Your favorite cartoonist profiled here

RAP21, which bills itself as the "African press network for the 21st century" profiled Abdul Arts, this blog's favorite cartoonist, the Somali exile who left his country because he couldn't live under the prevailing "shut your mouth, otherwise you will be killed" attitude.

Former colleagues have paid the price of staying. Mohamed Muhiaddin, his former editor at a Somali weekly, was blown up by extremists in late 2007. A former colleague, Said Tahil Ahmed, continued working as a journalist. He was gunned down in a public market. Mayow Hassan, a radio journalist was murdered on January 1.

Even in Egypt, Abdul Arts doesn't feel entirely safe. He routinely receives threatening emails everytime a cartoon is published. Nevertheless he carries on. "My goal is drawing these cartoons is to support the peace process and freedom of the press. I also use my cartoons to present the situation of my country, to show the people the crimes against the humanity, and the crisis in my country....Being a political cartoonist in my country and Africa is a dangerous career, because there isn't freedom of speech. But I am an ambitious person and I hope to continue my job as long as I can and never stop."

What peace under the Taliban looks like

From today's Wall Street Journal:

Thousands of Islamist militants are pouring into Pakistan's Swat Valley and setting up training camps here, quickly making it one of the main bases for Taliban fighters and raising their threat to the government in the wake of a controversial peace deal.

As the report continues:

Swat now offers a glimpse of the Taliban's vision for Pakistan. They have taken control of the local government and the police, who have been ordered to shed their uniforms in favor of the traditional Shalwar Kameez, an outfit comprising a long shirt and loose trousers. They also have seized Swat's emerald mines, which extract millions of dollars a year in gemstones.
At barbershops, notices warn men not to shave their beards. Women are no longer allowed to leave their homes without their husbands or male blood relatives. Girls' schools have been reopened after initially being closed but the students must be covered from head to toe, and Taliban officials routinely inspect classrooms for violators.

The Taliban's spokesman told the WSJ that the Taliban was planning to start executing a list of people soon for "un-Islamic" activities:

The list includes senior government officials, a woman whose husband is in the U.S. military, and others. Many of them have fled or are in areas outside Taliban control
"These kinds of people should not live," said Mr. Khan, who also is a commander in the Tehrik-e-Taliban, a broader Taliban alliance focused on battling the Pakistani government.
..."It does not matter to us whether the peace deal stays or not. No one can stop us from setting up our own courts," he said.

To see how Taliban justice works, check out the video below that aired on television stations in Pakistan recently. In the video, a woman is shown being caned for the crime of having left her house unaccompanied by her male guardian.

As the WSJ reported, while the Taliban spokesman insisted the video was fake, he did acknowledge that the flogging incident depicted did in fact occur. "As a Muslim, we cannot allow a woman to violate Islamic values," he said.
Taliban Punishment of Young Girl2:27.

The Taliban in Punjab

Me, Sharon Chadha, sister-in-law of Punjab, doing some of my own

research at the source of the Taliban movement (Darul Uloom Deoband in India).

Photo: Courtesy of the NY Times

Today's New York Times reports:

Taliban insurgents are teaming up with local militant groups to make inroads in Punjab....

“I don’t think a lot of people understand the gravity of the issue,” said a senior police official in Punjab, who declined to be idenfitied because he was discussing threats to the state. “If you want to destabilize Pakistan, you have to destabilize Punjab.”

As the report continues:

In at least five towns in southern and western Punjab, including the midsize hub of Multan, barber shops, music stores and Internet cafes offensive to the militants’ strict interpretation of Islam have received threats. Traditional ceremonies that include drumming and dancing have been halted in some areas.

Bhanghra? Can the Taliban really be thinking they will be able to permanently ban Bhangra in Punjab???????? This I cannot believe for a second.

For those of you unfamiliar with Bhangra, it is the traditional music of Punjab. Everywhere you find Punjabis you find Bhangra. And everywhere you find anyone who has ever had a friend who is Punjabi too. Bhangra has now spread to clubs and on radio stations across Europe and North America.

Now I can imagine the Taliban finding recruits among Punjab's poor and ignorant youth. But having experienced Punjabis now for longer than I'm willing to admit here - I am married to a Punjabi -I cannot conceive of their elders or even their more serious peers ever going down this path, not even for a second. I say this is because Punjabis have to be dominant. With all due love and respect to my in-laws and darling husband, all of whom I worship, Punjabis never ever cede control, not for one minute, not even to me!

And the Times report seems to bear me out:

The Taliban here exploit many of the same weaknesses that have allowed them to expand in other areas: an absent or intimidated police force; a lack of attention from national and provincial leaders; a population steadily cowed by threats, or won over by hard-line mullahs who usurp authority by playing on government neglect and poverty.

