by Salman Hameed

There is a good chance that Malala will get a well deserved Nobel Peace Prize (even thought the prize itself has become dubious with the E.U and Obama as some of its recent winners). She is absolutely phenomenal and fearless and the Nobel prize is not for being a victim, but rather for what she has been doing for education both before and after getting shot. But she is still only 16 years of age! I first posted about her back in January 2009, when I read about her in BBC and the New York Times. Later, NYT also had a short film featuring Malala, and her cheerful personality came bustling through. Now, almost a year after she was shot in the face by the Taliban, the NYT has a brilliant and thought provoking short film about the role of her (ambitious) father and the news media in making Malala a symbol for girls education - something that provoked the Taliban. But what is amazing about the film is that it not only shows a growing independence of Malala and her transformation but also the larger cultural context of girls education in Pakistan. It also highlights contradictions in Malala's own father, and those clips add so much depth to this 10-minute video. One problem is that people not familiar with Pakistan will have a hard time distinguishing cultural norms in Swat (and in the northern parts of Pakistan in general) versus the rest of Pakistan, in particular the more urban areas. Nevertheless, take 10 minutes and watch the video below (and read the article in NYT here):

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by Salman Hameed

Since I'm no longer 4 (sigh!), it is hard for me to say how Burka Avenger is connecting with kids. It will be very interesting to look at the impact across different socio-economic groups, as well as across the urban-rural divide. I hope someone is doing that. If nothing else, the intentions of the show are all in the right place (even if the creator of the show, Haroon, is also the "much-anticipated" buff cartoon pop star at the end of the first episode), and it takes sufficient swipes at the Taliban.

Here is episode 1 - with english subtitles:

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by Salman Hameed

Iran is right in creating its own internet. While the US government has often criticized Iran and other states for controlling the flow of information to their countries, it seems that the US also monitors the flow of information from Google, Facebook, Apple, Youtube, Skype, etc. This is just one of the several new revelations from the phenomenal Genn Greenwald of the Guardian. The Obama administration

has turned out to be a true disappointment when it comes civil liberties and issues like the drones. In fact, when caught - and yes, it has often been leaks that have revealed some of the more nefarious government practices - Obama appears anguished and places himself above the fray. But this is his administration and these are his decisions. If the same actions were taken by the George W. Bush, there would have been a massive outcry, and people (at least on the US coasts and college towns) would have been out on the streets in protest. In many ways, perhaps, it was better to have a President who was more open about what he believed than the one who says the right things but does exactly the opposite.

Here are the recent articles by Glenn Greenwald on information from an intelligence whistleblower:

NSA Prism program taps in to user data of Apple, Google and others

The National Security Agency has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants, according to a top secret document obtained by the Guardian. 

The NSA access is part of a previously undisclosed program called Prism, which allows officials to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats, the document says. 

The Guardian has verified the authenticity of the document, a 41-slide PowerPoint presentation – classified as top secret with no distribution to foreign allies – which was apparently used to train intelligence operatives on the capabilities of the program. The document claims "collection directly from the servers" of major US service providers.

On NSA collecting phone records of all Verizon customers in the US:

The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April. 

The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries. 

The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.

And while the US has actually participated in an cyber-attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, and Obama has been criticizing China for cyber-hacking, it appears that the US has drawn its own plans for a cyber-offensive:

Barack Obama has ordered his senior national security and intelligence officials to draw up a list of potential overseas targets for US cyber-attacks, a top secret presidential directive obtained by the Guardian reveals.

The 18-page Presidential Policy Directive 20, issued in October last year but never published, states that what it calls Offensive Cyber Effects Operations (OCEO) "can offer unique and unconventional capabilities to advance US national objectives around the world with little or no warning to the adversary or target and with potential effects ranging from subtle to severely damaging".

It says the government will "identify potential targets of national importance where OCEO can offer a favorable balance of effectiveness and risk as compared with other instruments of national power".

The directive also contemplates the possible use of cyber actions inside the US, though it specifies that no such domestic operations can be conducted without the prior order of the president, except in cases of emergency. 

And if you are wondering about Glenn Greenwald's motivations and on investigations targeting whistleblowers, here is his response:

They could easily enrich themselves by selling those documents for huge sums of money to foreign intelligence services. They could seek to harm the US government by acting at the direction of a foreign adversary and covertly pass those secrets to them. They could gratuitously expose the identity of covert agents. 

None of the whistleblowers persecuted by the Obama administration as part of its unprecedented attack on whistleblowers has done any of that: not one of them. Nor have those who are responsible for these current disclosures. 

