Martial Law Declared In Pakistan

President Musharraf, who is still General Musharraf, has committed his second coup by declaring martial law, suspending the constitution, and sequestering the Supreme Court. Did Benazir Bhutto have an inkling of what was going to happen? She abruptly left for Dubai, ostensibly to see her children and ailing mother, but now we know the real reason—she was trying to avoid arrest.

Satire: America's Mideast Diplomatic Offensive

Winning the hearts and minds of the Arab world as told by The Daily Show



This is why The Daily Show is a must see, better than any cable or network news broadcast.

US Navy Battle Pirates: Soft Power At Work

The U.S. Navy battling with pirates off the coast of Somalia is not getting the media attention it deserves. It’s an important new role for the U.S. Navy—the role of maritime policeman—and its implications are far reaching. By protecting trade routes from marauding pirates, the United States is doing a service that will earn it respect in the world community, something that has been quite fleeting of late. It’s an example of “soft power," something the United States should use more of, not less.

Being a “policeman” requires retooling the U.S. Navy from top to bottom. Presently, the U.S. Navy is built to fight major wars, with its aircraft carrier battle groups central to its strategy, which is overkill for battling pirates, who tend to operate in small groups. No, what the Navy needs to be is more nimble, something akin to the U.S. Army, which increasingly uses small, highly mobile groups (company size or less) instead of large, lumbering groups (divisions). What the Navy needs are more patrol boats and attack submarines rather than aircraft carriers, cruiser and destroyers.

Robert D. Kaplan, who writes about defense matters for The Atlantic, has been talking about restructuring the U.S. Navy for quite some time now, echoes what I have written above:

In essence, this new maritime strategy represents a restrained, nuanced yearning for a bigger Navy, albeit one whose mission will be cooperation with other navies. That requires more than just new ships. “A key to fostering such relationships is development of sufficient cultural, historical, and linguistic expertise among our Sailors, Marines and Coast Guardsmen to nurture effective interaction with diverse international partners.” Such training costs money and creates bureaucratic challenges, but it helps lay the groundwork for an exceedingly gradual, elegant decline of the Navy’s capabilities—a future in which it has fewer platforms but gets more out of the ones it does have by working more closely with others.

Another thing Kaplan writes about is the fact that the U.S. can’t go it alone. It will need the cooperation of many countries and, yes, including China, which, given its export-oriented economy, needs to keep trade routes secure.

Book Review: While Europe Slept

Europe as we know it is slowly disappearing as radical Islam steadily spreads across the land, helped by multicultural do-gooders and socialist statists? This seems to be the premise of Bruce Bawer’s While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within, a polemic about the growing menace of radical Islam and how it is slowly destroying Europe and it’s liberal, freedom-loving ideals.

The way Bawer tells it, it is an apocalypse in the making. That unless radical Islam is stopped in its tracks, Europe will become Islamized and Europe, as we know, will cease to exist. Reality or just plain hysterics? I think it’s a little of both.

Bawer is not some conservative nut job, but a noted writer and critic who lives in Norway and sees first-hand what effect radical Islam is having. Radical Islamists demand Sharia be imposed, that gays be murdered (Bawer is gay, so imagine his reaction), and that democracy be dismantled. All for recreating some mythical caliphate that existed in the seventh century.

It’s not clear whom to blame: Muslims, who fail to assimilate; or Europeans, who coddle them. Bawer tends to blame the latter. Made up mostly of politicians, journalists and other elites, they are Europe’s ruling class; and they have a blind spot to the coming danger.

These elites—mostly socialists, multiculturalists, and other assorted leftists—tend to treat Muslim as some exotic ethnic group to be protected, not as an ideology. With lax immigration policies, Muslims arrive in Europe by the planeloads, where they are not integrated or assimilated in anyway, but are separated, forced to live in ghettos, encouraged to keep their culture, keep to themselves, and are discouraged from learning the language, culture, values of their adopted land. It is the kind of patronizing racism that is practiced throughout Europe.