...Locals feel helpless. When a 15-year-old boy vanished from a madrasa in a village near here recently — his classmates said to go on jihad — his uncle could not afford to go look for him, let alone confront the powerful men who run the madrasa. “We are simple people,” the man said. “What can we do?”

My conclusion: If there is any intelligent element to be found among the Punjabis who are aligning with the Taliban, it is those Punjabis who are using the Taliban as the means to their own end. That is, they are using the Taliban, just as their fellow Punjabis have used the Taliban all along.

This is not just Punjabi in-law pride on my part either. Consider the evidence. In one sentence: It is the Punjabis in the Pakistani ISI and army who created the Taliban, have made money off the Taliban via US and foreign aid, but it is the Taliban who have taken all the losses.

The Taliban might well find love and happiness among the Punjabis (as I certainly have) but if they are thinking they will ever dominate them - nope, not a chance. They will not be able to stop the Bhangra parties in Punjab. Never ever. You can't even get them to turn the Bhangra down.

Another image of Somalia

Photo courtesy of Abdul Arts.

Afghanistan should be having the same debate Mexico is - and so should the US

The Washington Post reports:

Mexico's Congress opened a three-day debate Monday on the merits of legalizing marijuana for personal use, a policy backed by three former Latin American presidents who warned that a crackdown on drug cartels is not working.

... three former presidents _ Cesar Gaviria of Colombia, Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and Fernando Cardoso of Brazil _ urged Latin American countries to consider legalizing the drug to undermine a major source of income for cartels.

As as another article in the Post reported California is also considering legislation to legalize marijuana:

...in California, pot is such a booming growth industry that lawmakers are being asked to consider its potential as a salve to the state's financial woes. Betty Yee, chairman of the California State Board of Equalization, citing the state's budget problems. California currently collects $18 million in sales taxes from marijuana dispensaries, and [chairman of the California State Board of Equalization Betty] Yee said a regulated pot trade would bring in $1.3 billion.

Prohibition doesn't kill demand it only enriches the criminal class - and the insurgents in Afghanistan's case.

The law suppressing women's revulsion in Afghanistan

When I first heard about Afghanistan's new law sanctioning rape in marriage my first thought was can Afghan men really be that desperate?

In Afghanistan, as you may recall, a man can legally have as many as four wives at a time. And in the event he grows tired of any one of them, divorce is shockingly easy. Given that the deck already seems to be stacked so much a man's favor, how bumbling can Afghan men be that they also need to have what goes on in their bedrooms legislated?

Ayatollah Mohseni, the leader of the Shia community who demanded this law, tries to explain. While he remained silent on the local seduction techniques, he did suggest that the law arose out of the extreme gender inequality that prevails in the country. Due to the widespread illiteracy among Afghan women, and their lack of work opportunity (it doesn't help that they cannot leave the house without their husband's permission) a woman cannot be asked to pull her weight financially. As he poses the problem: "For all these expenses can't we at least give the right to a husband to demand sex from his wife after four nights?" (AP).

Maybe they wouldn't have to rape their wives if they freed them.

Fareed Zakaria: Allow radical Islam to defeat itself

In the latest issue of Newsweek, Fareed concedes that radicals like the Taliban are "ugly, reactionary forces that will stunt their countries and bring dishonor to their religion." But as he since "not all these Islamists advocate global jihad, host terrorists or launch operations against the outside world" we need to stop fighting these elements as we are only widening our war against terror (I know, we're not supposed to use that expression any longer but old habits die hard so indulge me for a moment):

We have placed ourselves in armed opposition to Muslim fundamentalists stretching from North Africa to Indonesia, which has made this whole enterprise feel very much like a clash of civilizations, and a violent one at that. Certainly, many local despots would prefer to enlist the American armed forces to defeat their enemies, some of whom may be jihadists but others may not. Across the entire North African region, the United States and other Western powers are supporting secular autocrats who claim to be battling Islamist opposition forces. In return, those rulers have done little to advance genuine reform, state building or political openness. In Algeria, after the Islamists won an election in 1992, the military staged a coup, the Islamists were banned and a long civil war ensued in which 200,000 people died. The opposition has since become more militant, and where once it had no global interests, some elements are now aligned with Al Qaeda.

As he goes on to say:

Bin Laden constantly argues that all these different groups are part of the same global movement. We should not play into his hands, and emphasize instead that many of these forces are local, have specific grievances and don't have much in common.

David Kilcullen, a counterinsurgency expert who has contributed to the success of Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq, seems to agree with him:

"I've had tribal leaders and Afghan government officials at the province and district level tell me that 90 percent of the people we call the Taliban are actually tribal fighters or Pashtun nationalists or people pursuing their own agendas. Less than 10 percent are ideologically aligned with the Quetta Shura [Mullah Omar's leadership group] or Al Qaeda." These people are, in his view, "almost certainly reconcilable under some circumstances." Kilcullen adds, "That's very much what we did in Iraq. We negotiated with 90 percent of the people we were fighting."

