Jews & Muslims: Mohammad Ali Attends His Grandson's Bar Mitzvah

Khalia, Mohammad Ali's Muslim daughter, her Jewish husband Spencer, and  Ali's
grandson, Jacob, in this undated photo. 

Yes. A Muslim grandfather's Jewish grandson's coming-of-age ceremony.

American boxing champion Mohammad Ali's daughter, Khalia Ali, married Spencer Wertheimer, a Jewish-American attorney. Their son, Jacob, turned 13 in April and was eligible for the ritual that marks puberty.

Mohammad Ali, now 70, traveled to Philadelphia especially to attend his grandson's special occasion.

Here's a quote from a report:

"Khaliah Ali-Wertheimer, Jacob’s mother, told Ali biographer Thomas Hauser that though her father raised his children Muslim, he was "supportive in every way. He followed everything and looked at the Torah very closely."
"It meant a lot to Jacob that he was there," she told Hauser, who reported on the bar mitzvah at TheSweetScience.com.

What interests me in this story is how closely it resembles relations between Muslims and Jews. I mean the normal relations for centuries before the rise of the State of Israel.

Do you know that Muslims and Jews never fought each other for more than 1,300 years? At all?

During a succession of Muslim empires, or caliphates, Jews and Muslims maintained a very close relationship.

A saying became famous in those times among Arab Muslims: If you're travelling, eat with a Jew because his food is halal, and sleep at the home of a Christian, because he will never betray you.

In one caliphate, a Jew rose through the ranks to become a prime minister under a Muslim caliph. Often Jewish citizens of Islamic caliphates were recruited as ministers in the government, often assuming the position of finance ministers. The caliphates of Umayyads, Abbasids and Ottomans followed this policy. And this did not violate the shariah law implemented throughout Muslim lands.

In fact, Jewish scholars, artists and scientists always found a seat in the courts of Muslim caliphs and kings.

Even today, Jews are members of parliament in Morocco, Bahrain and Iran. In Bahrain, the kingdom's ambassador to the United States was until recently a Bahraini Jewish Arab lady. I think she's still there.

It gets better. In 15th century when Christians expelled the Jews from Muslim Spain after defeating Muslims, where do you think the Jews preferred to go?

Europe? Not a chance. The elders of the Jewish community in Spain decided to go to the most powerful and rising Muslim nation at the time, the Ottoman Turkey, an Islamic caliphate and one of the most powerful nations on earth at the time.

Misunderstandings between Muslims and Jews rose only when Zionists, members of a political movement, decided to launch a war against the Arabs in Palestine under British protection. Jewish gangs were formed and instructed to bomb and kill the Arabs in the first two decades of the 20th century, producing enmities and hate.

Even then, most Jews and most Muslim did not see one another as enemies. It is safe to say the enmity was created by the members of a movement who called themselves Zionists. The Zionists wanted the Jews to fight Arabs for Palestine. To motivate the Jews for a fight, you had to create an enmity first.

Even today, hardcore Zionists continue to emphasize a policy of hating Arabs and Muslims in order to keep the Jews at war with their Muslim neighboring nations. Under this misguided policy, some Israeli officials even encourage the United States and Europe to fight Muslims under the false notion that Muslims are the archenemy.

Before Israel, there was no conflict between Jews and Muslims for over 1,300 years, almost since the birth of Islam.

The story of a Muslim grandfather attending his Jewish grandson's bar mitzvah is a reminder of how Jews and Muslims lived in peace for centuries. In fact, no one gave the Jews a better hone for centuries than Muslim caliphates ruled by shariah.

Can you believe that? It's true. But you won't read about this in mainstream American media because this knowledge does not serve the future war planners at Pentagon and CIA. 

$5 Billion Or US Passport?

I don't understand what's the big deal about Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin renouncing his US citizenship to dodge tax on $5 billion dollars he stands to earn after facebook IPO. 

Talk about a smart tax move. 

If you stand to earn $5 billion without having done any real hardwork [except maybe a really smart investment decision at a very young age] and Uncle Sam will take half of it upfront, and you're living outside the US anyway, wouldn't you do what Saverin has done? 

Why sacrifice $2.5 billion for a passport that wasn't yours to start with? [Saverin is Brazilian-born.]

Isn't this the American Dream? 

Farhad Manjoo, a brilliant American journalist, wrote a piece criticizing Saverin's move, reminding him that he owes his money and fame to America and that his action proves he's ungrateful.

That may be true but Saverin has been smart enough to milk the American Dream like any smart American, even if it means easing himself out of the country's citizenship!

And this is, really, what makes America a great place.

Well done to Saverin for pursuing the American Dream it in its most crudest form!

Pakistan's Wrong Debate On US Ties

Today, The News International published an opinion I wrote on resetting Pakistan-US ties, appropriately titled, Re-Engaging US.

My argument on this debate is simple. The recommendations that the Parliamentary Committee on National Security proposed are good but not enough.

We are having the wrong debate.

We are discussing reopening the US and NATO supply road. We are talking about containers, trucks, drones and money.

The real issue is that the United States has taken over Pakistani presidency. It struck a deal in 2006 and 2007 that decided who will be the next Pakistani president. Washington is pumping money into Pakistani media. It refuses to blacklist BLA as a terror group and is shielding BLA and TTP terrorists in Switzerland and Afghanistan, respectively. Washington owes Pakistan close to a billion dollars for using our bases and facilities for the Afghan war. It has been using that money to blackmail us. It wants to bring India into Afghanistan, has granted India access to civil nuclear technology and continues to blackmail our nuclear program in Geneva.