This explains radical Islam appeal among Muslim immigrants and their offspring. Alienated by the country they live in, they are susceptible to entreaties by radical Islamists, who control many of the mosques (and funded by the government), and fed a steady diet of anti-Western rhetoric, and conditioned to hate the country they live in. It explains why crimes by Muslim youths are on the rise throughout Europe, something Bawer continually harps on. Remember the Paris riots of 2006? It was by Muslim youths. Of course, the European press tends to whitewash these stories, blaming capitalism, globalization, or some other bogeyman of the week.

But is Europe going to hell, or is it so far along that there is no going back? Bruce Bawer doesn’t say much on the subject except that Europe must get its act together less it becomes some Islamic backwater, bereft of liberty, happiness, and democracy.

Personally, I think Europe is made of sturdier stuff and will survive with its ideals intact. Opposition to radical Islam has been slow, but growing steadier by year. A new crop of politicians, which Bawer mentions, are on the rise who plan to do something about the problems at hand; helped by Muslims, who are equally repulsed by the repugnancy of some of their fellow co-religionist’s stridently anti-Western views, who want to share in Europe’s prosperity, and its idels, while practicing their faith. Bawer gives these Muslims little shrift, in my opinion.

Essentially, the central theme of this book is about multiculturalism gone arye. Bawer often compares Europe to the United States, and how the latter has done a great job of assimilating its Muslims, while the former utterly failed in assimilating theirs.

X-Files: The Sequal

There’s a new X-Files movie in the works. Filming begins in December, with a release date for late July 2008. What’s it all about:

Creator Chris Carter says that the movie will focus on a stand-alone mystery rather than exploring the show's dense mythology. Beyond that, he's not spilling details, only saying, "It will be scary."

The reason it took so long to make a sequel was the fact that Chris Carter was fighting with FOX over, what else, money over syndication and DVD rights. But with a writer’s strike on the horizon, it was now or never. So Carter and FOX settled quickly just to get this project off the ground. Hope it’s good.

Pakistan And RAW: The Drama Continues

This is getting tiring:

The three assassin terrorists arrested recently by the law enforcing agencies, have revealed that Indian intelligence service (RAW) hired them for Rs 6.5 million to murder three Chinese nationals on July 8, 2007 at Peshawar. This clearly shows that India wants to disrupt developmental activities by intimidating Chinese engineers in Pakistan. Ever since the Chinese engineers have undertaken the construction of Gwadar deep seaport, a series of attacks targeting Chinese nationals have become a regular feature. The terrorists are not only attempting to damage Pakistan’s economic growth, they want to jeopardize the “strategic partnership’’ between the two countries. Pakistan’s friendship with China is unique and has stood the test of time in the matters concerning national security and economic cooperation.

It’s incredible. Every time there’s terrorist activity on Pakistani soil, it’s automatically attributed to India and its intelligence agency, RAW. Not only that, Pakistani security agencies always manage to capture the terrorists (yet they can't find jihadis or Osama bin Laden), who quickly admit they were in the employ of RAW. No other evidence is offered aside from “confessions” made by the supposed terrorists, who no doubt were coerced—i.e. tortured—into making false statements implicating India. Then we never hear from these terrorists ever again.

This scenario will be repeated in a few months time.

What Blockade With Cuba

If there’s one clear example why the United Nation General Assembly is such a useless, pointless organization, it’s their annual vote condemning the United States’ economic blockade of Cuba. From Granma, Cuba’s commie rag:

The resolution passed today for the 16th consecutive time highlights the "Necessity of Ending the Economic, Commercial and Financial Blockade Imposed by the United States on Cuba."

The 16th time! So it has become tradition, not to mention absurd. No doubt they will vote for it again next year.

