Islam Under Siege: Those Bloody Talibans

Hantu Laut

This can happen to us if we allow the religious fanatics and deviants take over this country.

Pakistan is on the way to becoming a failed state and a danger to the rest of the world. Because of its nuclear capability the world will be in great danger if those nuclear arsenal fall into the wrong hands.The hands of the religiously misguided Talibans.

The present leadership is too weak, incompetent, corrupted and rotten to the core to be able to take care of the worsening situation.

Asif Ali Zardari is a known crook and a suspected murderer. He made a pact with the devil.He made a pact with the Talibans and allowed them to rule the Swat valley under the Taliban's brand of Islamic law.

Pakistan should forget about democracy and should go back to military rule.What's the use of democracy if your country is going to the dogs.

I was against the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. Pakistan ? Yes, go ahead, invade it, before it's too late.

An ultimatum should be given to the Pakistani government to wipe out the Talibans in the next six months failing which an international invasion force should be deployed to take over the country and wipe out the Talibans.A UN international force headed by the US should be considered to spearhead the invasion.

Do not underestimate the madness of these religious deviants. If they can use suicide bombers to kill innocent civilians they will have no qualms about using weapon of mass destruction.

Outcry in Pakistan after video of a 17-year-old girl's flogging by the Taliban is shown on TV

• Taliban spokesman says 'they did the right thing'
• Renewed controversy over peace deal in Swat valley

• Declan Walsh in Islamabad
• The Guardian, Saturday 4 April 2009
• Article history

WARNING: This video contains images some people may find disturbing Link to this video

The Pakistani government has ordered an inquiry into the flogging of a 17-year-old woman by Taliban militants in the troubled Swat valley, after public outrage triggered by shocking video footage of the punishment.

The images, played yesterday on private television channels, show a burka-clad woman being pinned to the ground by two men while a third whips her backside 34 times. The woman is seen screaming and begging for mercy as a crowd of largely silent men look on. She is accused of having had an illegal sexual relationship, according to local law. Her brother is among those restraining her.

President Asif Ali Zardari led a wave of public condemnation, and ordered the arrest of the perpetrators. Prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani termed it "shocking" and called for an immediate inquiry. At the supreme court, the newly reinstated chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry, summoned officials to a hearing scheduled for Monday to investigate the incident.

"Our constitution allows no space for such public brutality, and our civilisation and culture have no tolerance for it either," said Sherry Rehman, a former information minister.

But the talk of arrests and inquiries are unlikely to amount to much. The Pakistan government's writ has all but collapsed in Swat, where armed militants loyal to a hardline preacher named Maulana Fazlullah have taken control. The teenage woman was flogged in Kabbal, a remote district where Taliban rule is the law. An order by the chief justice to produce the woman in Islamabad next Monday is unlikely to be heeded.

Muslim Khan, a Taliban spokesman, defended the punishment as appropriate under Islamic law, but said it should have been applied by a pre-pubescent boy in a private setting. "She had to be punished," he told Geo News. "The punishment administered by local Taliban was in our knowledge and they did the right thing, but the method was wrong."

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Anwar Running Out Of Silver Bullets

Hantu Laut

A miss is as good as a mile they say and it looks like with Najib at the helm the distance between Anwar and the coveted title may have stretched far apart. An infinite journey for Anwar unless the bomb he planned to drop tonight has something to do with him staging another coup.

In his usual tongue in cheek style he ridiculed Najib releasing of the 13 ISA detainees quoting inconsistency.

Certainly, I don't expect Anwar to be jumping with joy and showers Najib with accolades. His strong advocate against the ISA and his negative response against Najib's recent actions shows his own inconsistency.Does he expect those people to be locked up for life? They must be a time when they have to be released from detention. Depending on the severity of their crime some may have to stay longer.

He said "Pakatan Rakyat still protests against this draconian law. They can still detain, then release, detain and release. Where is the justice? What kind of government is this?"

When he was in UMNO and was deputy prime minister he didn't talked like this.He was quite happy helping to lock up those who criticised the government with his eyes wide open and his conscience locked. What kind of politician is he?

He said UMNO is a party of flip-flops and in his usual demagogic rendering said "When we said the RM7 billion economic stimulus package was not enough, they said, no, this is enough. Then Najib announced a new RM60 billion plan and they said we support it. When the government called the detainees terrorists, they supported. Now it says they are suddenly innocent and they also support."