Considering all of this, the least we can do is to be honest. All of the above has to be part of the agenda of resetting Pak-US ties. Simply talking about restoring the supply road is ridiculous.

And what about the aerial corridor? Are we going to tax the goods flying through our airspace to Afghanistan? How come there's no mention of this in the parliamentary recommendations?

Someone also needs to ask the Zardari government why he quietly decided to reopen the aerial corridor for Americans on 'humanitarian grounds'? And is it possible for his compassion to extend to the seven Pakistani widows and the sixteen Pakistani orphans left behind by the deliberate American attack on 26/11?

Pakistan And Israel

Pakistan maintains ties to Israel without having diplomatic relations. These are not full diplomatic ties but are meant to convey messages on critical issues to avoid misunderstandings. For example, Pakistan went on a high alert after our nuclear tests in 1998 when we received information India was considering allowing Israeli fighter jets to fly from Indian air bases to attack Pakistani nuclear installations. There was information that Israeli air force was present somewhere in India for that purpose. Pakistan conveyed to the US a warning: If Israelis participated in an Indian attack on Pakistan, then Pakistan will retaliate against both and not just India alone. This got the Americans worried and they arranged for a direct contact between the Pakistani and Israeli ambassadors in Washington. The Israelis gave the highest assurances they had no assets in India to be used against Pakistan. That contact diffused the immediate tensions.

Of course Pakistan was not imagining that Israel has a close military cooperation with India. Israel does have such cooperation.

In 1999, elite Israeli military units helped India avert a certain defeat in the Kargil heights of occupied Kashmir. The Israel military contribution in that small war was secret and largely remains so, but it was important enough to change the course of conflict. We are still not sure at what point Kashmiri and Pakistani fighters faced off with Israelis on the opposite side in Kargil in occupied Kashmir. Maybe Pakistani military would have more information on this. This Israeli participation in a Pakistani-Indian conflict would have remained a secret had not some Israeli diplomats in India alerted some Indian journalists, possibly as an attempt to show Indians how grateful they should be to Israeli assistance and, consequently, ensure more Indian orders for Israeli military hardware.

Israel is keen to have diplomatic relations with Pakistan. It is in Israel’s interest to win over a large Muslim nation. But whatever Pakistani contacts with Israel, Islamabad is not very keen on any immediate relations and can wait until Palestinians and Arabs sort out the dispute over Palestine and especially the question of Al-Quds, or Jerusalem, where Israelis want to control holy sites for Christians and Muslims.

A real Pakistani concern is how much Israel bolsters Indian military capabilities. In 2002, Pakistan Air Force shot down an Israeli-made unmanned Indian surveillance plane. So one can imagine Pakistani military planners are not happy with Israelis getting too much involved with the Indians.

We also need to be concerned about Israeli policy hawks who want an alliance with India because they believe the two countries can work together against Muslim nations. Many wiser Israelis and Indians understand such a policy would be suicidal for both. But such wise thinking is not enough unless it actually stops such an alliance from materializing. The verdict on this count is yet to come. One encouraging sign of this would be for Israel to hold back some technologies and weapons that India is sure to buy for one express purpose: to target Pakistan and fortify the brutal Indian military occupation in Kashmir. Let’s see how the Israelis balance this.

Overall, Israelis are keen to avoid talking or acting against Pakistan in public. They don’t want to see Pakistanis retaliating by helping Israel’s enemies. So you won’t see Israeli politicians or media condemning Pakistani nuclear program the way US officials and media do.

A little known fact: You can make telephone calls from Israel to almost all Arab and Muslim countries, possibly including Pakistan. But you can’t call Israel from Pakistan. Not that it really matters in the age of internet, but it gives you a clear idea where we and the Israelis stand in terms of policy red lines.

[Adapted from a note on Facebook where a young Pakistani politician asked about Israel’s interest in ties with Pakistan]

US Can Replace Supply Routes But Not Pakistan's Role

Pakistan has sincerely cooperated with the US-led coalition in establishing peace and a working government in Kabul after 2001.

A working government in Kabul and a semblance of peace in Afghanistan is possible today thanks to Pakistan's diplomatic and logistical role in late 2001 and early 2002.

In return, US turned Pakistan into a punching bag. But this will not continue. The US can replace supply routes but not Pakistan's key role and US officials, in government, military and intelligence, will have to learn to respect Pakistani interests if they hope to convince Pakistan to resume at least some cooperation. 

Voice Of Russia: Is US Attack On Pakistan Calculated Or A Blunder?

I join Kudashkina Ekaterina of Voice of Russia radio network to discuss a key question: Is the United States attack on Pakistani military checkposts killing 24 soldiers a blunder? My argument in this brief interview is that it is a deliberate act of war. Click here http://j.mp/tm657y to listen to the interview.

Hillary Clinton's Quick Wit

This comes with years of training and practice but I really liked this accidental video of Mrs. Clinton in Kabul hours before she flew in to Islamabad, the world's closest capital to Kabul [a lot of people don't know this].

