Also the Washington Post, and the McClatchy papers in the U.S., which have a good reputation even though they are much smaller). Knowing that what anyone “knows” is faulty and must be rectified by continual diligence in seeking the best information from the field, none of us can depend on commentators who have scarce perception of what the rest of the world is like.

The State of Affairs in "The Good War" (Afghanistan)

Today’s NYTimes has a front page article on the situation in Afghanistan that extends onto two more full pages, with maps to illustrate the continuous decline of government control since 2001, “How the ‘good war’ in Afghanistan went bad,” by David Rohde and David E. Sanger, both of them old hands in the field. For some, who have been following the situation there, the general message is not new. It does however provide neat displays of the how bad things have gone. The article itself notes the contrast between high sounding offers of help to the Afghanistan peoples [“Marshall Plan”] and the dilatory and in fact indifferent attempts to put things in motion on the ground. The value of the article is that it gathers into one short space a summation of – again – what the administration did wrong. It ends with a statement by Henry Crumpton, who has dealt with issues there for several years, that the necessity to put American personnel on the ground to “get in at a local level and respond to people’s needs” was never recognized. “These are the fundamentals of counterinsurgency, and somehow we forgot them or never learned them.” The tragedy of all this is that this is where the real “war on terror” should have been waged and our government, for reasons that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack, focused its attention elsewhere. As a former NATO supreme commander said it, we took our eye off the ball. In the end, a failure here will multiply the disaster taking form in Iraq.

This articled appears as Sarah Chayes's new book The Punishment of Virtue is being distributed. She tells her story from a very specific location, Kandahar, and from a specific viewpoint, as an official in a local NGO. What becomes ever more clear to her is the failure of the Americans, and of the Afghanistan leaders as well, to give to the folks in that country the kind of support and responsible leadership they deserve and crave. One comes away from this book with the sense that in the end the Afghanistan peoples are being betrayed again, as they have been for so many years already. No wonder they have a long history of distrust of outsiders.

Progress against the Taliban?

A recent article in the BBC news by Alastair Leithead gives encouragement that progress is being made among the Taliban. It comes just as the news of the murder of the second Korean Christian volunteer, from among the original 23 who were captured. It is hard to believe that the Taliban, any of them, could think that they attract respect by anyone through the kidnapping of folks so obviously intent on service to the Afghanistan peoples whom the Taliban claim to represent. Nor can we believe that the murder of such prisoners by the Taliban can accomplish anything but the general opprobrium of the world.

We can only hope that Leithead’s analysis is right. We have become inured to the misrepresentations of the American administration; if a BBC analyst who has been looking closely can give us fair and unadorned positive news about the situation we may have reason to hope for things to turn around in Afghanistan.

In the mean time the news from Pakistan is far from encouraging. But we can hope that the clashes of recent days will have exposed to the Pakistani administration how risky it has been to play with fire – producing and countenancing madrassas that teach students to prepare for holy war in Kashmir (against Indians) and in Afghanistan (against Americans) while appearing to act responsibly on the international scene in George W. Bush’s “war on terror.”

Click on the title for Leithead's article

New American Embassy in Iraq: Colossal and Imperial

Faiz Shakir, Nico Pitney, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, and Matt Corley of THE PROGRESS REPORT, JULY 27, 2007, tell us that the new U.S. embassy in Iraq will open this fall: size 104 acres (about 80 football fields); cost $592 million; a staff of 4,000 people; annual operating costs $1.2 billion; builder First Kuwaiti General Trading and Contracting (FK), a foreign contractor with egregious labor abuses.

This is what they say about the abuses of First Kuwaiti:

In a hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee yesterday [7/26/07], several former managers and employees of FK reported on the conditions at the embassy, which ranged from "deplorable" living conditions to "kidnapping" of employees. Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) responded, "If what you are telling us is right, something appears to be seriously wrong with the management and oversight of this project."

Click on the title above to see the whole article

Pakistani bloggers on the rising madness

Adil Nadam and many other Pakistani bloggers are asking if Pakistan is not at war, indeed at war with itself. Yes, even if the rest of the world doesn’t notice what has happened to Pakistan, its citizens have noticed it. What can be done? The madness that has infected some in the Arab world – again, not all, and in fact probably not many, but enough to cause havoc – is infecting Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Click on the title for the whole blog.

Why The Pakistani Lawyers' are Still in Revolt

An article in the Friday times [July 20-26, 2007 - Vol. XIX, No. 22, http://www.thefridaytimes.com/20072007/page24.shtmlt] entitled “The Lawyers on Lahore’s Streets” provides some specifics on why the demonstrations against Musharraf’s government continue, even now, even though the crisis over the Taliban and extremist Islamists in the North West Frontier Province has become another major issue. The authors of the article, Asad Hashim and Sameen Khan, quote from three different lawyers involved in the demonstrations on behalf of the Chief Justice who has been removed by Musharraf for apparently spurious reasons.
Here is some of what they say:
• Mohammed Ahsan Bhoon, President of the Lahore High Court Bar Association, claims “his lifetime devotion to the law was insulted when the judicial institution was challenged in the resignation demanded of the Chief Justice.” The key issue is not the person but the office of Chief Justice that is at stake. He says the office has been ridiculed by the executive branch, which frightens him: “When the highest court is not saved, how can I, as a citizen, feel protected?”
• Salman Raja, Advocate, Supreme Court of Pakistan, says “It’s not like the Chief Justice was some kind of a paragon of virtue or brilliance.” But he was trying to do some good as well as furthering his own career, for which Raja does not fault him. The government’s accusations against the Chief Justice were trivial. In fact, he says, the judiciary has been abused and taken for granted since the days of Ayub Khan so that anger for the government’s limitations on the legal practice simply “spilled over” when the Chief Justice was accused.
• Syed Mohammad Nisar Safdar, Advocate, Lahore High Court, told the Friday times that the crisis has been brewing for sixty years: “The Chief Justice today represents the anger of the people . . . his ‘no’ is the ‘no’ of the people . . . He doesn’t even know how to make a speech. He is not a political man, but people are making him a hero because we have been asking for 60 years that the decision-making power should go back to the people and that democratic institutions should be reinstated.”
This movement is indeed serious for Pakistan: If Washington’s policy of supporting Musharraf no-matter-what turns out to enable Musharraf to hold power in the face of such public resentment then we have reason to worry what worse things are in store for Pakistan. The United States ought to be on the side of the public, especially when it is calling for a court system that has the power to enforce the constitution.