They did not act with any self-interest in mind. The opposite is true: they undertook great personal risk and sacrifice for one overarching reason: to make their fellow citizens aware of what their government is doing in the dark. Their objective is to educate, to democratize, to create accountability for those in power. 

The people who do this are heroes. They are the embodiment of heroism. They do it knowing exactly what is likely to be done to them by the planet's most powerful government, but they do it regardless. They don't benefit in any way from these acts. I don't want to over-simplify: human beings are complex, and usually act with multiple, mixed motives. But read this outstanding essay on this week's disclosures from The Atlantic's security expert, Bruce Schneier, to understand why these brave acts are so crucial. 

Those who step forward to blow these whistles rarely benefit at all. The ones who benefit are you. You discover what you should know but what is hidden from you: namely, the most consequential acts being taken by those with the greatest power, and how those actions are affecting your life, your country and your world. 

In 2008, candidate Obama decreed that "often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out," and he hailed whistleblowing as:

"acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled as they have been during the Bush administration." 

The current incarnation of Obama prosecutes those same whistlelblowers at double the number of all previous presidents combined, and spent the campaign season boasting about it.

And on his own motivations:

The times in American history when political power was constrained was when they went too far and the system backlashed and imposed limits. That's what happened in the mid-1970s when the excesses of J Edgar Hoover and Richard Nixon became so extreme that the legitimacy of the political system depended upon it imposing restraints on itself. And that's what is happening now as the government continues on its orgies of whistleblower prosecutions, trying to criminalize journalism, and building a massive surveillance apparatus that destroys privacy, all in the dark. The more they overreact to measures of accountability and transparency - the more they so flagrantly abuse their power of secrecy and investigations and prosecutions - the more quickly that backlash will arrive. 

I'm going to go ahead and take the Constitution at its word that we're guaranteed the right of a free press. So, obviously, are other people doing so. And that means that it isn't the people who are being threatened who deserve and will get the investigations, but those issuing the threats who will get that. That's why there's a free press. That's what adversarial journalism means.

And while we are at it, here is an excellent article by Greenwald in response to Obama's terrorism speech. He criticizes NYT for their warm welcome to the speech, but they later back-tracked and agreed with Greenwald's take, as expressed explicitly here. And indeed nothing has changed in regards to the drone attacks and, contrary to Obama's vague promise in the speech, CIA will also maintain control over drones in Pakistan.

Greenwald was also at Hampshire College recently. I posted his fantastic talk on Irtiqa last month. But here it is again:

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by Salman Hameed

From this past March, here is Glenn Greenwald talking about 'endless war' and growing Presidential powers in the US. The first part of the talk is about 40 minutes, and then he sits down for a discussion with Hampshire College faculty member, Falguni Sheth. The whole session is fantastic - but his discussion of Wikileaks is particularly worthwhile. For our purposes, there is a discussion of how the narrative of endless war allows the government to expand its power and how such things become normalized (for example, for many young adults, they don't even know pre-9/11 US). In any case, here is the talk:

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by Salman Hameed


Pakistan's elections are scheduled for May 11th. There have already been a tremendous number of casualties - mostly by the Taliban (of the Pakistani flavor) targeting the relatively more secular parties. Here is from the horse's mouth:

“Taliban shura had decided to target those secular political parties which were part of the previous coalition government and involved in the operation in Swat, Fata and other areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwah,”adding that “the organisation followed the instructions of the Taliban shura and that it was the shura that decided which political parties to target, where and when.” 

To another query that the Taliban were making ground and paving way for some parties to win the elections and denying space to others, he said: “neither we are against nor in favour of the PTI, PML- N, JI and JUI-F,” adding  that “We are against the secular and democratic system which is against the ideology of Islam but we are not expecting any good from the other parties either, who are the supporters of the same system, but why they are not targeted is our own prerogative to decide.”

Shamefully, none of the parties not targeted by the Taliban have unequivocally condemned this Taliban assault on democracy. But to add to the uncertainty, just a few hours ago, Imran Khan of PTI also got injured when he fell off a lifter while getting on a stage for a political rally. This is big news as he is one of the leading contenders in the upcoming elections.

But what are the major concerns of Pakistanis? The Pew forum has a new survey out that focuses on Pakistan. Perhaps, not surprisingly, crime and terrorism is at the top at 95 and 93% respectively. But note that even Sunni-Shia tensions are labeled as a "very big problem" by over half of the respondents, and the conflict between the government with the judiciary and the military is not considered that much of a problem.