For those in the television news business, the video here shows the AP crew preparing to tape and 'feed' the interview back to their reporting station via satellite. So the tape is running but the interview has not started.

The cameraman and the producer probably didn't expect to get this unusual scoop: America's foreign minister caught giving her raw reaction to hearing about Gaddafi's death.

For me, two things make this short video very interesting.

One is that you don't see government officials at her level giving their natural reactions to hardcore news. If not for this chance video, we would have read somewhere that US State Department released a carefully worded statement by Mrs. Clinton on Gaddafi's death.

Not here.

Here we have a senior government official humanized. Like the rest of us, she gets the news on her cell phone and then reacts naturally.

The other thing that really caught my attention, and is the reason why I am sharing the video, is Mrs. Clinton's professionalism that is on display here.

Here she is, the foreign minister of major world power, sitting with journalists. She gets a major breaking news. And how does she react? She's calm and reasoned. Someone tries to drag more out of her but she is very matter-of-factly, saying there have been false alarms before. She avoids any displays of bravado considering that her country was in armed conflict with the now dead Libyan.

That's what really attracted me.

Gotta go now. Reading many reports on the just concluded visit of Mrs. Clinton and her high-powered delegation. A lot of info in the public domain. I also have reports from a couple of our reporters and sources talking to PakNationalists.com.  Some really exclusive stuff. For example, there was a somewhat tense moment during Mrs. Clinton's closed-door meeting with senior Pakistani diplomats at the Foreign Office. And there are some very juicy details about how Mr. David Petraeus, CIA chief, known here as 'chief anti-Pakistan propagandist', was treated by Pakistani officials, and some details about how the Zardari government surrendered our state-run media to Mrs. Clinton's media handlers to use to dish out US propaganda without being countered in any way, and there are many polite ways of doing it, like ensuring some people representing your side are invited to TV events addressed by Mrs. Clinton. Didn't happen. More on this in a few hours as we finish sifting through the piles of info.

Why Pak Media Ignored Anti-CIA Sit-In?

While there are many hardworking journalists in the Pakistani media, this media is yet to develop a sense of perception, which means looking into the future beyond the immediate headlines of the day.

When PPP and PMLN were running for elections in March 2008, Pakistani media refused to ask these two parties any tough questions about their long record of failed politics. The media gave these two parties an easy time. Journalists were focused on only one thing: the exit of Musharraf. While that was a worthy story, the media failed in its duty to check the record of those whom it was promoting as alternatives.

The same thing happens in the case of PTI's sit-in in Peshawar. For the first time since 2002, ordinary Pakistanis come out of their homes and block NATO supply line. This was a major story. But our media generally ignored it. Why? Because PTI boycotted the 2008 elections and the party is not in the parliament and wields no power. Many of our media men and women depend on maintaining good relations with some politicians either because of bias or for indirect benefit or gain. So everyone in the media is focused on what the politicians in parliament are saying. No one is interested in PTI or the drones because, well, PTI can't offer journalists favors because it is not in power.

That's why most of the Pakistani media ignored the sit-in in Peshawar on the first day, on 23 April.

But everyone in our media sat up and noticed when elected politician and those parties that are considered to be well established, participated in the second day of the sit-in. The parties did this because of the tremendous response that PTI generated among ordinary Pakisanis, and everyone wanted a piece of the pie.

This is realistic and unfortunate aspect of our media. But I hope our media will drw some lessons from its coverage of the sit-in.

We Support Imran's Anti-CIA Sit-In

I am not a member of Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or Pakistan Justice Movement. But I endorse Imran Khan's courageous stand on rogue CIA operations inside Pakistan that have resulted in the displacement and murder of millions of Pakistanis.

And I particularly salute the courage of all PTI young men and women who are descending on Peshawar for the sit-in against CIA drone attacks and the complicit Pakistani government.

We should also remember all those who are not membes or supporters of PTI but answered Imran Khan's call for this sit-in out of compassion for the women and children who have been killed by the hundreds by these CIA drones.

One of the great ideas someone came up with on my Facebook page was to post the following paragraph on our pages. Those who are members of the pages of the US embassy in Islamabad and consulates in Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and Hyderabad should post this on those pages:

"This weekend, we join together in prayer for the hundreds of Pakistani innocent men, women and children killed by illegal CIA operations in Pakistan. We hold United States responsible for creating conditions for insurgencies in Balochistan, FATA & displacement millions of Pakistanis. We support PTI's sit-in in Peshawar against CIA drones."

 

Why Hosni Mubarak Is Still Better Than Pakistani Rulers

Hosni Mubarak in his speech a few minutes ago has proven he and his regime, including his new Vice President, do not understand and respect their people.

But there is one thing he said that resonated with me because I've seen it in his government for the past three decades.

I'd like to point out this one thing because it is very relevant to Pakistan's political and military leaderships.

Mubarak said at one point in his speech, 'I will not allow myself to be subject to foreign interference'.  At another place, he added, 'I will live and die in Egypt.'

Great words and they certainly don't justify his three-decade long tight grip on power, the corruption and now the refusal of the regime to understand its people.

But I watched President Mubarak say these words and thought about Pakistani leaders who, since the 1990s and until now in 2011, have become shameful instruments of foreign meddling in Pakistan. Mubarak is supposed to be a bigger foreign stooge and yet he never allowed foreign meddling in his country, and he won't now even in his defeat.

