Escalation of Hostilities in Middle East

Gt,

``Is this more or less where you are comming from?``

In terms of political rhetoric, you can say that but there are specific instances that I know from Pakistani politics that would certain vouch for my comments. Similarly, if you research a little abt the RSS behavior in certain circumstances, you will see what I meant.

Though I must qualify my statement here abt the RSS. RSS is still doing its politics extreme or not, in semi-democratic environments so it does not have to entirely rely on strong arming opposition to achieve its political goals. So, the political environments in India soften its approach.

Whereas in Pakistan, due to the lack of the process or an established political process, the JI and the Mullah would always attempt to strong-arm their opponents first.

I think you need to look at the whole process of terrorism in its true social context to figure out why political parties with similar ideologies behave differently in changed circumstances.

In Pakistan and also in Palestine or in Lebanon, chances of gaining a political upper hand thru muscles are much more easier than in Indian where eventually even the RSS has to comply with the political process to gain seats in the assembly or in the national politics.

I hope I made my point clear.

Re: # 590

HP,

Your point is well taken. Where people are free to impose (temporarily perhaps) their ideology through imperfect means like majority voting, and hence ready to live under (again temporarily perhaps) opposing ideologies, the need to resort to violence diminishes greatly. The negation leads to violence as seen readily even in parts of India like Kashmir, Assam etc. For the above mentioned condition to hold there needs to be some kind of trust in the fact that EVENTUALLY people will get it right. Thus, patience is required. It is here that I disagree with the pseudo liberal cabal in the US. They want to get things right their way and immediately. This has mostly lead to disasters. Once one is commited to democracy, one has to accept fundamentalists in Waziristan (?), Gujrat, Iran, Tunisia or the Communists in Bengal or what have you. You will agree that there is much more democracy in Iran than in Saudi Arabia (or Pakistan?), though just after the revolution there was much more ``fundamentalism`` in Iran. My point is that to let democratic institutions develop, you may choose to fight the Jamaat politically but you cannot take away their right to democratically (and that includes recruiting workers through social service) capture the state. You may say then what next, what if they destroy democracy? I say so be it, because I believe that EVENTUALLY people will get it right. Moreover, the democracy so evolved would be much stronger than the democracy imposed from above.

Regards.

Re: # 594 by GT on July 26, 2006 6:24pm PT

Dear GT:

Majority has a right to rule but minorities must be heard, and that is what is usually missing in the muslim world. In the Islamic world minorities` views and values have been completely wiped out.

If these same majorities could only learn how the minorities behave amongst their ranks in the Islamic world, then they could behave totally differently in the west. Their stupid notion that they do not accept geographical boundaries, blah, blah, blah, etc (read masadi`s thoughts) should be challenged and marginalized. Further, fundoos attitude is want needs to be managed in the world. In this regard, I am in total agreement with Hamid and his rants against the fundoos attitudes.

For this to happen we must marginalize social values of islamist`s amongst us. Those who constantly bad mouth the west and remain tied to the western society must be shown a red card. Their destructive thoughts are not acceptable in today`s world.

Respectfully submitted,

one man`s terrorist another man`s freedom fighter. iraqi pm, currently visiting the u.s, belongs to dawa party. check out the background of dawa party:

http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/10514.html

The Associated Press

February 11, 1984, Saturday

Trial Of Bomb Blast Defendants Opens

Twenty-one defendants accused of bombing the U.S. and French Embassies last December were formally arraigned today, as their trial began under extreme security.

To be tried in absentia are four defendants who are at large, the prosecutor general said.

Five people were killed and 86 injured in the rash of bombings on Dec. 12. Besides the U.S. and French embassies, four Kuwaiti targets were bombed.