At the same time, most people also feel that the country is on the wrong path, with Zardari's approval ratings in the teens (and that is the least surprising result of the survey):

Here is a graphical representation of the opinion on the direction of the country. Note that 2007 was the start of major Taliban incursions into Pakistan (not completely unrelated to the US drone policy in the tribal regions - but that really picked up from 2009 onwards), an increase in suicide bombings in major cities and the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. The following years also saw its impact on the economy. 

But then check this out. The Taliban are seen as much of a threat as India. This is important as often people think that there is widespread for Taliban. But this poll suggests that there is broad recognition of the danger posed by the Taliban: 

Similarly, there is very little support for the various extremist groups, including those that are focusing on Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the question does include those groups that are primarily involved in targeting Ahmadi and Shia minorities. In any case, here are the views on extremist groups:

But there is still support for the military, religious leaders, the media, and even the courts (despite their utmost effort to destroy the trust gained in the Lawyers' movement). As per religious leaders, it would have been interesting to see individual names instead of a generic religious leader which people may idealize in a particular way.  Ah - but the poor police - it is only above Zardari...

You can find the full report here.

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by Salman Hameed

Here is the least surprising hypocritical poll result: Almost two-third of Americans feel that it is okay for the US government to launch airstrikes against suspected terrorists in other countries. But only 13% say that the drone strikes are okay if the suspect is a US citizen living in the United States. I'm sure that this number would go up if it is known the suspect is a Muslim! (actually, this is not a joke. This is probably true).

Here is the Gallup poll:

And don't worry. While the Republicans and Democrats cannot agree on anything, there is a bipartisan support for this particular drone view (yay - for bipartisanship!). Here is the same question on party-lines (Democrats come off slightly better):

Two somewhat related things. First, for your entertainment purposes, watch this painful Daily Show segment about the Fox's reaction of the Boston marathon bombing suspects' religious identity: "ban Muslim students from entering the US"; "wiretap mosques"; and of course from the incomparable Ann Coulter: "jail time for wearing hijab". Can anyone get away with saying this kind of stuff about any other ethnic or religious group?

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Second, here is a fantastic article on the reasons why the US-Pakistan relations took a nose-dive in the last couple of years. Here is Mark Mazzetti's article, How a single spy helped turn Pakistan against the United States. I highly recommend this article as it gets the situation in Pakistan. But Mark Mazzetti has been writing about the increasing militarization of the CIA - and that Pakistan is the test case for its new role. I haven't read his book, The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the End of the Earth yet, but it looks fantastic and it has long sections on CIA's war in Pakistan.

In any case, here are some highlights from the NYT article which primarily about the Davis Affair in Lahore:

A city once ruled by Mughals, Sikhs and the British, Lahore is Pakistan’s cultural and intellectual capital, and for nearly a decade it had been on the fringes of America’s secret war in Pakistan. But the map of Islamic militancy inside Pakistan had been redrawn in recent years, and factions that once had little contact with one another had cemented new alliances in response to the C.I.A.’s drone campaign in the western mountains. Groups that had focused most of their energies dreaming up bloody attacks against India were now aligning themselves closer to Al Qaeda and other organizations with a thirst for global jihad. Some of these groups had deep roots in Lahore, which was why Davis and a C.I.A. team set up operations from a safe house in the city.

So the CIA's drone campaign has united disparate militant groups against the US. Talk about unintended consequences.

And here is a flavor of the way CIA's militarism has trumped diplomacy of the State Department. This is chilly:

The Davis affair led Langley to order dozens of covert officers out of Pakistan in the hope of lowering the temperature in the C.I.A. – I.S.I. relationship. Ambassador Munter issued a public statement shortly after the bizarre court proceeding, saying he was “grateful for the generosity” of the families and expressing regret for the entire incident and the “suffering it caused.” 

But the secret deal only fueled the anger in Pakistan, and anti-American protests flared in major cities, including Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore. Demonstrators set tires ablaze, clashed with Pakistani riot police and brandished placards with slogans like “I Am Raymond Davis, Give Me a Break, I Am Just a C.I.A. Hit Man.” 

The entire episode — and bin Laden’s killing in Abbottabad later that spring — extinguished any lingering productive relations between the United States and Pakistan. Leon Panetta’s relationship with General Pasha, the I.S.I. chief, was poisoned, and the already small number of Obama officials pushing for better relations between Washington and Islamabad dwindled even further. Munter was reporting daily back to Washington about the negative impact of the armed-drone campaign and about how the C.I.A. seemed to be conducting a war in a vacuum, oblivious to the ramifications that the drone strikes were having on American relations with Pakistan’s government. 

