Purposeless knee-jerk reactions
By Dr Shireen M Mazari • Jan 10th, 2010 • Category: Politics, Worth A Second Look • 22 CommentsSo the US has decided to increase the torture for travellers from Pakistan and other “suspect” countries. It is not just Pakistanis who will now face the “full-body pat downs” but anyone who has visited Pakistan or any of the other countries either seen as supporters of terrorism or countries of “special interest”. Interestingly, these countries all ‘happen’ to be Muslim states barring Cuba! The pretext for all these new measures of harassing certain nationalities of travellers is the incident with the failed Nigerian hijacker. Of course, the whole incident would never have happened if the existing security measures had actually been implemented effectively! The man was already on the State Department’s list and the father of the man had also warned the US authorities of his son’s radical views but he was given a visa nevertheless. Given how difficult it is for people from Muslim countries to get US visas, one wonders what happened. But even more ridiculous is the knee-jerk reaction of the US government after the event! First it was decided to prevent travellers from using the toilets an hour before a flight landed on US soil. Now would only certain passengers, racially profiled (euphemistically called ‘random checks’), be prevented from getting up from their seats or would all passengers including little children, pregnant women and others suffering from some bladder issues also be subjected to this new form of torture?
It is not that one does not appreciate effective security so that air travel becomes safe but the security has to have some rationality and the starting point is to implement the checks leading to the travel - from visa issuance (where the ordinary Muslim already has to undergo humiliation) to pre-boarding checks as well as regular security scans of people working at airports, and not just those with access to sensitive areas of the airport. And why not simply put in body scan machines for all travellers to take the bias and prejudices out of the system?
Of course, with reference to countries “supporting terrorism”, Pakistan also needs to take more stringent measures and the three countries that immediately come to mind are India, the US and Afghanistan. A beginning needs to be made with the careful scrutiny of visas for travellers with passports of these nationalities or travellers coming from any of these countries. It is ironic how the US government is getting hysterical because the Pakistan government has made a wise decision to do at least a basic scrutiny of Americans applying for visas. In their arrogance they obviously feel they should simply be given the visas on demand although traditionally visas are done on a basis of reciprocity. Under this principle all US visa seekers should be made to wait the same amount of time the average Pakistani has to wait for his/her US visa! After all, we have had this incident of the five American citizens allegedly involved in terrorism in Pakistan. This is in addition to the ‘wild west’ behaviour displayed by covert US operatives in Pakistan.
But there is a more serious issue involved here in terms of the US and its targeting by non-state actors. The US can do all sorts of tactical measures to secure its homeland from terrorism, but unless it makes a strategic shift in its global policies, it will never rid itself of the threat from extremist militants. For some strange reason there seems to be a total lack of acceptance by the US policy makers, especially Congress, of the impact of their policies including their tactical knee-jerk measures relating to security, that it is at the strategic level where the problem lies. There has to be a policy shift if they want to end the increasing hostility between themselves and the Muslim Ummah. That means accepting the Muslims for what they are rather than trying to mould them political into what the US wants them to be. It also means that a military-centric approach to terrorism will not work. Look at Afghanistan. Post-9/11 the US attack on Afghanistan with daisy cutter and bunker buster bombs gave Al-Qaeda and the Taliban a new lease on life and presently the Taliban are gaining ground on a daily basis in that country - to the extent that the US now acknowledges the need to dialogue with them. Yet they continue to demand a military response from Pakistan against its militants.
The extent of damage the US policies are doing to the Americans is evident from some recent incidences. First, there was the case of the recent targeting of the CIA personnel in Afghanistan by a Jordanian doctor who had been recruited by the CIA itself. The man, who had been arrested by Jordanian authorities for links with Al-Qaeda had been supposedly converted to a double agent by the US in order to use him for infiltrating Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. The final result was fatal. Even more threatening was the incident of Major Nidal Hasan who was an American-born Muslim of Palestinian descent US army man, and who turned on his fellow soldiers in a killing frenzy. This growing terrorism from homegrown Muslims in the US is something that is going to pose the biggest terrorist threat to the US homeland for the future. In fact, this is going to pose a threat to other states as well, especially Muslim states, from where a substantial amount of second generation migrants exist in the US - many frustrated and marginalised, or discriminated against post-9/11. Pakistan has already seen the impact of this with the arrest of five US nationals arrested for alleged terrorist links near Sargodha. Questions still exist as to how they slipped through the FBI and US Homeland Security; or who exactly were they working for? Were they also supposed to be double agents, infiltrating the extremist groups for the CIA - which again backfired for the US?