So it seems does CIA analyst Reuel Marc Gerecht: "What you have to realize is that the objective is to defeat bin Ladenism, and you have to start the evolution. Moderate Muslims are not the answer. Shiite clerics and Sunni fundamentalists are our salvation from future 9/11s."

And for what it is worth, I think he is on to something too:

The veil is not the same as the suicide belt. We can better pursue our values if we recognize the local and cultural context, and appreciate that people want to find their own balance between freedom and order, liberty and license. In the end, time is on our side. Bin Ladenism has already lost ground in almost every Muslim country. Radical Islam will follow the same path. Wherever it is tried—in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in parts of Nigeria and Pakistan—people weary of its charms very quickly. The truth is that all Islamists, violent or not, lack answers to the problems of the modern world. They do not have a world view that can satisfy the aspirations of modern men and women. We do. That's the most powerful weapon of all.

The audacity of hope

Or is it the audacity of asking NATO for more troops?

The (London) Times reports that only Britain offered "substantial help" in response to President's Obama's "impassioned plea" to send troops to Afghanistan or risk terror attacks in Europe.

Britain offered to send several hundred more British soldiers - but only to provide additional security for the August presidential elections - and not the thousands of extra troops the American president was hoping Britain would commit. Update: The NY Times reports that Britain is pledging 900 and Germany and Spain have agreed to each send 600 soldiers to provide security for the August elections.

The only other two "allies" that made firm committments were Belgium and Spain. Both pledged to send military trainers - 35 from Belgium and 12 from Spain.

Contrast these numbers with the 21,000 more troops President Obama has pledged (with a promise to send an additional 9,000).

“Europe should not simply expect the United States to shoulder that burden alone,” he said. “This is a joint problem it requires a joint effort.”

He said that failing to support the US surge would leave Europe open to a fresh terrorist offensive. “It is probably more likely that al-Qaeda would be able to launch a serious terrorist attack on Europe than on the United States because of proximity,” he said.

President Sarkozy stated that he would not send any more French troops. Germany, Italy, Poland, and Denmark reportedly were still considering the request.

Afghanistan for its part offered the European nations a perfect way out. As Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the Nato Secretary-General, pointed out, new laws sanctioning child marriage and marital rape soured the mission.

“We are there to defend universal values and when I see, at the moment, a law threatening to come into effect which fundamentally violates women’s rights and human rights, that worries me,” he was reported as saying. “I have a problem to explain to a critical public audience in Europe, be it the UK or elsewhere, why I’m sending the guys to the Hindu Kush.”

So while Karzai may have won some support among the Afghan public because of these new laws - said to have been enacted to appease the Shia community - he lost most of whatever support he had in Europe.

And hear what Stephen Walt has to say even if you can't bear his position on The Lobby

From his blog at Foreign Policy

Our efforts in Central Asia are confounded by two fundamental problems. First, our understanding of Pakistani and Afghan society is limited, which makes it hard to know which groups or leaders to support and makes it virtually certain that any effort we undertake will generate lots of unintended consequences. We were once confident that Hamid Karzai would be a terrific leader, for example, but he's proven to be a disappointment. If we try to engineer his replacement, however, there's no guarantee we will end up with anyone better. Ditto Pakistan, where none of the contenders for power looks particularly promising and where their own ambitions and interests are partly (and maybe substantially) at odds with ours.

Look at this way: We have enough trouble getting reliable, efficient, and corruption-free government here at home (think Rod Blagoevich, Jack Abramoff, or the State Legislature here in Massachusetts, where the past two speakers had to resign in the face of scandals).. . . To imagine that we know how to manage the politics of more than 200 million people in Afghanistan and Pakistan -- who are themselves divided into a diverse array of clans, tribes, and sects -- is the very definition of hubris.

Second, our leverage in either society (and especially Pakistan) is limited by our own conviction that "we cannot afford to fail." If we are unwilling to walk away and leave either country to its fate, then President Obama's assurance that "we will not, and cannot, provide a blank check" is meaningless. Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf diddled us for years because he knew we were so committed to his success that we would keep pouring in money even when we knew his government was still backing jihadi terrorists instead of cracking down on them.

If, like AIG, Pakistan is "too important to fail," then what’s going to be different now? Which brings me to the larger question: What is the strategic rationale for doubling down in Afghanistan and Pakistan? According to President Obama, the reason we are there is simple: We want to prevent these territories from becoming safe havens for terrorists who might attack the United States....

