Businesswoman Mukhtaran Mai

She was supposedly gang raped eight years ago. Today, armed with the riches she collected from western embassies and NGOs, Mukhtaran Mai's school and NGO in her hometown [her personal business concerns] were busted by government inspectors who caught her using illegal electricity connections to run her business.

Mukhtaran Mai was caught stealing electricity to avoid paying money for a government utility service, like I and you and almost all the average Pakistanis do. Her two brothers actually beat up the government inspectors who came to investigate the fraud and threatened them with dire consequences. This is what powerful land owners and politicians do in their towns and districts.

Apparently Mukhtaran Mai has become as powerful as the feudal lords who once abused her and her family.

But she has every right to exercise power. She is backed by a lot of wealth and support from western NGOs and governments and their local Pakistani watch dogs.

I have no problem that she pocketed all that money. Good for her. At least someone got something out of it. My problem is how she consented to be exploited by every NGO, esp the western ones, that wanted to use her to mount politically-motivated campaigns against Pakistan, and make money out of it.

And these NGOs made a killing. They were fresh from making a lot of money from the sad story of Afghan women under Taliban but that was gone and they needed a new tear jerker. Enter Mukhtaran Mai.

Making money by smearing your country is an unforgivable crime regardless of how Asma Jehangir & Co. would spin it.

Musharraf screwed up in many places but here he was right when he refused to allow her to travel abroad and be exploited. Mr. Musharraf, of course, reversed his decision under pressure, like he did on so many other more important matters. But that's another subject.

Of course there is also that little matter of fresh information that surfaced recently where her original story, about the gang rape and about her role in the entire story involving her younger brother, became doubtful in the light of new information.Mukhtaran Mai deserved support as a rape victim regardless of how exaggerated her story turned out to be, and regardless of the fact that her role in the story was not as 'accidental' or innocent as she portrayed it to be. None of that absolves the villagers who convened an elders' council and ordered she be raped as punishment for whatever that she or her brother did.

But the beating of government inspectors at the hands of her brothers and the fact she was stealing electricity to run her business gives credibility to the doubts about this lady.

Does anyone know where she is spending all that money and who is auditing it, if it's really meant to serve the cause of women in her area?

The Business of Asma-Jehangirism & Liberal Extremism

Should we start a civil war because some liberal extremists in our elite are upset about the alleged flogging video? Some occasions are not meant for settling scores. But a minority in our elite that has an ideological problem with religion is at it again. They are not even willing to stop and consider a range of possibilities, including the possibility of foul play. Now we have a statement from the girl named in the video confirming this is not her. She still lives in the village supposedly cited in the video and no one there has seen this flogging take place. There’s no question there have been atrocities committed in Swat before the peace deal in Feb. 2009. There’s also no question that everyone in Pakistan has condemned the video. But shouldn’t intelligent people also ask questions about where, when, and how it was filmed and by whom. Rationality demands that all possibilities be probed. We still don’t know how this video was simultaneously released to several local TV channels? And why the Presidency was quick to leak to the media that Mr. Zardari may not endorse the peace deal after this mysterious incident. Why was Mr. President so quick to make this indirect statement without even considering when this alleged flogging occurred: before or after the peace deal? Or was the objective to simply find an excuse to scrap the deal, which is what the Americans badly want and Mr. Zardari is more than happy to oblige without considering what it would mean: endless bloodshed and pitching our security forces against its own people, which is apparently what Washington likes to see? These ‘liberal extremists’ are also unwilling to consider the wider picture. We have reports of foreign elements inserted into our entire western and northern regions of Pakistan. We have reports that some of them could be covert operatives fluent in Pashto or Uzbek and hiding as Islamists and sent with the objective of inciting the local population to fight against their own country [Bagram air base near Kabul has secret American crack units that eat, live and operate separately from the rest of the U.S. army] and commit excesses against minorities, which justifies more U.S. intervention inside Pakistan. These terrorists were using Islam to kill innocent people. The government has called their bluff and implemented Sharia. Now anyone who decides to continue fighting can’t say he’s doing this for the sake of Islam. If this ensures end of bloodshed, what’s wrong with that? And why should our minority ‘liberal extremists’ echo everything America says? This group raising all this noise over the mysterious video is the same one that helped Mukhtaran Mai become a multimillionaire. Now we have the truth emerging that her famous rape case may not have been what it was portrayed to be. Initially she was shown to be a 19-year-old raped by the elders of her village. It turned out later she was 10 years older, divorced and had some other personal issues relating to marriage and men. That’s her business and it by no means demeans her and none of this is meant to justify any wrongdoing done to her. But the way she agreed later to become a pawn in the hands of western embassies and NGOs who used her to smear Pakistan and make money out of it was despicable, but that’s acceptable to our liberal extremist minority who also happen to be experts in ‘self-hatred’ and are ever ready to bad mouth their own homeland at the slightest chance. Former President Musharraf aptly described Mukhtaran as a woman profiting out of rape. And he was right. There were people among our liberal extremists who encouraged her to follow the line given to her by anti-Pakistan western organizations keen to use this case to malign the country out of proportion. Our liberal extremists helped her make millions and never apologized when it turned out not all parts of her story matched. Now they are doing the same with this video. No one is bothered that there are so many conflicting stories about it [Was the flogged woman married and arrested for walking publicly with her father in law as Geo News said or was she unmarried and was set up by her former lover-turned-Taliban because she won’t marry him as Dawn News or one of the other channels alleged?]. This business of ‘Asma-Jehangirism’ [making money and fame out of nonissues that appeal to the West] should end at some stage. It’s shallow and sickening.