Surely someone in the US administration and Congress should have enough intelligence to realise the danger they are putting their own citizens and the Muslim World in by their present policies? Or are they so blinded by a great power arrogance and their continuing 9/11 trauma that they cannot see the obvious? Their blinkered approach has forced their Muslim allies to also take a similarly short-sighted approach to the threats of extremism and militancy in their midst. Knee-jerk reactions only add to the global polarisations and create more fertile breeding grounds for future militants - something no people can afford.
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Muslims love extremists. This is something that we just cannot give up, regardless of what U.S does and what their policies are.
”where the ordinary Muslim already has to undergo humiliation’ To protect USA or any country, why do you feel humiliation? why we can not control our extremist view muslim people or Terrorist. Are they in your or our control? To protect innocent in a plane any measure is a less measure.Yes, there are full body scanners in few of the Airports. security personnels at US airports are doing a fantastic job of checking every one without any discremination. All are in same line taking off shoes, belts etc.
For # 1
Muslim does not love extrmist but people like you MOZ are destroying the immage of muslims.
“It is not just Pakistanis who will now face the “full-body pat downs” but anyone who has visited Pakistan or any of the other countries either seen as supporters of terrorism or countries of “special interest”. Interestingly, these countries all ‘happen’ to be Muslim states barring Cuba! ”
Look who’s talking!
Religious profiling has been in place in Pakistan for decades, there is “mazhab ka khan” on each significant form for discrimination purposes. Why did Shireen Mizari you not write about it, hypocrite lady? Doosron ku nasihat khud mian faseehat.
I despise people like MOZ who continue to spew venom against Muslims.
I wonder on what basis MOZ made such a despicable statement that “Muslims love extremists”.
Moz might be a Qadyani like Umair01
An article on Dr Shireen M Mazari…..
“http://www.tnr.com/article/world/slander”
Few quotes quote:
“Mazari’s hunt for American spies and undercover defense contractors was only getting started. In September, she was named editor of The Nation, an English-language daily often described as “Fox News in Pakistan.” (Earlier this year, one columnist dubbed Mazari the “Ann Coulter of Pakistan.”) Throughout the fall, The Nation has published multiple front-page stories on the location of new “Blackwater dens” around Islamabad. It featured a news story last month titled “mysterious us nationals,” which described “two suspicious foreigners wandering in the guise of journalists … [who] seemingly belonged to the US spy agency CIA.” The proof? That they “were driven towards the US Consulate.” (The “mysterious US nationals” turned out to be an English freelance photographer and an Australian photographer who works for Getty.) “
“And Mazari, who holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University, may represent the vanguard of a well-educated, English-speaking, secular elite increasingly charged with hypernationalism and antipathy toward the United States. Mixing fact with demagoguery, and sometimes outright fiction, she represents yet another obstacle to Washington’s war on the Taliban.“
Article mentioned in Comment 6 was published in the famous journal “The New Republic”
Dear Dr.mazhari,
You are crying about US security measures but the three countries which Pakistan must retaliate come to your mind is INDIA, USA AND AFGHANISTAN in that order. If you realy represent Muslim Umma please advocate as true Wahabi
1. Your Airforce to shoot down the drones
2.ask a cleric to issue a FATWA that anyone directly or indirectly getting American dollars is haram especially in your Army.
3.Ask India to be included as the 15 th country for body search so that BALANCE OF POWER is retained.
There is no need of any moaning about this restrictions and subject electronic body search imposed by western countries especially by the United state on the arriving passengers from some eleven countries including Pakistan. Countries who care for the safe travel of their people will certainly take any such measures, in order toward off the miscreants from their soils.
No one may also stop; Pakistan to adopt any such measures which ensure that its people remain safe and free from any ill designs of the savage intruders.
To start with; let’s make moves and take the US drone down and off our air spaces…..
Perceptions are stronger than realities and perception about Islam today is that Muslims are the extremists.
Muslim apologists may be trying their best to make the people sitting on the other side of the fence; i. e. the world at large to believe that Islam is a peace full religion, then they should also be able to present a picture of peace and serenity in the society that they live. Unfortunately and sadly so, there is none what so ever an Islamic society avails able any where on this planet to show as such.
The entire Middle East region, Palestine, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia and even in Saudi Arabia; all the leading Islamic countries are infested with extremists—–void of any peace and with no such thing called as human rights for their citizens.