One more discouraging sign in Iraq

How serious the situation has become on the ground in Iraq is indicated by a recent request by the US ambassador in Baghdad that visas be granted to all Iraqis employed by the US Government in Iraq. He is concerned that his best help will flee the country if they have no hope of escaping to the US. Already there has been a hemorrhage of the middle class from Iraq. The worry about the loyal Iraqis working for the US government in the embassy and elsewhere for the US reveals how serious the situation is. Much as we could wish otherwise the decay of optimism among the Iraqis seems reveal a worsening situation despite the claim that the surge is working.

Click the title above for the Washington Post article.

The weaknesses of realism in Iraq and Afghanistan

The struggle in congress over what to do about Iraq – when/ how to leave – so full of posturing and pretension, reveals in fact how impossible the situation seems. Much as I have disagreed with President Bush on the conduct of affairs in the Middle East and Central Asia I can hardly disagree with him that any attempt of Americans to withdraw from Iraq simply emboldens Al Qaeda. True, no Al Qaeda existed there until his administration through misrepresentation started a pre-emptive war. But now they have an overwhelming presence. Somehow, it seems odd that the media make so much of a formal report that states the obvious: The US is worse-off than when the administration took a series of foolish moves. As Joe Biden has said it, not one move this administration has taken in the Middle East and Central Asia made sense.

But what to do? The one comfort I have is that the future eludes the human ability to predict. I have made my share of foolish predictions. So my despair about the future in Afghanistan and Iraq could be wrong. Could the situation be less hopeless than most of us see it? Could it be less dire than what we hear the politicians are saying in the corridors, if not before camera? Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac pointed out in 1999 (Tournament of Shadows, p. 570-2) that experts, despite their pretenses, have done poorly at predicting the future. In the 1960s and 1970s Iran, for example, was swarming with social scientists, but scarcely anyone, including the CIA, expected the radical upheavals that became the Iranian Revolution of 1978 and 1979. And who foresaw the cataclysmic implosion of the Soviet Union? -- “indisputably one of the most astonishing geopolitical events of the century” (Graham Fuller, in 1994). The only one who foresaw it, I think, was the Afghan Professor Gholam Ali Ayeen, who in 1986 suggested (Afghan Wulus, in Farsi) that the Afghanistan resistance movement might actually be undermining the Soviet Union’s apparent invincibility and even its integrity. Events in Afghanistan after the Soviets withdrew were likewise generally unforeseen. Few expected the Tajiks and Uzbeks (instead of the Pushtuns, who had always done so before) to seize and hold the capital city, as they did in 1992. The ferocious battle for Kabul in 1992-1996 was likewise scarcely imagined beforehand. And no one dreamed that a puritanical Islamic group, the Taliban, would rise out of the refugee camps to dominate most of Afghanistan by 1998. Meyer and Brysac point out that in the 1980s book The Book of Predictions a CIA expert predicted that within a few years the Soviet Union would dominate most of the world. (And in the same work Andrew Greeley predicted the demise of the Soviet empire by 1990; he missed it by a year.) If I could be wrong about what awaits Iraq and Afghanistan, could that be construed as reason for comfort? Whatever awaits, I still believe that we live under a kind heaven.

The problem, Meyer and Brysac point out, is that we always predict a continuation of whatever is going on at the time. And that misses a crucial ingredient in human affairs: that human beings face their affairs imaginatively – that is, in terms of an imagined “reality.” We seem to have an infinite number of ways to imagine the situations we think we encounter. We can scarcely predict how people will imagine the world and act from that imagined “reality” in the future. Who would have predicted that the neoconservative imagination of those who came to power with George W. Bush would for eight years shape the polities of the greatest power on earth? Perhaps someone, but not me. Could that be reason for optimism?

More evidence of CIA "rendition" of prisoners without trial

It is now clear that the CIA has made use of Germany’s airspace to transport prisoners they have kidnapped to Guantanamo. The government is about to begin a serious probe into what the previous regime under Gerhard Schröder was allowing the CIA to do, contrary to any admissions so far and contrary to German law.

Click on the title above for the Spiegel article.

Critical problems in Paksitan: the first twelve [!]

Pakistan has to be one of the most conflicted countries in the world. The list of problems endemic to the country is so long that it would require many pages just to explain what they are and why/how such items are serious issues for the country. Here is a preliminary outline of the problems that one needs to explicate if one is to explain Pakistan.
Readers: Please add comments, elaborations [explications], and corrections on this list.