Even in his defeat Mubarak declared he will not subject himself to foreign diktat. And that he will die and be buried in Egypt and won't escape for safety and in some haven in Jeddah, Dubai, London and New York.

For Pakistan's ruling elite, these cities have become alternate capitals of Pakistan.

Mubarak refused to entertain offers to move to Germany or Saudi Arabia or Dubai. Sure, things can change in the future, but I read in the Arabic-language media that if worse came to worse, Mubarak thinks he could hand over power and move to his house in the resort city of Sharm el Sheikh, but never leave and die outside Egypt.

This is significant and let me explain why.

Even when Egypt under Mubarak was very pro-American and pro-Israel, it kept its national pride. Egypt was taking American aid but refused to accept American meddling. Mubarak knew Washington needed his country in order to protect Israel. So he delivered on that count but never permitted the Americans to meddle in Egyptian politics. When President George W. Bush rolled out his democracy agenda in the Middle East after 9/11, Mubarak was instrumental in failing it [along with the Saudis]. He just won't have it. Mubarak refused to allow the Americans to establish direct contact with Egyptian politicians or engineer any kind of internal change.

Egypt made peace with Israel but only because Egyptian nationalists were disappointed at what they saw as stabs in the back by Arabs and Muslims [For example, rich Arabs refused to bail oput Egyptian economy enough despite Egypt fighting Israel in four wars on behalf of all Arabs. Egypt was also shocked to see Pakistan in 1956 supporting the British-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt, and other Muslim nations like Turkey and Iran not supporting Egypt in wars with Israel.]  All of this shaped the psyche of the Egyptian ruling elite and intelligentsia and helped push Egypt toward peace with Israel under American guarantees.

But Mubarak didn't allow his people to become American or Israeli puppets, and limited all forms of political interference.

I can recount many occasions when there were frictions between Cairo and Washington over one thing or the other and the mainstream US media was unleashed - as usual - to ridicule, harass or intimidate Mubarak and Egypt. But Mubarak won't have any of it. The Egyptians have always been very protective of their national pride.

Compare that to Pakistan. Every regime, from Benazir Bhutto to Nawaz Sharif to Pervez Musharraf to Asif Zardari, has handed over Pakistani citizens to foreign governments without an iota of national pride.

Some of them moved to Jeddah, Dubai, London and New York. Most of them have their wealth and properties abroad. Mr. Musharraf added something new to this shameful history when he launched Pakistan's first political party on foreign soil, in London and Dubai. And now most Pakistani politicians consider it kosher to conduct important political meetings outside Pakistan. Mr. Zardari has introduced another first: high-level meetings with foreign governments that relevant Pakistani government departments, like the Foreign Office, know nothing about. We have ambassadors and national security advisers who are appointed to protect the interests of foreign governments.

The regime's corruption and ruthlessness are the reasons why Egyptians want change. But Egypt progressed a lot under Mubarak's regime, unlike the Syrians or the Iraqis. 

For all of his ties to the Americans and Israelis, Egypt under Mubarak remained staunchly proud. As a Pakistani, I certainly don't want to see a Mubarak in Pakistan. However, we do need a Pakistani ruling class with the same sense of pride and history, one that won't turn its country into an experimentation zone for foreign powers. 

Hosni Mubarak and the Egyptian regime made peace with Israel but never allowed any foreign power to come and abuse Egyptians or bomb them through CIA drones. This honor exclusively belongs to Pakistan's ruling elite.

America's Aid To Pakistan Is Not 'Massive' Nor 'Lavish'

You have to love the language the US media uses when discussing American aid to Pakistan.

There is no new aid. But the latest coverage pertains to a report released by the American inspector general's office on the Kerry-Lugar-Berman aid bill.

The inspector general has released a report criticizing US aid's limited impact on improving civilian services in Pakistan.

This civilian aid was approved in 2009, $7.5 billion over five years, beginning in early 2010.

The new report questions the aid's impact, which is negligible. That's not news to us.

But there are bigger myths that surround this aid package to Pakistan in the US media. It's a classic case of US government spinning to itself and its people and then believing its own spin.

I was reading a Fox News report on this aid that described it as 'massive' and quoted unnamed commentators who opposed 'lavishing' US aid on Pakistan.

Massive and lavish? Hardly.

This aid package is not massive and not lavish. Pakistan has been undersold to US interests by two US puppets, Pervez Musharraf and Asif Zardari. If Pakistani nationalists were in power, US officials and media would have heard more frequently about more than US$ 64 billion that Pakistan has lost directly and indirectly because of America's war in Afghanistan.

Washington has knowingly hurt Pakistan's geo-strategic environment and interests in ways far worse than how it abandoned Pakistan after the Soviet defeat in 1991, leaving Pakistan to deal with thousands of militants that CIA gathered to fight the Soviets.

US officials are still hung on 1991 when analyzing Pakistani estrangement but are unaware of the new estrangement that has emerged because of the American mess since 2002.

Compared to a loss of $64 billion in eight years, the Kerry-Lugar-Berman aid package is peanuts. It is not massive nor lavish. It is nothing compared to what US is spending in Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt and Israel. All of them prove that Washington has been paying lip service to its Pakistani ally while doing things that harm the interests of this supposed ally.