Any claim bears no significance till it is not supported with the evidences.
Dr. Zamir might be Sunni terrorist liar follower of Sunni terrorist lying religion. No wonder they are doing full body search of you Sunni terrorists.
Every major terror attack in the world in the past two decades has a Pakistani connection. In fact, what the US should do is ban all Pakistanis from entering their soil and send away already present Pakistanis.
Just face it dudes, your country is in deep muck. 30 years of intolerance education in your Madrasas and schools have finally ripened with almost every young person in Pakistani having a skewed vision and intolerant behavior.
So nothing can be done till the present generation is alive and the best hope is to reform your education, get rid of Madrasas and Mullahs and hope the next generation at least would be different.
You reap as you sow…
Oh, I don’t know, may be because of this;
Muslims Burn Christians Alive In Pakistan
youtube.com/watch?v=hSrpf5vRyuM
Pakistan: International Religious Freedom Report 2009
state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2009/127370.htm
Pakistan Muslim Extremists Kill Christian; Injure Evangelists
SARGODHA, PAKISTAN (Worthy News)– Christians on Tuesday, December 22, were mourning a Christian man who was shot dead by Muslim extremists while other believers recovered from injuries after an apparent Muslim attack on an evangelistic meeting showing the Jesus Film in Pakistan’s tense Punjab province.
Patras Masih was shot because he refused to recant his faith in Christ, and died from gunshot wounds on December 3 in Karol village, his family said.
worthynews.com/7135-pakistan-muslim-extremists-kill-christian-injure-evangelists
Ask for more examples.
“I wonder on what basis MOZ made such a despicable statement that “Muslims love extremists”.”
See above.
Ahmadi leader shot dead in Ferozewala
* Victim’s son claims police took no action despite being intimated about threats
By Rana Tanveer
LAHORE: An Ahmadi leader was gunned down allegedly for seeking police protection against sectarian zealots in Ferozewala police precincts on Tuesday.
The family of 70-year-old victim Muhammad Yousaf — leader of the Ahmadi community in Ferozwala — alleged that extremists killed him for demanding police to stop them from creating religious strife in the area. Earlier, extremists had gathered together, carrying placards and signboards bearing slogans against the Ahmadis.
Ferozewala Police Station House Officer (SHO) Muhammad Munir told Daily Times that police had registered the first information report (FIR) against unidentified persons for Yousaf’s murder. Although no one had been arrested so far, the murderers would be brought to justice, he added.
According to complainant Fatehul Deen — son of the deceased — two armed assailants on a motorbike sprayed bullets at his father around 8am when he was sitting at his general store, where he (Fateh) and his brother were also present. He said his father died instantly while he and his brother narrowly escaped the attack.
No action: Fateh alleged that the assailants were the henchmen of local religious leader Muhammad Ahmed Faridi. He alleged that two men — Inamullah and Shaukat — were also involved in his father’s murder.
Fateh said that on December 29, Faridi erected a huge signboard at the main roundabout in Ferozewala Bazaar, which bore slogans provoking people against the Ahmadis. He said the accused also made phone calls to him and other Ahmadis in the area, threatening them to leave the area or else face dire consequences. Fateh said despite being intimated about these threats, police took no action against the accused that had resulted in his father’s death.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=201016\story_6-1-2010_pg7_5
Ahmadi leader shot dead in Ferozewala
* Victim’s son claims police took no action despite being intimated about threats
By Rana Tanveer
LAHORE: An Ahmadi leader was gunned down allegedly for seeking police protection against sectarian zealots in Ferozewala police precincts on Tuesday.
The family of 70-year-old victim Muhammad Yousaf — leader of the Ahmadi community in Ferozwala — alleged that extremists killed him for demanding police to stop them from creating religious strife in the area. Earlier, extremists had gathered together, carrying placards and signboards bearing slogans against the Ahmadis.
Ferozewala Police Station House Officer (SHO) Muhammad Munir told Daily Times that police had registered the first information report (FIR) against unidentified persons for Yousaf’s murder. Although no one had been arrested so far, the murderers would be brought to justice, he added.
According to complainant Fatehul Deen — son of the deceased — two armed assailants on a motorbike sprayed bullets at his father around 8am when he was sitting at his general store, where he (Fateh) and his brother were also present. He said his father died instantly while he and his brother narrowly escaped the attack.
No action: Fateh alleged that the assailants were the henchmen of local religious leader Muhammad Ahmed Faridi. He alleged that two men — Inamullah and Shaukat — were also involved in his father’s murder.