> Army is the real controlling power, has been even from the beginning
*Sometimes in the background, always powerful
*The army owns a great percentage of the economy, provides comfortable retirement for the officer corps

> Lost wars with India: a continuing irritant for the military, and a continuing worry for the future

> Kashmir as place to be claimed for Pakistan and for honor at war
* The need for Islamist troops to carry on the struggle is continuous, so Pakistan cannot shut down all Islamist madrassas.
* Kashmir is source of continual tension with India

> Afghanistan is crucial to Pakistan's future
* As fall back territory in case of war with India, "strategic depth"
* Pakistanis assume Afghanistan is essentially Pushtun; want a friendly Pushtun administration in Kabul
* Transport across Afghanistan- Pakistan border is easy; permeable borders
* Need for access to central Asia -- gas, oil – requires Afghanistan to be a friendly corridor to Central Asia.

> Saudi Arabian investments in Pakistan
* Madrassas, many of them funded by Wahhabi money
* Many radical Islamist groups are supported by Saudi money

> Tribal areas
* History of isolation and independence of the Pathan [Pushtun] tribes
* Territorial separation, isolation from the rest of Pakistan

> Radical Islamists have sanctuary in the Tribal Areas of Pakistan, even protected by some Pakistani military
* Osama and al Qaeda are ensconced there, probably in the tribal areas
* Mullah Muhammad Omar and the Taliban are comfortable there, supported by the military, headquartered in Quetta.

> Baluchistan
* Gas resources; the main source of gas within the country is there
* Baluch resentment vs Pakistan government: local acts of sabotage

> Many ethnic groups, still importance as basis of alliance, mutual help:
* Punjabi dominance
* Other ethnic groups: Pathan, Baluch, Sindhi, Muhajer, Brahui,

> Much of the society is feudal. Feudal lords dominate much of the country, control much land, peasant workers

> Religious parties, organizations, now command the loyalty of many, are out of control of the government
* Sunni – Shia Islamists have been attacking each other
* Sanctuary for extremist Islamists exists in Pakistan
* Even criminal elements masquerade as Islamists

> Many kinds of downtrodden populations
* Peasantry that is owned by army
* Christian minority, sweepers
* Shia minority, now the target of Islamist attacks
* Ahmadiyya
* Brickmakers are famously abused, effectively enslaved
* There are women who are trafficked, enslaved [always poor, destitute]

Shocked that Al Qaeda is stronger?

The Washington Post today indicates that a five-page secret threat assessment of Al Qaeda has been presented to the White House. It is entitled "Al-Qaida Better Positioned to Strike the West," and concludes that “the group has significantly rebuilt itself despite concerted U.S. attempts to smash the network.” Surprise. However secret the report may be, the fact is not secret. That Al Qaeda has gained strength since 9/11 is scarcely news.

And what about those "concerted attempts to smash the network"? The reason for Al Qaeda's prosperity seems clear: the Bush administration rushed into Iraq before the American military had actually found and punished Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. That Osama has remained alive emboldens all those who would attack the United States. In so far as there were "concerted attempts" they were misdirected. The American military effort has gone into Iraq, not Afghanistan and Pakistan's tribal areas, where Osama and other Al Qaeda figures have been hiding out. None of this is secret.

My only hope for the report is that the White House might actually pay attention to it. What the world has already noticed, what is painfully clear to anyone who gives any attention to the issue – could it be noticed by the White House too? Lets pray that the administration will notice, and will acknowledge that there is a problem. If the first step for an addict is to admit to a problem, then we hope that as a first step the administration will admit that they have been living in a fantasy world: it’s time to get real. Osama and other key leaders are in Pakistan, not Iraq.

Click on the title for the web site.

Musharraf after the Lal Masjid seizure

Musharraf may come out of the Lal Masjid incident better off than when it began. The many demonstrations against him, prompted by his firing of the Chief Justice, demonstrated a broad frustration with his leadership by the Middle Class. On the other hand, the Middle Class have become frustrated with the jehadists in their midst. According to reports they have gradually turned away from the extremists in the mosque, especially since it became known that the jehadists have used women and children as human shields.

There are various reports on how Ghazi died, but one of them is that his own men shot him as he sought to leave the mosque after he had been injured.

Without being on the ground there, one cannot guess how all these affairs will work out, but it is likely that if Musharraf uses this occasion to crack down on the other jehadists -- of whom there must be thousands, as the Army has not only been tolerating them but even supporting them -- he could gain even more popularity around the country.

But Pakistan is a conflicted country. The contradictions are so pervasive and persistent we can never be sure that what we see is what we have.

Jang and Reuters have provided the best early coverage of the event. Click on the title for the Jang report. The best reporting in the US is by the McClachy newspapers: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/17771.html, and http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/17761.html, and http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/17393.html.

My two-cents on the Libby affair

Let us remember that the bruhaha over "Scooter" Libby began over the attempt of the Bush administration to protect the lie that justified the attack on Saddam Hussein. Hussein was never involved in the 9/11 attack; he was not stockpiling weapons of mass destruction; he was not seeking "yellow-cake" from Africa in order to develop a nuclear weapon -- all claims made by the administration in order to justify a war that many of the neocons had wanted to start even before Bush was elected the first time [See Project for the Twenty-First Century]. Libby's deception was but one small feature of the broader project to mislead the American people. He thus took the rap for the rest. In fact, his guilt for misstating the truth was in a sense not his but theirs -- the President, the Vice-President, Rumsfeld and all the rest -- for he was but following orders. So I feel for him -- again, he was the small fry who took the rap while the big fish got away Scott free. So all the talk about how minor his infraction was should not be allowed to conceal the real issue: the deliberate deception by the Bush administration to start a war that was never necessary and was, in fact, a digression from the war that should have been pursued relentlessly (in Afghanistan against Osama Bin Laden). Not only Libby, but all of us will be paying for that deception for generations to come.