The prosecution has demanded the death penalty for 19 of the defendants...Most of them said they belonged to Al-Dawa (Islamic Call) Party, an Iraqi movement of Shiite Moslem fanatics who are pro-Iranian, said court sources who asked not to be identified.

here is an interesting account of the creation of hizbullah. unlike jamatis, hizbullah has been in the trenches, it enjoys popular support and its leaders dont go riding around in 4x4. there are jehadis in pak who have been in the trenches. none of them however enjoy popular support:

http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20editorials/2003%20Opinion%20Editorials/May/7%200/The%20history%20of%20Hizbullah,%20By%20Marc%20Sirois.htm

The history of Hizbullah,

By Marc Sirois
YellowTimes.org

The war between Israel and Hizbullah was not simply born. It was conceived in a seething cauldron of all the things that make the Middle East a snake pit of unending bloodshed, unrivaled bitterness, and unfathomable duplicity.

To understand how this violent relationship might evolve in the future, and how the international community can most effectively seek to keep it under control, it is best to start at the beginning - the real one, rather than the red herrings bred by a mainstream media that is alternately guilty of gross ignorance and shameless fabrication.


...In effect, the Arab world`s major players had abandoned two of its weakest links to one another. All that remained was for the Israelis to appreciate the gulf that had been opened up and dive in.

...On the Muslim side, a new split was shaping up. By 1978, Lebanon`s Shiites, a badly neglected under-class, were probably the largest religious group in the country if not yet an outright majority. Heavily represented in the South, their towns and villages bore the brunt of Israeli reprisals for Palestinian attacks. In addition, once the border strip was taken over, the proximity of Israeli combat forces put the Palestinians under greater strain than ever. They reacted by implementing tougher security measures, eventually imposing a de facto government on what had become known as ``Fatahland`` after the PLO`s dominant faction, Yasser Arafat`s Fatah.


...Just over six months after the Israelis arrived in the South, the kettle of rage among a community that had once invited them into their homes finally boiled over. On Nov. 11, a suicide bomber destroyed an eight-story building housing the IDF`s headquarters in the occupied city of Tyre. At least 75 Israeli troops and members of its proxy militia, the South Lebanon Army, were killed.

Hizbullah did not yet exist as we know it today but the ingredients for a Shiite ``awakening`` were all on hand, and the catalyst of Israeli occupation was drawing them to the same place.

...Like their co-religionists everywhere else in the Islamic world, their Sunni counterparts had long treated Lebanon`s Shiites as second-class citizens. By the mid-1970s, despite being the country`s most populous sect, they were tired of a political system that froze them out of key leadership positions. The set-up, based on the colonial model imposed by the French, guaranteed half of the country`s parliamentary seats and Cabinet positions including key portfolios like the defense and interior ministries to Christians. The Presidency was reserved specifically for a Maronite Christian.

...Shiites were denied even a proper share of the remainder, with Sunni representation among the ruling elite remaining unduly heavy and even the tiny Druze sect holding more than its share of influence. Those Shiites who were politically active were fragmented, operating under the banner of secular groupings like the Baathists, the Communists, and the Nasserites.

One man tried mightily to change all that. Musa Sadr, an Iranian cleric whose family is said to have originally come from Lebanon, was invited to lead the Lebanese Shiite community in 1959. Tall and exceedingly charismatic, he captured the imagination of his followers and eventually inspired them to demand their rights.