It’s a strange little game these two countries play: the United States insists on a blockade that they well know is ineffectual; while Cuba agrees to play the role of hapless victim, with the idiots in the U.N. General Assembly as their cheering section

What is little known, however, is that Cuba trades with the United States. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Cuba bought $328 million worth of agricultural products from the United States in 2006 alone.

Nevertheless, why does Cuba insist on trading with a country they’ve been continuously condemning for nearly fifty years? The United States is well within its rights as a sovereign nation to trade with whomever they want. Cuba, which constantly lectures the world about the inviolability of its sovereignty, should accept this reality, wrongheaded as it is.

US Should Take India's Lead On Education

Shikha Dalmia from Reason magazine writes an op-ed for The Chicago Tribune on how to improve America’s deteriorating education school system. Her suggestion: take India’s lead.

But, unlike the United States, the Indian government does not penalize schools that don't meet its expectations. Parents do. India has a robust private kindergarten through 12th-grade market that almost all middle-class and above families use. James Tooley, an education professor in England, found that 75 percent of children even in some urban slums attend private schools. The upshot is that parents can yank their kids out of substandard schools that don't prepare them adequately for the "boards" and enroll them in ones that do. The exams simply put crucial information in their hands to make comparisons.

This might seem counterintuitive to the American teaching establishment given its legendary hostility to school choice, but parental accountability is actually empowering for teachers as well. Because parents in India pick the schools their children attend, they are far less prone to blame teachers when their children underperform -- and far more to prod their kids to take responsibility. Even when a few disgruntled parents do pull their kids, they don't threaten the financial health of the whole institution. This is in stark contrast to No Child Left Behind, where a few failing kids could jeopardize federal funding for the entire school.

As far as I can remember, Indians—those that can afford it—have been sending their children to private schools (preferably English-medium schools). The public education system, like many of India’s government institutions, is decrepit and riven with corruption and inefficiency. And with a growing middle-class, the demand for private schools has grown by leaps and bounds.

The quality of these schools is reflected in the students they produce. They are smart, talented, ambitious, and speak English fluently. No wonder the United States imports thousands of Indians each year to work in jobs natives are, sad to say, incapable of doing because their education system fails them in instilling skills needed for the 21st century: less brawn, more brains.

The article essentially makes the case for vouchers, which I wholeheartedly support.

Bhutto Chances? Not Good

The Nation has a decent article on Benazir Bhutto’s prospects as future Prime Minister of Pakistan. The ground realities have changed significantly in the eight years Bhutto has been living in exile. For one thing, Bhutto is willing to cut a deal with Musharraf in order to be Prime Minister.

In return the PPP has abandoned an alliance of parties opposed to the army's involvement in politics and will back Musharraf as civilian president. Bhutto has also quietly accepted a future dispensation in which he and the army will retain control over national security, foreign relations and the US war in Afghanistan. Depending on how well the PPP performs in elections, Bhutto will make domestic policy.

Even on the face of it, it's an unworkable solution. Forget about politics, for the moment; if Bhutto is to transform Pakistani society, as the article claims, she will need to marshall substantially more resources to accomplish it. Given that the military (or debt repayment) garners the lion's share of the budget, Bhutto will either have to find new revenue sources, or tell the military to do more with less. And the military is adamant about keeping present force levels even though Pakistan possesses a sizable nuclear arsenal. This conflict with the military has been a source of tension for Bhutto before, and there’s a good chance it will be so again.

India's Provident Fund: A Question

Can anyone out there explain to me the concept of India’s provident fund system, India's answer to a social security system? I have read Wikipedia's explanation, of course, but it only scratches the surface. Currently, the fund’s rate of interest is pegged at 8.5%. My question is: where’s the money invested to garner such a high return? Given the statism and anti-market sentiment of the current government (it’s obvious they don’t understand the concept of risk), I doubt it’s invested in the stock market, where such a high return is possible. So, where does the money come from?

The reason I’m asking is that the C.I.T.U., the trade union wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), is bitterly complaining about the “paltry” rate of return, and is demanding the government increase it.