The Taliban's "Regulations"

Last November a Swiss weekly, Die Weltwoche, published the Layeha [regulations] of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. It can be found at: http://www.signandsight.com/features/1071.html

What makes it interesting is how clearly it reveals an institutional structure among the Taliban. We have heard of many instances when people who called themselves Taliban were so unruly or ad hoc in their applications of rules that we tend to regard the Taliban as essentially a rag-tag association of brigands or at least ignorant and uncontrolled vandals. This statement reveals that, at least in theory, they belong to an organization that seeks to be institutionalized, regulated. Consider the following regulations:

2) We guarantee to any man who turns his back on infidels, personal security and the security of his possessions. But if he becomes involved in a dispute, or someone accuses him of something, he must submit to our judiciary.

4) A convert to the Taliban, who does not behave loyally and becomes a traitor, forfeits our protection. He will be given no second chance.

7) A Mujahid who takes a foreign infidel as prisoner with the consent of a group leader may not exchange him for other prisoners or money.

12) A group of Mujahideen may not take in Mujahideen from another group to increase their own power. This is only allowed when there are good reasons for it, such as a lack of fighters in one particular group. Then written permission must be given and the weapons of the new members must stay with their old group.

14) If someone who works with infidels wants to cooperate with Mujahideen, he should not be killed. If he is killed, his murderer must stand before an Islamic court.

16) It is strictly forbidden to search houses or confiscate weapons without the permission of a district or provincial commander.

21) Anyone with a bad reputation or who has killed civilians during the Jihad may not be accepted into the Taliban movement. If the highest leader has personally forgiven him, he will remain at home in the future.

We must suppose that such regulations seek to be consistent with their understanding of Sharia. The problem is, of course, that the "Sharia" is itself nowhere to be found in one single undisputed place, so there is lots of room for misunderstanding and disagreement. What make this document interesting is the evident attempt of the Taliban to be operating according to "regulations."

Click on the title to get the whole document.

A 15-page warning from the Interior Ministry: A surprise to the Pakistani army?

It is very hard to believe that the Pakistani army has not been aware of the spreading strength of the Taliban. Indeed, from many reports, the Pakistan military have been funding and abetting the Taliban. Only recently it was openly stated that a general, Hamed Gul, has been providing funds for the Taliban in Quetta. That the Pakistani government was unaware of the growing Taliban threat just boggles belief.
What the letter being discussed may have been indicating is that the government cannot play this double game without risking an uncontrollable internal crisis. They of course already have one: The government has lost all credibility, if the demonstrations – peaceful – all over Pakistan by the middle class are to be taken at face value. The problem for the Pakistani army, who run the country, is that it still wants to justify its war in Kashmir as a Muslim country's claim to territory. So they have thought the Taliban – the troops, the little guys being socialized into becoming human bombs – could still useful. So terrified are the Pakistanis of another war with India. Indeed, they know they would again lose.
I wish I could see hope in this report: I fear we will only see more of the same: duplicity, half-hearted moves toward democracy, denial. The ancient wisdom is that "the unfaithful will be destroyed by their duplicity." [Prov11:3]
Click on the title for the whole article.

Musharraf in Trouble: Some Pakistani views

The June 22-28 [Vol. XIX, No. 18] issue of The Friday Times has several articles that seriously consider whether Musharraf can remain in charge of Pakistan. I appreciate the weekly because it has a history of confronting the government, and has some times been roughed up for that reason. In three separate articles Musharraf’s situation is examined here, and all three intimate that his days are numbered. Bad news for the Bush administration, at least as they see it. I wonder, however, if the Bush administration really wants a government that has virtually no credibility with the Pakistani people – and in fact no credibility with even the American government, since the Americans have repeatedly stated that Pakistan is doing too little the control the Islamists in the Tribal Areas, especially in Waziristan. Because this periodical is not available without a subscription [which is actually minimal] I here quote from all the articles, recommending that it is worth the cost to subscribe to the web edition.

Decisive move in the offing by Najam Sethi

General Musharraf is compelled to seriously ponder a dissolution of parliament soon and early general elections, around September-October. … Free and fair general elections would probably fail to restore the PMLQ to power and upset General Musharraf’s apple cart. But it won’t be easy to rig them to obtain “suitable results” in today’s charged environment … So the only workable option is to try and put the pending SC judgment on the CJP on hold while firming up an alliance/understanding with the PPP before the general elections which guarantees General Musharraf the presidency in exchange for sharing power with Ms Bhutto after the elections. …[G]iven the constitutional necessity of relinquishing charge as army chief before end 2007, he can resolve the uniform issue “constitutionally” only by getting parliament to amend the law that enables him to be both president and army chief at the same time. … [W]hy doesn’t President Musharraf get the current parliament in which he has a majority to elect him president again and also amend the law enabling him to retain his job as army chief? … [But] Any attempt to railroad the current parliament today is likely to fuel anti-government protests outside parliament and compel the opposition parties inside parliament to resign and boycott the general elections. Worse, if Justice Chaudhry is restored, all these plans would go up in a puff of smoke. Therefore General Musharraf has to pull himself out of the quicksand before the CJP is restored. …[A]n appropriate deal with Ms Bhutto and a necessary understanding with the Supreme Court is so critical in these times.
One way or the other, we should expect a decisive move from General Musharraf soon.