The list of things America has done to harm Pakistani interests is long. Many US officials know about this list but pretend it doesn't exist because the pro-US government in Islamabad never raises it, leaving the Pakistani public opinion to worry about it.

The result is that the US discourse on aid to Pakistan is couched in myths and will not help further US interests on the long run.

And despite all the noise to the contrary, US doesn't appear much worried about this. The Obama administration has resorted to gimmicks in how it uses the 2009 aid package. The flow of funds from the package is slow. Each cash installement released is geared toward creating positive headlines than having any real positive impact on the ground. Since 2009 Washington has been making aid announcements to meet various Pakistani needs as if these announcements indicated new aid. But in all of these announcements US officials forgot to mention this was not new aid but a reallocation of Kerry-Lugar-Berman funds.

In short, the US government has been recycling old aid pledges repeatedly to make them look new, and then embellish the story to make aid to Pakistan appear 'massive' and 'lavish'.

This is what the Obama administration did during last year's epic floods in Pakistan. The much touted US helicopters arrived only when pro-US politicians begged Mr. Holbrooke and Mrs. Clinton to cover up for their incompetence in view of the excellent performance of Pakistani NGOs and the Pakistani military.

This shows the level of US disinterest in genuinely helping its Pakistani ally. No wonder this is a troubled relationship. A pro-US government in Islamabad worsens this relationship by not addressing these issues because it needs US help to counter the Pakistani military and can't afford to talk tough to its protectors in DC.

So my advice to US commentators, especially those who toe the official line: Please spare us the spin.

Who Are Pakistan's Westernized Extremists?

I may not have liked his politics but I know that Governor Salman Taseer was not a blasphemer and that clergymen misled our religious-minded people into believing Mr. Taseer was a blasphemer which probably resulted in a 26-year-old man committing a heinous crime that even Muslim law does not condone.

I accused two vocal minorities in Pakistan of killing Taseer. One is the fringe religious extremists. And the other fringe, the westernized extremists.

People are free to be westernized or religious. I have no problem with either. My problem is with extremists from both groups. The westernized extremists venture out to ridicule religion, and the religious extremists take an easy and tolerant religion like Islam and deform it into something unheard of in Muslim history.

I discussed this in detail in my column, Taseer's Real Killers: Two Extremist Pakistani Minorities, which was published by The News International.

In that column, I compared the passionate debate in Pakistan over the anti-blasphemy law to the American national debate between liberals and religious conservatives on abortion a few years ago. And I condemned how some American and British commentators and government officials tried to link an internal Pakistani debate to the war in Afghanistan, two completely different things. [Some American and British commentators tried to justify the failed war in Afghanistan by suggesting that that war is about Muslim-secular divide.]

Some Pakistani liberals emailed me protesting the use of the term westernized extremists. They said westernized Pakistanis are not violent as some religious extremists are like the man who assassinated Mr. Taseer.

My answer is: liberals and religious Pakistanis are not violent. Only the extremists among them are. It is true that a westernized extremist may not carry a weapon, but when he tries to eliminate a substantial and legitimate segment of religious Pakistanis, he or she is setting off a chain reaction that is bound to turn violent at some stage because religion is involved. Respect must be shown in this debate.

The following is how I briefly profiled a westernized Pakistani extremist:

We know who religious extremists are, those who go to extremes not sanctioned by our Prophet PBUH.

Now we should also know the westernized extremists, these are people who ridicule their compatriots who are religious, make fun of religion, don’t understand that to be liberal doesn’t mean that you oppose religion or oppose the right of another Pakistani to be religious. A westernized extremist is someone who can’t differentiate between opposing extremism and opposing religion, who thinks to be a liberal is to go to war with anyone who has a religious mind and heart. A westernized extremist is someone like Sherry who is right in wanting to amend or repeal the blasphemy law but she is NOT RIGHT in saying death should not be a legal pubishment for blasphemy. She not right because this penalty is part of the Islamic legal jurisprudence and part of Pakistani laws even without the blasphemy law, and so she doesn’t have the right to single-handedly decide if it’s right or wrong.

It ok if you want to be westernized or religious, just don’t go to extremes and divide Pakistanis along religious vs. secular, etc. We have more urgent problems in this country than these ‘imported debates’. They are imported because some western writers start this debate and some of our own buy it and think that’s all what we should be debating.

CIA Complaint Results In Shutting Down A Pakistani Website

PakNationalists.com says it has been formally warned to remove an article on CIA’s secret war inside Pakistan from its website that mentions the name of CIA’s former top spy in Islamabad. The American Internet company that hosts the website on its servers in the United States has complied and told the Pakistani website that the decision is ‘not up for debate.” The irony is that CIA leaves out American and British newspapers and websites that ran the story and targets a Pakistani site critical of US policies.

SPECIAL REPORT | Monday | 10 January 2011

WWW.PAKNATIONALISTS.COM

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—One of Pakistan’s premier online news websites, PakNationalists.com was pulled off the Internet in the first week of 2011 after the US-based hosting company said the site must remove an article mentioning the name of Mr. Jonathan Banks, CIA’s former Islamabad station chief who escaped from Pakistan last month to avoid a murder trial linked to CIA’s secret war inside the country.