GT

I appreciate your post.
There is a background to what I wrote. If you are not familiar with that, you will find my comments simplistic. But if you study the phenomenon, you will get the context right.

````Hamas and the Hez. provide relief, (informal) insurance and credit markets through networks,``

Companies need to recruit new hires; politicians and political parties need to recruit workers that can be turned in to ideological soldiers. The Islamist parties use social work to recruit people. That is the investment they make to get people to work with them politically.

Jammat Islami has a huge wing for social work and they use the whole thing to attract workers and locate people that are sympathetic to their cause.

Regular political parties work with student unions and labor unions to recruit workers....It is a matter of what method you use to bring people into the political fold.

I would recommend you look at the RSS methods of recruitment and you will find the same pattern...There is no fear of god factor here...it is all abt workers...

Re: # 586

HP,

Thanks for making your position clearer. The analogy with the RSS helped. This is how I now understand it:

The RSS does several good things and a lot of other bad (coercive) things. The good things are to be appreciated and coercion, per se, is a necessary evil of political competition. I am ideologically opposed to the RSS ideology. To fight the RSS I need to relatively do more good and/or strategically counter their their coercion such that my ideology wins. In the process if I have to call them ``gangsters`` I will (even when my own tactics allow me to be labelled a ``gangster``). Furthermore, if the RSS were to gain political capital from the the deeds of the Zionists then I would label the Zionists ``gangsters`` too. Is this more or less where you are comming from? Perhaps, this is why my (irrational) sympathy lies with the Hez .... and strangely it is inspite of my being opposed to their ideology. Talk about grey areas!

p.s. Please do not quote me on my Hez. sympathies. I still maintain that both sides are to blame.

GT:
The real gangsters are the US & its acolyte ``muslim`` rulers. If the US is against them then it is a clear sign that they are , no matter how misguided, a friend of ours. In this respect even China & Russia are playing a good game of letting US bleed in Afghanistan & Iraq.

Once these thuGGs get properly bludgeoned , bloodied, and beaten they wil try to work to save face. Just as they did in VietNam , Cuba, Nicaragua & so many other places.

They are hated by most people in the world. It is axiomatic. Of course their slaves keep on harping `` `` Massa! are WE sick``.

zeemax, VRV

The images are horrible - the image of a child with a hole on his back brought tears to my eyes...

We have Israeli girls writing on bombs and we have pali families dressing up their toddlers in suicide bomber outfits... we have lebanese children with holes in their backs and israeli children dead with ``butterfly effect`` [from concussion of the suicide bombs]...

Like I said before - this is tribal warfare - these people will never learn to live together... they will continue to kill and brutalize each other until hell freezes over... these people have no future....

So, horrible as the images are - there is nothing we can do for these people - except to wag our heads in disgust and get on with our lives.... let the fools kill and die as they please....

Re: # 582

PS: I mean - these people are killing each other centuries in worst possible ways - but we have never heard anyone of them saying ``enough is enough``... that this is where it ends... that we need to move on... that we are human beings and can muster enough brain-power to solve this ``dispute``.... that we can co-exist like civilized people.... That our children should never ever have to die with butterfly concussions or holes in their backs....

No sir - this will never happen... good sense will never prevail among them... it`s so primal, the hatred is so overwheling....

#567 by masadi
“Describing them as fanatic organizations just because of label is also not justified. They will blend away once the conflict is resolved, the reason for their existence will vanish,”

Asadi, I cannot pass this statement w/o a comment. I think you are missing on some basic information abt these organizations. Please study the rise of Ikhawans in Egypt and Jamat Islami in Pakistan.

They will not blend away they will have to be politically defeated and in the current environments in many Muslim countries, that is the most difficult task for any government or political operatives. There is nothing in their ideology that suggests melting away.

imo, the Jammat Isalmi and the mullah in Pakistan are not politicians but are gangsters who take advantage of the political process. Hamas and Hezballah fall in the same category. They just operate in different environments to show their true colors.

Re: # 579

HP:

``imo, the Jammat Isalmi and the mullah in Pakistan are not politicians but are gangsters who take advantage of the political process. Hamas and Hezballah fall in the same category. They just operate in different environments to show their true colors.``