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Post-transition advisory by Khaled Ahmed

Musharraf will be removed because he has been defeated in his attempts to 'liberalise' or 'secularise' the state. … Everybody is pushing for the ‘big change’ in Pakistan. It is not like anything in the past. … In the past there was always somebody who was not against the army. That meant that the party that took on the army was stabbed in the back by another party. The phrase ‘security risk’ was common currency in the civilian discourse. This time no one is on the side of the army, strangely not even the ruling PMLQ.
Has the time therefore come to say goodbye to the dominance of the army in Pakistan? … What we want is a change in the status of the army. We want the army to be like the Indian army – apolitical, professional and non-interfering. …We might add the United States to the ‘other’ of India [as an enemy] and inflict on ourselves the task of a further militarisation of the state. The post-Musharraf period will thus be characterised by a residual India-driven nationalism sharpened by a more acerbic anti-American nationalism. … In the post-Musharraf phase the army will switch to a slight variation in the ideology of the state. To gain the right to intervene as arbiter it will borrow from the consensual passions aroused by the anti-Musharraf agitation. It will be like a conditioned reflex to revert to its real heroes, Generals Hamid Gul and Aslam Beg, the former seated next to Mr Nawaz Sharif in a recent meeting. Since Pakistan lacks the intellectual resource to get out of its India-driven nationalism, the army’s magisterial hold may actually strengthen.
The anti-Musharraf campaign in Pakistan is thought to be a liberal one. This is a misreading of the nation-wide protest against Musharraf’s cashiering of the chief justice of Pakistan. The discourse in Pakistan is still dominantly fundamentalist-Islamist. … Musharraf will be removed because he has been defeated in his attempts to ‘liberalise’ or ‘secularise’ the state.
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A democratic ‘moment’? by Dr Ayesha Siddiqa

One thing is clear from a study of Pakistani politics and the military: no substantive change can happen unless there is a change in the leadership of the country. … There are two possible scenarios of what might happen. One is that ‘managed’ elections are held and a civilian government put into place, the stress on managed being important. … There will be a coalition government … Such a coalition will result in two possibilities: first, the country will dive into another battle between the seemingly secular, pro-West forces and anti-West ones (in reality, all parties are highly conservative and non-secular but the battle will be on a pro- versus anti-West agenda); second, a conflict which might ensue after the elections will further complicate an already bad situation and create greater problems of political stability for whoever forms the government.
It must be remembered that more than seven years of military rule have eroded the capacity of civilian institutions to perform. Combined with this incapacity will be the eagerness of the followers of different political parties to ask for rewards. Pakistan’s political system is patronage-based and followers demand rewards. This will happen post-election also. … Another possible scenario, given the nature of the movement that ousted Musharraf, is that the next government will be put on the spot by the seemingly alert civil society since people will reject authoritarianism in both civilian and military garbs.
But this may not happen. Pakistan is seeing a crucial ‘democratic moment’ that could easily be lost or will pass after some cosmetic changes. … What is most certain is the fact that the post-Musharraf scenario does not necessarily mean any substantial reduction in the influence of the army. … The judiciary will also be unable to play the role it played after the reference against the chief justice. The crisis was tiring and the judiciary might want to play it safe, as in the past. Future judges might not want to take on the military …This is certainly a pessimistic picture and may hopefully prove incorrect. But one thing is clear from a study of Pakistani politics and the military: no substantive change can happen unless there is a change in the leadership of the country. The control of the elite cannot produce better results than what we witnessed during Musharraf’s period.

Russian control over Eurasian pipelines

The deals that the Russians have recently made will exert a powerful influence on the course of events in Eurasia. Russia, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan have agreed to construct a major pipeline from Turkmenistan through Kazakhstan and into Russia's network of pipelines, thence to Europe. They have also agreed to refurbish the entire Soviet-built Central Asian gas pipeline system. Moreover, the Russians and Kazakhs have agreed to expand the oil pipeline coming from Kazakhstan's Tengiz field to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiisk; the Kazakhs will meanwhile gain a stake in the Russian oil pipeline that runs from Bulgaria's Black Sea port of Burgas to Alexandroupolis, Greece. Russia already controls the extant gas lines out of Turkmenistan, which after Russia was the second-biggest gas producer in the former Soviet Union. And Russia controls the main Kazakh export pipeline.
Russia, the number one supplier of gas in the world, already provides a quarter of Europe’s gas. It is also Europe’s second-largest supplier of oil.
These new deals are bad news for the United States and Europeans, who wanted Central Asian oil and gas pipelines to be built under the Caspian Sea so as to connect to Europe through Azerbaijan and Turkey without going through Russia. It is also bad news for China, for these agreements mean that Russia will control most of the energy exports from Central Asia, and so, owing to its intermediate location between Europe and China and the Far East there will be plenty of opportunity to play off the two regions against each other. China, growing 9% a year or more, must have oil.
Recent attempts by some European leaders to get a pipeline from the Caspian Sea area extended through Ukraine to Poland, although important, seems picayune by comparison.
Is the old empire – Russia/Soviet Union –taking form again? Russia is regaining its dominance in Eurasia. Its strategic location and its natural wealth make it a dominant power still.