The US-based hosting company, GoDaddy.com, said in a written statement sent to the management of PakNationalists.com in Islamabad that the Pakistani website must remove an article titled, ‘CIA Station Chief In Islamabad Sued For Murder And Terrorism.’ [Click here to see an old snapshot of the article from Google cache.  Or click here to read the article on another website]

In its strongly worded statement, the American company warned, “We ask that you either remove the content […] or move your” website to another Internet hosting provider.

On 3 January, the American company gave the Pakistani website 48 hours to comply, and pulled the site down on 5 January.

“Please be aware that this decision [to remove the content] is final, and is not up for debate,” said an email by the Abuse Department at GoDaddy.com

WHY ONLY TARGET A PAKISTANI SITE?

The strange aspect of the story is that hundreds of newspapers and websites covered this story worldwide, including in the United States. But only a Pakistani website, PakNationalists/AhmedQuraishi.com, is being targeted.

UK’s the Guardian newspaper, whose online version is accessible in the United States, published the story on Dec. 17 along with the full name and designation of Mr. Banks.

Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, runs a dedicated page titled Jonathan Banks (CIA officer) but no one has shut down Wikipedia.

UK’s Channel 4 reported CIA station chief’s name but its broadcast and website are accessible from the US.

Another US-based website, running an editorial titled, The Great Escape Of Jonathan Banks, has not been asked to shut down or remove the top spy’s name.

It is obvious that PakNationalists.com is the target.

WHY US?

“We inquired as to who could have made this complaint,” said Gulpari Nazish Mehsud, a young Pakistani who sees herself as a ‘Pakistani nationalist’ and helps manage the website as a volunteer. “The US company won’t give us a name, but it doesn’t take a genius to guess who is making the complaint.”

CIA and the US government have requested the mainstream US media not to print Mr. Banks’ name, although it is all over the world media.

Pakistani nationalism has been on the rise in Pakistan since 2007, when Pakistanis complained that the US and its British ally and their media indulged in the worst demonization campaign against Pakistan as a pressure tactic to squeeze strategic concessions out of the nuclear-armed nation. 

The PakNationalists group began in 2007 with four persons. Today, it boasts close to 5,000 members from different parts of Pakistan. “Mostly young and educated Pakistanis, and intensely nationalistic,” said Mehsud.  

PakNationalists.com is probably one of the earliest online news sites that monitored in detail the many aspects of the US double game against Pakistan in Afghanistan.

“We’ve been under pressure before,” said Ahmed Quraishi, one of the founders of PakNationalists.com as an online forum for Pakistani nationalists. “In 2007, a US diplomat in Islamabad fed a senior Washington Post columnist this information that we’re somehow ISI,” he said, adding “Anyone in Pakistan who defends this country’s legitimate rights is somehow ISI. Maybe that’s why they are harassing us now.”

PakNationalists.com is down until further notice.

Kayani's Briefing: Dawn's Shoddy Journalism

A Dawn newspaper columnist Cyril Almeida has just given a new twist to the term fifth-columnist.

Today he has published a lousy piece of journalism that should be manadatory reading in schools across the country for pitfalls to avoid in a media career.

Far from journalistic curiosity, the only purpose of the piece appears to be to embarrass Pakistan Army Chief of Staff in his relations with key officials in US government. Columnist Almeida extensively quoted from a background briefing and turned inaccuracies into policy statements. Thankfully, he didn't forget to add, "All comments were made strictly on the condition of anonymity being maintained."  Oh really?

Mr. Almeida apparently was one of four-dozen editors, talk-show hosts and columnists invited by Pakistan Army Chief Gen. Ashfaque Kayani to his office on Sunday for an informal and off-the-record chat on the country's strategic situation. From the accounts of most of those who attended the dinner, Gen. Kayani spent a lot of time explaining the defense and army budgets and then delved into regional military issues when some of his guests went that way during Q&A.

All discussion was strictly a 'backgrounder', meant to help journalists get a better context for regional developments. Organizers of the event stressed several times to all participants not to report on the event and not to quote.

One can debate how much a journalist should or shouldn't stick to such official restrictions on information. What is beyond debate is the fact that Pakistan faces a very difficult and deteriorating strategic situation thanks to the blunders of our own and of some of our allies. If a senior official is candidly sharing information and context with Mr. Cyril Ameida and others, then Mr. Almeida, both as a journalist and as a citizen of the country, has the responsibility to reciprocate trust by controlling his urge to leak, especially when the information he just received deals with diplomacy and war and is not as urgent as exposing corruption and underhand deals.

Surprisingly for a professional journalist like Almeida, he tried to hide Gen. Kayani's indentity by identifying him only as a 'senior military official. Then he wrote, "The comments were part of a wide-ranging briefing given to editors, anchors and columnists on Sunday." 

So much for being discreet.

There was advance knowledge the army chief was arranging such a meeting. Several national dailies whose editors were invited ran brief stories on the meeting before it occured. So Mr. Almeida's 'source' was easily exposed.

Like the rest of us, a reporter at the Indian television news channel NDTV had little trouble figuring out the indentity of Almeida's 'senior military official'. The Indian channel reported, "[Dawn] did not name the military official but other media reports said army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had briefed a select group of journalists."