The New Air India

With the merger of Air India and Indian Airlines, the combined airline, to be called Air India, has rolled out a new color scheme for its jets.

As you can see, it looks very good on this brand new Airbus 320.

Jamaat Tries To Rewrite History

Jamaat-e-Islami is at it again, trying to rewrite history, denying its insidious role in Bangladesh’s independence. From The Daily Star:

People from all walks of life yesterday blasted Jamaat-e-Islami Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed for his Thursday's comments, which they said went against the Liberation War.

Mojaheed on Thursday told the media that Jamaat did not work against the Liberation War in 1971 and there are no war criminals in the country.

This editorial adds a few more salient details:

...He said this before media displaying veritable arrogance and ire when asked about the role of Jamaat-e-Islami during the nine-month Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971. To our utter shock and indignation, Mujahid not only denied any wrong-doing by his party but was defiant enough to throw a challenge to the newsmen to dig into the history and find for themselves the role of Jamaat.

What level of ignorance does this man operate from? Did he say this with a straight face? Sadly, denying their grateful and gleeful collaboration with Pakistan to brutalize their fellow Bengalees—all in the name of Islam—is standard operating procedure for Jamaat. Have been doing it for years, in fact.

Fortunately, there is a trove of evidence to counter the blatantly false lies of Jamaat and their supporters. In fact, The Daily Star has published, also in the same issue, an interesting research article clearly documenting Jamaat’s involvement, some even published in their own newspaper! This is what Nizami, a senior Jamaat leader, wrote:

“Hindu forces are far stronger and capable than us. Unfortunately, a number of infidels have taken their side and are trying to weaken us from within. We have to foil their conspiracy and protect the existence and ideal of Pakistan. This is not possible only by defensive action...It is our luck that the Islam-loving youths of this country have been able to form the Al-Badr unit with the help of the Pakistani military...The youths of Al-Badr have renewed their pledge on this occasion...to stand next to the army to defeat the Hindu forces and annihilate Hindustan and hoist the flag of Islam all over the world."

History condemns Jamaat, and they should accept its verdict. They are lucky none of them have been jailed for their grisly crimes. In fact, various governments since 1971, in acts of cynicism, have not only given Jamaat leaders amnesty, but have rehabilitated them, courted their votes and even made them partners in coalition governments.

This explains why Jamaat says what it says and does what it does: they have not been held to account for their crimes. They got away with it. And this a great shame in Bangladesh today. We can take solace in the fact that history is on the side of the victims—for now.

Gujarat Massacre: Admission Caught On Video

India has yet to get to the bottom of the Gujarat massacre in 2002, where Hindu zealots butchered thousands of innocent Muslims. It was an act where thousands were complicit, but only a relative few have been brought to justice.

Now Tehelka, a muckraking news magazine with a history of provocative investigative journalism (pioneering the use of the spycam), has an interview with one of these zealots, who readily admits to joining in the attacks.



Both Sandeep and Barbar Indian question the video’s veracity, and question the timing of the report given upcoming elections in Gujarat. Legitimate questions, in my opinion. It will be interesting to see, though, how the UPA government and courts react to this video.

Tehelka also has a special section on its web site, which the video is part of, dedicated to the Gujarat massacres that is worth checking out

Why Are India's Poor So Poor?

Praful Bidwai writes the latest in a long line of tedious, often repetitive articles about growing income and wealth inequality in India. Of course, Mr. Bidwai blames the rich—or the middle class—and the neoliberal policies on which their wealth is based on:

The contrast between this obscene concentration of wealth at the very top, and the prevalence of mass poverty, with the most appalling conditions of life at the bottom, should shock us all. Not only is this morally indefensible and unacceptable in itself; but coupled with deep and entrenched inequalities of opportunity in this super-hierarchical, casteist society, it is especially repugnant.