Click on the title for the source articles

Pakistan's attempt to repackage the Taliban as a Pushtun nationalist movement

I don't know who "taqmalaloo" is and can't find anything on the web about him. However, he has written a very savvy comment on the recent attempts of Pakistan to transform the Taliban from a religious to a Pushtun movement. It is so important that I think it should be widely read. It is for this reason that I reproduce the whole article as I have it. I appologize to him if I have taken undue advantage by placeing it here, but I want it to be accessible to a wider audience. I would link to it on the web if I could otherwise find the address. He identifies himself only as Taqmalaloo.


In the backdrop of the Taleban resurgence in Afghanistan towards the end of 2005 which has claimed more than 4000 lives so far and threatens to challenge the whole NATO/US mission in that country with obvious consequences for the world peace and security; there has been a renewed interest in the Taleban phenomena and the role of Pakistan therein. The popular myth now a day being promoted by a number of players in the Pakistan-Afghanistan blame game is that the Taleban are in fact a manifestation of the ethnic and nationalist feelings and political aspirations of the Pashtun nation at large. This is substantiated by a number of assertions by the Pakistani leadership in the recent past and media commentary. For example, while addressing theForeign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament in Brussels in September this year, President Musharraf of Pakistan said that "the real danger...lies in the emergence and further strengthening of the Taliban, because they have the seeds of converting and drawing the population to them and converting this into a national war by the Pashtuns against maybe all foreign forces." This shift in characterisation of the Taleban movement from a religious force to one representing the Pashtun nation may be taken as an attempt to give an entirely different outlook to the current insurgency in Afghanistan as well as the tribal areas of Pakistan. A peek at the events in the not so distant past tell us that Pakistan, with the connivance of the CIA, preferred to use 'religion' and the `Doctrine of Jihad' and not 'Afghan or Pashtun Nationalism' to fight and perpetuate the long drawn war against the `foreign forces' of Soviet Union and the later civil war. The question that arises is; what has changed in the equation now which induces us to term the current insurgency as a `national struggle of the Pashtuns' against foreign forces. The answer is simple: while internationally a lot has changed since 9/11, in Pakistan domestically nothing has changed. While the Afghan side spearheaded by President Karzai, himself a Pashtun, blame the upsurge in Taleban activities on continuous support by the Pakistani establishment and its intelligence agencies, the Pakistani side point to a number of issues inside Afghanistan which fuels the insurgency and sustain it. Chief among these, they argue is the inability of Karzai government to establish its writ beyond Kabul. Some amongst the intelligentsia here have even termed President Karzai as the `Mayor of Kabul' to scorn his lack of control over most of Afghanistan. The failure of the Karzai government and the international community in sustaining the reconstruction process of the country, particularly in the Pashtun majority areas of the South and south eastern Afghanistan is also quoted as the cause for the alienation of the local population and their increasing support for the Taleban. There are also muted pointers to the lack of proportionate representation of Pashtuns, who make up the majority ethnic group in Afghanistan, in the government institutions, decision making bodies and particularly the security forces. Together all these factors seem to contribute to the `myth' that Taleban's struggle against the foreign forces is actually fuelled by Pashtun nationalism. Seen in conjunction with the current emphasis of the Pakistani side to include the Taleban in the political process in Afghanistan on the lines of the `peace deals' signed by the Pakistani Military with the militants in its own troubled tribal areas of Waziristan (FATA), this could mean a deliberate effort by Pakistan to empower the Taleban on both side of the Durand Line. Simply put, this strategy aims to drive home the point that the Taleban are not an aberration in the Afghan calculus but represent the political aspirations of the majority Pashtun ethnic group and have thus to be accommodated in any political dispensation in Afghanistan. During the Afghan War, for the USA and the west, the objective was simple: defeat of communism; however for Pakistan the question was much more fundamental and related to its own domestic problems. Beside the defeat of Communism, there were three main objectives of the Afghan war strategy.

• Counterbalance the majority traditionally liberal and secular
minded Pashtun nationalists with in Pakistan demanding greater share
and political rights in the Punjabi dominated country in the backdrop
of the 1971 debacle leading to the creation of Bangladesh and the
bloody insurgency in Balochistan.

• Simultaneously, neutralize the nationalist elements in Afghanistan
represented by the Soviet supported communist regime, which were
likely to gain strength and thus exert more pressure on Pakistan with
regard to the Pushtunistan issue if left untouched leading to trouble
in the Pashtun belt.

• In the long term, use Islamic extremism to control the strings of
power in Afghanistan, which beside other benefits, will ensure that
her western borders will be well protected. This was deemed vital to
the survival and defence of Pakistan against the arch enemy India in
the backdrop of the 1971 War and explosion by India of its first
nuclear device in 1974. This notion was widely propagated and found
expression in terminologies like ensuring `strategic depth' and
having a `friendly political dispensation' in Afghanistan.

To pursue this strategy, Pakistan thus supported, funded and empowered the fringe religious 'clergy' in the Pashtun areas within Pakistan against the majority, largely secular nationalists, while across the Durand Line in Afghanistan, it shaped the struggle against the Soviet supported Afghan government as `Afghan Islamic Jihad'.
This strategy suited the government very well in that it ensured a degree of local support to the Afghan Resistance by the politico-religious groups like the JI `Jummat Islami'and JUI , `Jummat Ulema Islam'on the one hand, while on the other it wrested the political power away from the traditional secular and nationalist elements in the Pashtun dominated areas and empowered the politico- religious parties which have always been far more supportive of the establishment.