Fateh said that on December 29, Faridi erected a huge signboard at the main roundabout in Ferozewala Bazaar, which bore slogans provoking people against the Ahmadis. He said the accused also made phone calls to him and other Ahmadis in the area, threatening them to leave the area or else face dire consequences. Fateh said despite being intimated about these threats, police took no action against the accused that had resulted in his father’s death.
dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=201016\story_6-1-2010_pg7_5
Then there are moderates Malaysians too…
Malaysian churches attacked
Four Christian churches in Malaysia have been attacked amid tensions over the use of the word “Allah” by non-Muslims in the country.
Attackers threw a molotov cocktail which failed to ignite at a church in the state of Selangor on Friday afternoon, media reports said.
The incident comes hours after a petrol bomb was thrown at a church in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, as well as attackers trying to set another two ablaze in a nearby suburb.
english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2010/01/20101871816435228.html
From Wall Street Journal
In Egypt, seven Coptic Christians were murdered yesterday by a Muslim gunman as they filed out of a midnight mass in the southern town of Nag Hamadi. In Pakistan, more than 100 Christian homes were ransacked by a Muslim mob last July in the village of Bahmaniwala. In Iraq that same month, seven Christian churches were bombed in Baghdad and Mosul in the space of three days.
Such atrocities—and there are scores of other examples—are grim reminders that when it comes to persecution, few groups have suffered as grievously as Christians in Muslim lands. Fewer still have suffered with such little attention paid. Now a new report from the non-profit ministry, Open Doors USA, shines a light on the scale of oppression.
In its annual World Watch List, Open Doors ranks eight Muslim countries among the 10 worst persecutors of Christians. The other two, North Korea (which tops the list) and Laos, are communist states. Of the 50 countries on the list, 35 are majority Muslim.
Take Iran, which this year ranks as the world’s second-worst persecutor of Christians. Open Doors reports that in 2009 the Islamic Republic arrested 85 Christians, many of whom were also mistreated in prison. In 2008, some 50 Christians were arrested and one Christian couple was beaten to death by security officials. At least part of the reason for the mistreatment appears to be the result of Muslim conversions to Christianity: Apostasy carries a mandatory death sentence in Iran.
In Saudi Arabia (No. 3), all non-Muslim public worship is forbidden. The state forbids the building of any type of non-Muslim house of worship, and Christian expatriates in the kingdom must practice their faith in private. The same goes in the Maldives, where the report notes that all citizens must be Muslim; “the handful of indigenous Christians are forced to believe in complete secrecy.” Similarly in Mauritania, conversion to Christianity or any other religions is formally punishable by death.
Little wonder, then, that once-thriving Christian communities in the Muslim world have now largely voted with their feet by fleeing to safer havens, often in Europe or the United States. That’s true even in religiously important communities such as Bethlehem, where the Christian majority has largely fled since the arrival in the 1990s of Yasser Arafat’s repressive government and the ascendancy of Islamist groups such as Hamas. By contrast, Christians practice their religion freely and openly in Israel, just a few miles distant.
It might seem natural that at least some attention would be paid in the West to the plight of these Christians. Instead, attention seems endlessly focused on “Islamophobia,” not least at the U.N.’s misnamed Human Rights Council. In November, much of Europe went berserk over the Swiss referendum to ban the construction of minarets (though not of mosques). But the West’s tolerance for its large Muslim populations stands in sharp contrast to the Muslim world’s bigotry and persecution of its own religious minorities. That’s a fact that ought to be borne in mind the next time Westerners berate themselves about their own supposed “intolerance.”
online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704130904574643821742562800.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
More from “moderate” Malaysians…
4 more churches attacked in Malaysia in Allah feud
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – Firebombs were thrown at three more churches in Malaysia on Sunday and another was splashed with black paint, the latest in a series of assaults on Christian houses of worship following a court decision allowing non-Muslims to use “Allah” to refer to God.
Despite the attacks, thousands of Christians nationwide attended Sunday services and prayed for national unity and an end to the violence.
yahoo.com/s/ap/20100110/ap_on_re_as/as_malaysia_allah_ban
“Surely someone in the US administration and Congress should have enough intelligence to realise the danger they are putting their own citizens and the Muslim World in by their present policies?”
Yes, US and west should open their doors wide open for these fanatics, if they want to save their citizens.
LOL..stupid woman. I hope Shireen Mizari is reading my comments.