The most damaging aspect of this kind of a leak is accuracy, or the lack of.  Mr. Almeida inaccurately reported on several points. For example, he said Mr. Kayani "claimed the country has transited from the ‘most sanctioned ally’ to the ‘most bullied ally’” of the US. While absolutely true, many of the participants are not sure they heard the Pakistani military commander make such a direct statement. Disappointingly for many, Gen. Kayani was very mellow and diplomatic, to quote one participant, presenting facts and policy statements and leaving interpretation to the listeners. Several journalists tried to drag him into spilling the beans, provoking him by questioning the timing of the meeting and try to link it to he Wikileaks story, or the start of Gen. Kayani's second three-year tenure, or the intricacies of Pakistani domestic politics. The general wound't have any of it.

Regular backgrounders by the country's leadership for the dynamic Pakistani media is a welcome step. The media has shown maturity and restraint in dealing with the issues covered in the latest briefing. State media managers in Islamabad and Rawalpindi need to improve the methods of delivery of background information, possibly streamline it in accordance with the latest best practices in public diplomacy methods. Often Pakistani media trails behind its peers in other nations like China, Iran, US, Russia and others in terms of the quality of current background information available to media professionals. Pakistan is a late entrant into this field and it would take stakeholders time to get a handle on it.

This is why Mr. Almeida's hiccup is an indiscretion that encourages forward momentum with improvements in the delivery of information to the Pakistani media in the future.
        

Relax Gen. Singh, You're No Mike Mullen

India Army Chief has confirmed that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is safe, lucky for all Pakistanis. We were worried he'd make a negative assessment but thank God -- or Krishna, in this case -- that India rushed to stand by Pakistan and debunk the motivated American claims on the subject.

Last week Gen. V. P. Singh said Pakistan posed a threat to India. After all, it was Pakistan that invaded India without provocation in 1971 and conspired to break away half of its territory. And it is Pakistan that is the larger country, casting a shadow over India and threatening it of another unprovoked invasion any day. And it is Pakistan that is spending $30 billion in just two years to buy latest weapons, most of them aimed at Pakistan. India is totally justified in being worried about Pakistani threat. Indeed.

After this statement, the GHQ, the General Headquarters of Pakistan's armed forces, and the Pakistani strategic community, were deeply worried about Gen. Singh's next statement. We all knew it would make or break Pakistan's international reputation. And then comes this friendly statement to put all Pakistanis at ease.

Gen. Singh and his immediate predecessor, Gen. Kapoor, started something new in India. Indian army chiefs never made public statements about foreign policy issues. The US military chief, Adm. Mike Mullen, makes such statements too. But he does so because his military has bases and soldiers all over the world. India doesn't.  And yet Gen. Singh and the previous noise-maker Gen. Kapoor began this trend in India. Why? Because they were told to do so. It is part of Indian government's plans of projecting India as the next superpower, like they did with the other pooper, the Commonwealth Games Delhi 2010. New Delhi wants to put everyone on notice that Indian military chiefs make statements about any country, openly, just like the US CENTCOM chief does. Get it?

Except that, I would just humbly submit to the exalted office of the Indian Army Chief that: Let it rest, Gen. Singh. You're no Mike Mullen.

Pro-US Cabal In Pakistan Is Angry At China Praise

The outgoing US ambassador to Pakistan needs to be congratulated for one thing: she did an excellent job of meddling in Pakistani media and politics. She is credited with organizing a pro-US cabal inside Pakistan that springs into action whenever the US is criticized in Pakistani media. Ironically, this cabal, which consists of Pakistanis, never shows equal passion when the US officials and media demonize Pakistan worldwide.

Ms. Patterson has not been working alone. She received full support from the ruling PPPP's media managers. That is why I am mentioning Pakistan's own wunderkid: Ambassador Husain Haqqani who is said by sources in his won party to be responsible for organizing PPPP's media plans while sitting in Washington DC.

Today the pro-US Zardari-Haqqani cabal in Pakistan [read: PPPP Media Cell] are seething with anger that I criticized Nobel's cheap shot against China. A version of my op-ed, titled, A 'Nobel' Mob Ambush, Chicago Style, was published by the blog section of the Pakistani affiliate of International Herald Tribune. The comments section makes for an interesting read.

They are livid that I linked Nobel's China swipe to the unusual wave of anti-China political ads during the current mid-term election campaign in the US. I explained how the Indian lobby in the US is contributing to the 'Blame China' campaign to divert attention from US public's anger at outsourcing jobs to India.

So guess what? The pro-US Zardari-Haqqani cabal teams up with Indian net surfers to bash China on this excellent Pakistani website.

But no one should worry: Their comments and arguments don't even begin to scratch the surface. The best answer to their ramblings cames from Mr. Ghias Ahmed whose half-line was both pithy and shrewd:

"‎2012 Nobel Prize will be paid in Chinese Yuan...".

Kashmir's Road To Freedom

There is a lesson for New Delhi in the lines from George Bernard Shaw's The Devil's Disciple, set in colonial America during the Revolutionary era:

"And now, General, times passes; and America is in a hurry. Have you realized that though you may occupy towns and win battles, you cannot conquer a nation?"

This encapsulates the spirit of the Kashmirir people and their demand for Azaadi [freedom].

[An excerpt from a paper writte by S. Iftikhar Murshed, an Ambassador of Pakistan and Islamabad's former pointman for Afghanistan in the 1990s. Read his insightful paper here.].

APML: Chances And Intrigues

The pro-US government of President Asif Ali Zardari suspects its enemies are pushing the disparate factions of Pakistan Muslim League, or PML, to unite in order to create a force that could challenge Mr. Zardari's PPPP, or Pakistan People's Party Parliamentarians.