Much has changed in the world in the aftermath of 9/11, however, unfortunately, little has altered in Pakistan's domestic situation which would allow the Pakistani Government the space to bring a shift in Pakistan's strategy. For Pakistan the use of religion to control its domestic problems as well as retain/regain a degree of influence in Afghanistan through the Taleban remains a compulsion and not a matter of choice. In fact, by projecting the Taleban as representing the political aspirations of the Pashtuns, while still retaining their religious leanings, Pakistan wants to reassure the international community of their legitimacy as a group having popular support of the Pashtuns. At the same time it aims to dilute the negative effects of the stigma of religious extremism and fanaticism attached to Taleban in view of their links with AlQaeeda and the brutalities they committed while they were in power in Kabul. And as before, it wants simultaneously to strengthen the politico-religious elements in the North West Frontier Province and FATA to neutralise the nationalist elements which are again gaining popular support being encouraged by the prospects of a politically stable and economically vibrant Afghanistan. It was in this context that a grand Pashtun Peace Jirga was held in Peshawar on 20 Nov this year, organised by the nationalist parties and attended by a large majority of the liberal/secular leadership of the Pashtun ethnic group. This Jirga or `meeting of elders' unanimously demanded an end to the bloodshed in the Pashtun lands on both sides of the Durand Line in the name of religion and the war on terrorism. This new characterisation of Talebanisation as pashtun nationalism and terming the Taleban led insurgency as a demand for political empowerment of the Pashtun ethnic group in Afghanistan must therefore be viewed with a pinch of salt. It can at best be described as a tactic to ensure a continuation of the same old strategy with a new look. The Taleban was never a nationalist movement nor did they enlist support from the Pakistani or Afghan Pashtuns in the name of their ethnic identity. They were created by extending support to the politico-religious right over the decades, indoctrinated, nourished and aided according to a strategy. That strategy has been and still remains the same - political manovouring by the powerful elite in Pakistan to use religious extremism and indoctrination to divide the Pashtuns, denying their political rights and at the same time to regain and maintain some degree of influence in Afghanistan. Obviously this can not be achieved by siding with and supporting the largely liberal, secular and democratic minded majority of the Pashtuns; for the fear that the elite will have to relinquish the powers they hold over all ethnic minorities and give them their political rights and control over their resources. The powers that be would therefore continue drumming the spectre of Islamic extremism in Pashtuns and frightening the world on the one hand and continue supporting the fringe clergy on the other, to continue reaping the benefits that such a strategy entails. The tragedy is that the religious extremism symbolised by the Taleban has no roots in Pashtun society or culture which may be culturally conservative but is predominantly secular, liberal and based on certain traditions. The ultimate losers in all this are the poor Pashtuns on both sides of the Durand Line.

What Ahmadenijad did not wish for Israel

Arash Norouzi has written the most serious and insightful statement I have seen on Ahmadinejad’s now notorious comment – actually only rumored comment – about wiping Israel off the map. It turns out that that was not in fact what was said. As we know, he was quoting from Imam Khomeini, so in fact whatever he said was not actually his statement, but even then the statement doesn’t say what was widely reported. One more case of miscommunication between peoples who speak different languages. Sometimes the reasons we misunderstand is because, as in the case of Ahmadenijad, we expect him to say outrageous things, so are quick to jump to conclusions. As Norouzi explains, it was the regime – not the country – that Khomeni hoped would vanish (not be wiped off the map).

Click the title above to get the whole article.

Chaotic war in Iraq; menacing choices. Where will it go from here?

I recently received a letter from one of our troops in Iraq. He described the mess there as a kind of chaos in which it is often hard to know who is on what side. Not a two sided war or even three or four sided war, but war of many sides against each other, when identities and agendas are quite unclear. Ideology in this setting is irrelevant. Here is a digest of what he said:

General Petraeus’s Field Manual on Counterinsurgency calls the war a mosaic of sides, with a constantly shifting mix of different parties, where the conflict is different from
province to province and town to town. But from what my friend has seen "mosaic war" sounds organized. What he sees is “total chaos.”

The Al Qaeda that they are supposed to be fighting against seems invisible, a ghost. Violence is everywhere but it is almost impossible to figure out who has done it. They can’t figure out who the insurgents are. Besides the so-called “foreign fighters” attacking our troops there are disenchanted Sunni Iraqis as well as even Iraqi security forces. Shiite militias are fighting Sunnis; and they are fighting each other. When the Iraqi Army and Police are involved, they can be fighting other Iraqis, our troops, or even each other. But then the Americans can’t tell if it's corrupt soldiers or police officers (corrupt meaning, I think, fighting for money) or if they are militias in stolen uniforms, or a mix of both.

He described a gunfight – or rather, a series of gunfights – in which several kinds of people were involved: invisible shooters [they never knew who they were]; an Iraqi Army platoon [whose behavior in battle was exemplary, even in one case heroic]; an Iraqi Military Integrated Training Team working with the Americans, whose behavior also seemed highly professional; his American platoon; an Apache gunship that was called in [which told them it was all friendly fire]; Iraqi Police who had entered the fray because they lived in the neighborhood but because they were at home they were dressed in street clothes. A civilian and an Iraq soldier were shot deliberately in front of them – that could not have been a mistake because he was in uniform, but who would it have been? That was not friendly fire.