In his article, Mr. Bidwai cites statistic after statistic to burnish his arguments, weak as they are. Yes, statistics say there is income inequality in India, but they don’t explain why, and neither does Mr. Bidwai. Nor does he offer any solutions except for asking Indians to find the goodness in them and address the pressing needs at hand. In other words: let’s keep on trying till we get it right. This is good sloganeering, of course, but it translates into poor public policy.

What Mr. Bidwai and rest of the left-wing chattering classes really want is a return to the halcyon days of Nehruvian socialism, where everybody was poor, and the government was suppose to be the only fount of wealth, as well as wisdom. If there is a good reminder why government is never a good source of creating wealth, or distributing it, the failure of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) should be sobering.

Amit Varma from India Uncut writes:

Last month, the Delhi-based Society for Participatory Research in Asia, a non-profit organization, released a preliminary study on NREGA’s governance. The results are shocking. In the financial year beginning in April 2006, only 6% of the households registered under the scheme actually received their 100 days of employment. PRIA’s study also cited shoddy implementation practices across 14 of India’s 28 states. In the surveyed villages, only 45% of registered households had even applied for work under the scheme. And of those households that had applied for a job, only 44% had received one within the required 15 days.

PRIA’s results mirror the findings of another study carried out by the Centre of Environment and Food Security earlier this year. The CEFS study focused on the state of Orissa, and found that about 75% of the funds spent in Orissa had been “siphoned and pocketed by the government officials.” “We could not find a single case where entries in the job cards are correct and match with the actual number of workdays physically verified with the villagers,” the study noted. Out of a total $187 million in public monies spent in the state during the 2006-2007 fiscal year, around $127 million was effectively stolen.

This kind of wastage shouldn’t come as a great surprise. India’s bureaucrats hold effectively tenured positions, and are often unaccountable to the public they serve. Their incentives are tailored only toward increasing their power and their budgets. Government is not transparent, and most common citizens do not contemplate legal recourse against it, as the legal system is dysfunctional and the rule of law is weak.

Poor governance plagues India still, but it hurts the poor more than the middle and upper classes, who have carved out a life in the private sector and are less reliant on the government (as it should be). And in the case of NREGA, money allocated for the poor disappear into the black hole of government bureaucracy and the corrupt hacks who run it. Yet we do not see Mr. Bidwai demonize them like he does the rich. For Bidwai, a government employee—no matter how unaccountable or how inept—is above reproach; who should be put on a pedestal and revered like some Hindu deity.

In essence, the government is the problem, not the rich.

Che And Castro: Islamic?

Some crazy Iranian establishment types think Che Guevara and Fidel Castro are not, in fact, hardcore atheists, but God-fearing Islamic revolutionaries like them.

…Hajj Saeed Qassemi, the co-ordinator of the Association of Volunteers for Suicide-Martyrdom (who presumably remains selflessly alive for the cause), revealed that Che was a “truly religious man who believed in God and hated communism and the Soviet Union”.

…Qassemi went on to claim that Fidel Castro, the “supreme guide” of Guevara, was also a man of God. “The Soviet Union is gone,” he affirmed.

I’m sure Fidel Castro would be very surprised to hear this. Castro, like most communists, abhors organized religion, and has done almost everything in his power to destroy the Catholic Church as a viable institution. And Che Guevera’s daughter was surprised by the statement as well.

Che’s daughter Aleida wondered if something might have been lost in translation. “My father never mentioned God,” she said, to the consternation of the audience. “He never met God.”

We all know there is common cause between the hard-left and Islamic radicals for one reason: they pathologically hate the United States. Aside from believing in a strong central government and welfare state, they have nothing in common. How can they? Atheists and religious radicals do not mix.

What we are seeing, though, and what we long suspected, is that Islamic radicals are slowly taking over the hard-left. This is a tactic used by communists during the Cold War, who infiltrated socialist parties and take them over from within. And what better way to start the process than to appropriate Marxist icons