...while it is obvious that al Qaeda is a threat, is it of sufficient magnitude to warrant an expensive and possibly open-ended effort to re-shape the politics of this region? Although Obama denies that this is his goal, how do we "defeat al Qaeda" without doing a lot of social engineering in both places?

Will wonders never cease?

I have to say, I find myself nodding in agreement as I read Juan Cole's post at Informed Comment:

An Afghan army foot patrol was attacked by guerrillas in Helmand Province on Wednesday, according to AP. US and Afghan soldiers responded, engaging in a firefight. Then the US military called in an air strike on the Taliban, killing 20 of them. On Tuesday, a similar airstrike had taken out 30 guerrillas.It is this sort of thing that makes me wonder why the Taliban (or whoever these guys in Helmand were) are considered such a big threat that the full might of NATO is needed to deal with them. They have no air force, no artillery, no tanks. They are just small bands, apparently operating in platoons, who, whenever they mass in large enough numbers to stand and fight, can just be turned into red mist from the air.

And here too:

Now thousands of private security contractors (i.e. mercenaries) will be hired in Afghanistan. But they won't be Americans for the most part. Children, can you say "Hessians"?

I don't understand the concept of paying someone $200,000 a year to guard armed GIs being paid a fraction of that. Wouldn't it be better to expand the size of the army if you need more troops? Wouldn't it be more efficient to have one line of command? Aren't these essentially high-priced MPs?

Check out what's not happening on the sun

Tracking what's not happening on the sun might be even more important than what humans are doing here on earth. Begin with this article at NASA: Deep Solar Minimum. Then check around for possible scenarios.

Europe's version of shoe throwers

See them on a NYT slide show: Protestors Fail to Bring Down Global Capitalism With Costumes and Puppets.

What could the Pentagon be thinking (or is it smoking)?

The NY Times is reporting that the Pentagon is proposing that Americans cough up another $3 billion for Pakistan, as if they have been helpful in stabilizing Afghanistan and countering militancy at home.

As the Times notes:

The United States has [already] provided Pakistan with more than $12 billion in military and economic assistance since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, including about $1 billion a year to reimburse Pakistan for fielding 100,000 forces along its border with Afghanistan. American lawmakers have complained that much of that money has disappeared into Pakistani government coffers with scant accountability and little progress to show.

Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged Thursday that the United States had not imposed sufficient accountability measures on the money. “There hasn’t been an audit trail, and there haven’t been accountability measures put in place, and there needs to be for all the funds,” Admiral Mullen said in an interview with the editorial board of The New York Times. “So we’re going to do that. For this counterinsurgency money, which is important, it is critical that it goes for exactly that and nowhere else.”

...Insurgents and terrorists operating in Pakistani safe havens are plotting attacks against targets in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, the admiral said. “The Taliban, in particular, are going both ways now,” he explained. “They are coming toward Islamabad and they are actually going toward Kabul."

As unbelievable as this may seem, Admiral Mullen still apparently hopes that he can count on support from Islamabad. As he told the Times reporter, "I’m completely convinced that the vast majority of the leaders in Pakistan understand the seriousness of the threat.”

Really. Is he smoking opium or what?

NATO: Faking a military alliance

From the NY Times:

[President Obama's] NATO allies are giving the president considerable vocal support for the newly integrated strategy. But they are giving him very few new troops on the ground, underlining the fundamental strains in the alliance.

The allies will offer more funds but no more than several thousand new personnel members, according to alliance military planners. Many of those will not be soldiers, but police trainers to meet a central pillar of the president’s new Afghan strategy, which focuses on an expansion of Afghan security forces.

But even for the small numbers of European combat reinforcements, check the fine print: Nearly all will be sent to provide security for Afghanistan’s elections this summer, and will not be permanent.

As the Times report duly notes, it does not really matter who the American president is either:

“As a candidate, Obama had expectations that Europe would make a serious increase in troop levels after he became president,” said Charles A. Kupchan of the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. “But there is a realization now that Europe’s main contribution will be police trainers, economic assistance and development assistance.”

...In many cases, European capitals have placed severe restrictions on their forces assigned to NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, or I.S.A.F. That has been such a hindrance to the war effort, in the view of some American commanders, that they ruefully say the alliance mission’s initials now stand for “I Saw America Fight.”

To be sure, a number of NATO and other partner nations have sent troops to Afghanistan who have fought and died in percentages larger than those of the American military. Australian, British, Canadian, Dutch and French conventional forces have shed much blood, and commando units from some of the smaller, newer NATO allies in the Baltics have punched far above their weight, according to American Special Operations commanders.

Evidence of the Asian century

FT.com / Video & Audio / Interactive graphics - The decade for global banks

One animated picture has to be worth more than 1,000 words.