What could we expect our troops to accomplish in such a situation, given that they know no Arabic, are unfamiliar with the customs, have no idea how various families and tribes are aligned? As my friend says, it is “a mess.” It is always a tragedy of proportions that exceed out imagination. This is why I wonder about our new “Democratic Congress”. They are now so diligent to get our troops out – and yes, the sooner the better – but what will be the consequence? The heartbreak of this war is that it was never even remotely necessary – and the more we know about what was going on inside the administration we know that it was the creation of a small cabal who had no interest in getting correct intelligence: they were sure they would be heroes and would fix the mess in the Middle East.

But getting out? Rodman and Shawcross in today’s NYTimes remind us of much that we have been careful to forget: that the loss in Vietnam had huge consequences for millions of Southeast Asians – untold numbers killed and mamed, and (a matter of no small consequence) the credibility of the Americans was forever tarnished. Saddam referred to the Ameriocan flight when he invaded Kuwait,. Osama has referred to the American flight many times, and not only the flight from Vietnam but the others: from Lebanon, from Somalia, and the unwillingness of the Americans to support the Afghans after the Soviet withdrawal, and unwillingness to respond to the bombings in Mogadishu and Dar es-Salam, and the bombing of the Cole. So what would be the consequence of abandoning Iarq? Can we abandon the Iraqis who voted for democracy?

IN fact, of course, our country will not abandon its oil interests – witness the huge embassy complex being built outside Baghdad. But it is going to be more than an embassy: it will be a refuge, a hide-out for an army that may be forced to abandon its friends but not abandon its energy supply station. What would that mean? How could that work?

Pakistan detaining hundreds of opposition

The Peninsula, Qatar’s English language newspaper has just published [6/7/07] a report that Pakistan has imprisoned 1200 members of the opposition. The leader of the Muslim League says that more than 550 of their party members and 675 of Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party and the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) party have been imprisoned. And of course with these parties, which have substantial middle class memberships the radical Islamist parties have joined. As usual they seek legitimacy and the new crisis with Musharraf may help them to do it. The Qatar web site provides a picture of Muttahida Majlis-e Amal demonstrators.

Click on the title for the whole article.

Sanchez's prognosis: What none of us wants to hear

I find it strange that the major media have said nothing about the statement by retired Army Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez in San Antonio interview published on 6/4/07.
He says the United States has lost the war in Iraq: As he put it, with good leadership “we could still salvage at least a stalemate, if you will — not a stalemate but at least stave off defeat,” But he says, we have few signs of the kind of leadership he thinks we need. There is a “crisis of leadership” in America. This is important news because Sanchez is the highest-ranking former military leader to serve in Iraq to say that our country has lost the war. Certainly the news there is not really more heartening than the news in previous years. But still we have a body of people who want to believe that we can win. In fact, the gossip now seems to have shifted from when the war will be won in Iraq to whether we have a chance of winning at all. And now, Gen Sanchez says that we have lost if we can’t get better leadership, and that leadership of the sort needed is scarce. Bad news.

Click on the title to see the whole article.
To see the commentary on it on the Information Clearing House web site see the following: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17834.htm

A call for concern based on half-truths

Here is a case of some truth presented in such a way as to miss the most important point. Adrian Morgan has worked to get a lot of information but strangely has missed the real crisis going on in Pakistan now. Nothing about the middle class revolt against Musharraf, even though he claims that Musharraf is in danger. Yes, he is in danger; but the crisis right now is what Morgan fails to mention: the issue of the judiciary, precipitated by Musharraf's sacking of the Chief Justice. Yes, there is a struggle over fundamentalism and secularism, and yes, there is a Baluch insurgency, and more, an expanding Taliban within the country, funded with narcotics money (plus some Saudi private money) -- but the real danger to Musharraf is the broad-based revolt against him by the lawyers who oppose his sacking of the Chief Justice.
As for the militant "fundamentalism" in Pakistan, yes, it is dangerous and active, and so far it is not being contained. But as Morgan himself says there is little real popular base for the "fundamentalists."


Pakistan: An Ally's Crisis Deepens: Part Two (of Two)
by Adrian Morgan
The Family Security Foundation, Inc.
Date: May 30, 2007

Pervez Musharraf, President of Pakistan, is an ally but a tidal wave
of religious fundamentalism is about to engulf his nation. With
American travelers now warned not to travel in Pakistan, FSM
Contributing Editor Adrian Morgan details just how frightening
Pakistan's crisis is, raising the specter of a nuclear-
armed, "Talibanized" government.

[For more, click on the title above.]

Creationism vs Evolutionism, even in the Muslim world

One wonders what the world is coming to when even in the Islamic world there is a debate over "evolution" and "creation". As in the United States "evolution" is being blamed for the ills of the world: The creationists in Turkey "blame evolutionary principles for Communism, Nazism and – under an A3 photo of the Twin Towers in flames – Islamic radicalism and the September 11 terrorist tragedy. 'Darwinism is the only philosophy which values conflict', the text says."
In all these debates, it seems evident that "evolution" means something
different from what the every-day evolutionary biologists and paleontologists actually do, and assume in what they do. We are a long way from having even a clear agreement on what we are talking about when we use the terms. The debate conflicts with the assumptions of most of those who formulated the case for a secular science, namely, that an empirical enquiry of material processes can make no claims as to how "the providence of God" works (Voltaire). Folks seem to have forgotten that in the Judeo-Christian conception God works through means -- that is, material means. Which may be one reason that a "secular" science developed (but even then through much tribulation) within that social context.

To read the whole article click on the title above.