Two recent moves have caught the media attention: The effort to create All Pakistan Muslim League [APML] by veteran politician Pir Pagara. And the effort to create APML by former president Pervez Musharraf in London.

The unification effort led by Pir Pagara is a 50-50 gamble at this stage. The personality clashes and conflicts of interest between the heads of various factions of PML are so deep and suspicions run so high that it can't work except in one condition: if the military approaches each one of them to unite them the way PMLQ was created under Mr. Musharraf eight years ago. Although there are signs the military is interested in seeing this government go, as most Pakistanis do, there is no chance that Gen. Kayani will participate in any effort to destabilize the government. So the PML uniters are pretty much on their own for the time being.

As for Mr. Musharraf's bid, he is benefiting from a sense of desperation and confusion that engulfs Pakistan because of the failures of politicians. His policy prescriptions are also outdated, and even have damaged vital Pakistani interests. He wants to take 'the war on terror to the end' when even the Zardari government and the Pakistani military are trying to tell the Americans to end military operations and come instead to the reconciliation table with the Afghan Taliban.

Mr. Musharraf's lines that he will crush any anti-Pakistan voices and keep Pakistan first are great, but there is ample evidence from his foreign policy that he kept his personal interests before the Pakistani interest on crucial occasions. The biggest exampe is the deal he entered with the United States to maneuver PPPP into power to serve US interests in exchange for helping him remain at the helm until 2013.

His backchannel diplomacy on Kashmir with India between 2004 and 2007 appeared to be driven more by his desire to emerge as an international man of peace and to appease Washington and New Delhi. During this period, he made unnecessary concessions to India without getting anything in return.

Getting some fans in Pakistan is not a big deal. Even Zardari has diehard fans. Mr. Msuharraf's latest political act has a nuisance value but is not expected to create any ripples in Pakistani politics.

One way Mr. Musharraf can have an impact is if the military supports his new bid for power. Interestingly, his policies on Kashmir, Afghanistan and US are highly unpopular within the military rank and file, despite the fact that his first three years 1999-2002 are remembered as ideal in terms of governance.

Mr. Musharraf does retain a nuisance value for the short term. But for the long term, there is no evidence he is the harbinger of major change.

Mr. Musharraf's Disappointing Debut

I was very disappointed to hear Mr. Pervez Musharraf's remarks at the launching of his new political party in London, the UK.

Mr. Musharraf wants the war on terror to continue 'until the end', even when Obama himself has changed its name and wants to end it one way or the other. No words to condemn the deliberate US/NATO murder of 3 Pakistani soldiers. His 7-point agenda in 1999 was more coherent than the 'party program' he announced today. When he was done, I said to myself, 'The paid-TV show is over. Now let's go back to the mess he created and ran away from.'

He probably tried to signal to his past allies in Washington and London that he's still good for the 'war on terror'. He repeated the line, 'Al-Qaeda is in Pakistan' without qualification or explaining who exactly is in Pakistan from that group. His implicit message was that he will stop the 'Taliban' from taking over our country.

The truth is that no one is 'taking over' Pakistan. Mr. Musharraf is still repeating the lines that Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld used to repeat in front of him.

Afghan Taliban are fighting in Afghanistan. The terrorists in our border area, who receive support from the Americans and Indians and their Afghan proxies, will be finished off the day CIA stops its dirty games in Afghanistan.

Yes, there is the issue of religious extremism among a segment of Pakistanis. But the solution to that is not to allow CIA to bomb them from the air. They are our people. It's our internal issue. We can solve it if foreign meddling in our region is ended for good.

A supporter of Mr. Musharraf's new party tried to counsel me to keep my opinions to myself and simply 'report' the event and let the people decide. His argument was that, while I was criticizing Mr. Musharraf, journalists were packing the hall in London where Mr. Musharraf held his event.

What a lot of people don't know is that Mr. Musharraf' party aides made generous offers to prominent journalists across Pakistan, offering 'all expenses paid' trips to come from Pakistan and cover the event in London. Which is exactly what Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto used to do. Nothing has changed.

Pakistan is in a deep mess today, and especially for the past five years, thanks to monumental blunders by Mr. Musharraf. One of his biggest mistakes sits right now in Aiwan-e-Sadr in Islamabad.

To say, 'Well, I made some mistakes, everybody does' is not a very persuasive line for someone who's trying to get a second shot at a job he failed in the first place.

Weekend Story That Scuttled Pak-Indian Photo-Op

This drama quietly unfolded over the weekend.

Early Sunday, a Pakistani newspaper editor receives a text message from a source in New York warning that Zardari govt. is pushing Pak foreign minister to stand for a photo-op with his Indian counterpart in NYC on the sidelines of a UN meeting. Indians were desperate for the photo to demoralize Kashmiris & show them that Pakistan is on board.

The editor called a Pakistani TV news channel and offered to break the story. By midday the story was on the air. By Monday, the Indians , the Americans and their Pakistani stooges waited with baited breath for a meeting that never happened. By evening, Pak foreign minister gave a shocking statement: He won't meet Indians for a photo-op unless they discuss their occupation of Kashmir.

A warm thank you to the timely alert from the New York source.

Click here to read the full story.