Anwar Ibrahim appears to have run out of silver bullets and is taking potshots at Najib.

Najib:He Is No Wimp !

Hantu Laut

He defies expectation of an authoritarian rule predicted by many.Surprises that have thrown the oppositions and skeptics in utter disbelief and one that may influence the outcome of the three by-elections.

Although to early to tell, Najib had started on the right footing, doing what the ethnocentric leaders in UMNO had refused to do for decades.A prime minister who has his ears to the ground will go a long way.

He has on his first day as prime minister did the unthinkable and the unexpected.He released 13 ISA detainees including some Hindraf leaders and lifted the suspension of two opposition publications - Harakah and Suara Keadilan. He has also indicated that his government will comprehensively review the ISA which has been a thorny issue and a rallying point for the oppositions.

Although, I don't expect him to abolish the ISA in totality, I believe he would find ways and means to fine tune it and to bring it in line with the justice system. I am not against the ISA and Seditious Acts as long as they are not abused by those in power and only used in its proper context.

One can now see that Najib is not a wimp or going to be wimpish and intimidated by the warlords in UMNO. His assertiveness to deal with a situation is a good sign.

As he has said earlier to judge him by his actions.

Throw Out A Good Man, Installed A Crook

Hantu Laut

This could, if it happens, be the most dangerous failed state ever.The clock is ticking waiting for the day the extremists and religious fanatics to take over the state and throw the world into utter chaos and possible nuclear holocaust.

Pakistan is now moving much faster than before into becoming a failed state and a nightmare for the rest of the world. The Talibans, the most extreme of all Islamists, had taken over the Swat valley in the north just 100 miles from the capital Islamabad.The government is powerless and have surrendered the territory to this hordes of mad men.

Throw out a good man and installed a known crook, this is what you get.

Can Pakistan Be Governed?

TO ENTER the office where Asif Ali Zardari, the president of Pakistan, conducts his business, you head down a long corridor toward two wax statues of exceptionally tall soldiers, each in a long, white tunic with a glittering column of buttons. On closer inspection, these turn out to be actual humans who have been trained in the arts of immobility. The office they guard, though large, is not especially opulent or stupefying by the standards of such places. President Zardari met me just inside the doorway, then seated himself facing a widescreen TV displaying an image of fish swimming in a deep blue sea. His party spokesman, Farhatullah Babar, and his presidential spokesman, Farahnaz Ispahani, sat facing him, almost as rigid as the soldiers. Zardari is famous for straying off message and saying odd things or jumbling facts and figures. He is also famous for blaming his aides when things go wrong — and things have been going wrong quite a lot lately. Zardari’s aides didn’t want him to talk to me. Now they were tensely waiting for a mishap.

The president himself, natty in a navy suit, his black hair brilliantined to a sheen, was the very picture of ease. Zardari beamed when we talked about New York, where he often lived between 2004, when he was released from prison after eight years, and late 2007, when he returned to Pakistan not long after his wife, Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated by terrorists. For all that painful recent history, Zardari is a suave and charming man with a sly grin, and he gives the impression of thoroughly enjoying what must be among the world’s least desirable jobs. Zardari had just been through the most dangerous weeks of his six months in office. He dissolved the government in Punjab, Pakistan’s dominant state, and called out the police to stop the country’s lawyers and leading opposition party from holding a “long march” to demand the reinstatement of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who had been sacked, along with most of the high judiciary, by Zardari’s predecessor, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Zardari defused the situation only by allowing Chaudhry’s return to office and giving in to other demands that he had previously and repeatedly rejected.

Yet, despite this spectacular reversal, the president was not in a remotely penitent state of mind over his handling of the protests against him. “Whoever killed my wife was seeking the Balkanization of Pakistan,” he told me. “There is a view that I saved Pakistan then” — by calling for calm at a perilous moment — “and there is a view that by making this decision I saved Pakistan again.” There had been, he said, a very real threat of a terrorist attack on the marchers on their way to Islamabad. That is why his government invoked a statute dating back to the British raj in order to authorize the police to arrest protesters and prevent the march from forming. I pointed out that Benazir Bhutto faced a far more specific threat and was outraged when General Musharraf kept her from speaking on the pretext of protecting her. The president didn’t miss a beat. “And therefore,” he rejoined, “we moved to the other side”: that is, he reversed his order to the police, and permitted the protesters’ march, just before giving in to their demands altogether. Read more....