I do not know anything about the Jammat, but it is very simplistic to term the Hamas and the Hez. as gangsters. Ever heard of Robin Hood? Hamas and the Hez. provide relief, (informal) insurance and credit markets through networks, platforms for dispute resolution etc. Sure they also provide ``justice`` and protect the ``sovereignity`` of their ``people``. You may disagree with their methods but how different are these methods from the methods of the Indian and Pakistani states? Can ``extortions`` be equated with ``taxes``. Ultimately, you side with or oppose Robin Hood on the basis of his ideology versus yours. As you said earlier, I think, it is ultimately a battle between ideologies - or the norms of civilization. Furthermore, in a fight between two ideologies a third ideology need not ally itself with either. For me, in this war both sides are to blame. I think the Hez. knew exactly what Israel`s reaction would be. It wanted this reaction and got it. It is Israel who got it wrong this time.

In the previous paragraph I have abstracted from the ground realities of Pakistani politics. It could very well be true that in the political context of Pakistan, one needs to take sides. I do not clearly understand why though.

Re: # 579

hp,

.......... exactly my position on this islamic parties of various hues - they will not go away that easily........ defeating them ``politically`` sounds like a good idea on paper, but i firmly believe that if they were to gain power, like they did in iran, it will be very difficult to get rid of them and will involve a lot of bloodshed ............. remember we are not talking about ordinary political parties that believe in a man made constitution - these people take their instructions directly from god ............. and personally i don`t trust people who hear voices

after reading the comments here, i think some people just don`t like the fact that hezbollah has the word, ``ollah`` in its name. that is why they are supporting the bombing of lebanon. and the fact that nasrullah has a beard and wears that black round hat.

last names can always be a problem, as can one`s dress sense. perhaps hezbollah should change its name to just, ``hezb.`` and nasrullah should change his name to, ``nasr.`` and he should shave, wear a suit and/or a baseball cap.

seriously speaking, i think a lot of peoples` views on israel`s attack would change.........

all said and done, it is still difficult to figure out what israel is getting all worked up over: two soldies captured and six civilians killed over six years! that`s one civilian per year and one soldier per three years. pretty low numbers for countries which are in a conflict.
india and pakistan used to average this much in one week. israel, itself, regularly hits these numbers in a day. on the other side, in palestine, one israeli soldier has been captured. israel has 10,000 palestinian civilians in jail. i didn`t even know the numbers were this high. 1 vs 10,000. israel should be happy with this ratio. everyone in the world knows about that one guy, i doubt anyone could name any of the 10,000.

in every category of confrontation, israel has a huge lead over lebanon and palestine: no. of people captured, no of people killed, amount of ammo dropped, amount of land occupied. what more does it want.

this could actually set a dangerous precedence. tomorrow india and pakistan would attack lahore and delhi after shelling each other, across the loc or taking each other`s fisherman hostage.......imagine if pakistan launched an assault on delhi, similar to israel`s assualt on beirut, after a shell hit pakistan`s part of kashmir or abdul and javed were taking hostage at the rajastan border.....poeple would say pakistan was nuts.....they would say the same thing about india, if india did the same.......

i still say, israel should send back the nine lebanese prisoners and hezbollah should send back the two israeli guys. they should then continue their small time shelling across the border, which kills one person per year. much like all countries in conflict do.........this is what is eventually going to happen anyways after this conflict is over..........

#567 by masadi

Asadi, we are getting deeper in to a discussion that would require whole lot of time for me to spare. I will try but can’t promise a response on this board. However, there is always a need for flexibility when you deal with political matters and imo, politics is not a science, it is still a matter of how you deal with situations at hand or plan for dealing with them in future and how you play different factors and forces in your favor and how you time things.

Now I am not going to repeat the cliché of grey areas here but things are not as one two three as they may appear to many distant observers.

“#568 by echoboom

``I cannot recall the euphoria after meeting Rasool Bux Talpur and Qazi Abid. Sindh still is our thinking crucible left after Bangladesh.”

I have strong family association the late Qazi Abid and had met Rasool Bux Talpur many times. I did meet Bhutto when he was PM. You and I both know what type of politicians they were. I am not sure I ever felt any euphoria abt them but certainly for a young man meeting the PM in close settings was exciting.

You are right abt Sindh, it is tragic that the army with the help of Islamist, has destroyed the intellectual base in Sindh.