The C.I.A. had approval from the White House to carry out missile strikes in Pakistan even when the agency’s targeters weren’t certain about exactly whom they were killing. Under the rules of so-called “signature strikes,” decisions about whether to fire missiles from drones could be made based on patterns of activity deemed suspicious. For instance, if a group of young “military-age males” were observed moving in and out of a suspected militant training camp and were thought to be carrying weapons, they could be considered legitimate targets. American officials admit it is nearly impossible to judge a person’s age from thousands of feet in the air, and in Pakistan’s tribal areas, adolescent boys are often among militant fighters. Using such broad definitions to determine who was a “combatant” and therefore a legitimate target allowed Obama administration officials at one point to claim that the escalation of drone strikes in Pakistan had not killed any civilians for a year. It was something of a trick of logic: in an area of known militant activity, all military-age males could be considered enemy fighters. Therefore, anyone who was killed in a drone strike there was categorized as a combatant. 

The perils of this approach were laid bare on March 17, 2011, the day after Davis was released from prison and spirited out of the country. C.I.A. drones attacked a tribal council meeting in the village of Datta Khel, in North Waziristan, killing dozens of men. 

Ambassador Munter and some at the Pentagon thought the timing of the strike was disastrous, and some American officials suspected that the massive strike was the C.I.A. venting its anger about the Davis episode. More important, however, many American officials believed that the strike was botched, and that dozens of people died who shouldn’t have. 

Other American officials came to the C.I.A.’s defense, saying that the tribal gathering was in fact a meeting of senior militants and therefore a legitimate target. But the drone strike unleashed a furious response in Pakistan, and street protests in Lahore, Karachi and Peshawar forced the temporary closure of American consulates in those cities.
Munter said he believed that the C.I.A. was being reckless and that his position as ambassador was becoming untenable. His relationship with the C.I.A. station chief in Islamabad, already strained because of their disagreements over the handling of the Davis case, deteriorated even further when Munter demanded that the C.I.A. give him the chance to call off specific missile strikes. During one screaming match between the two men, Munter tried to make sure the station chief knew who was in charge, only to be reminded of who really held the power in Pakistan. 

“You’re not the ambassador!” Munter shouted. 

“You’re right, and I don’t want to be the ambassador,” the station chief replied. 

This turf battle spread to Washington, and a month after Bin Laden was killed, President Obama’s top advisers were arguing in a National Security Council meeting over who really was in charge in Pakistan. At the June 2011 meeting, Munter, who participated via secure video link, began making his case that he should have veto power over specific drone strikes. 

Panetta cut Munter off, telling him that the C.I.A. had the authority to do what it wanted in Pakistan. It didn’t need to get the ambassador’s approval for anything. 

“I don’t work for you,” Panetta told Munter, according to several people at the meeting.
But Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came to Munter’s defense. She turned to Panetta and told him that he was wrong to assume he could steamroll the ambassador and launch strikes against his approval. 

“No, Hillary,” Panetta said, “it’s you who are flat wrong.” 

There was a stunned silence, and National Security Adviser Tom Donilon tried to regain control of the meeting. In the weeks that followed, Donilon brokered a compromise of sorts: Munter would be allowed to object to specific drone strikes, but the C.I.A. could still press its case to the White House and get approval for strikes even over the ambassador’s objections. Obama’s C.I.A. had, in essence, won yet again.         

Read the full article here. 

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by Salman Hameed

By now you have been saturated about the causes for last week's bombings. And yes - things are more much more complicated than "Islam is the motivation for bombings". I would like to point you to two articles that provide a nuanced analysis of the reasons why some young Muslims living in western Europe or in the US turn to violence. The first article is by Olivier Roy - who I think is one of the most interesting thinkers on the topic of Islam and globalization. If you have a chance, you should definitely read Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah. The second article is by Scott Atran. He also has been fantastic work investigating the reasons for radicalization amongst younger Muslims. He was also our speaker for our Science and Religion Lecture Series at Hampshire College and you can see the video of his talk For Friend and Faith: The Paths and Barriers to Political Violence.

Here is first an intro of Olivier Roy's work in The New Republic:

Roy’s view is relevant in understanding the alleged Boston marathon bombers. A decade ago, Roy was pointing out that al Qaeda was drawing many of its recruits from Western Europe rather than from Saudi Arabia or Palestine or Pakistan. He saw al Qaeda as a product of the failure of Arab nationalism and Marxism-Leninism to establish viable popular societies. Its tactics and outlook derived from the Red Army Faction or Red Brigades or the secular Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine rather than from the Koran or from religious factions within Islam. Al Qaeda, Roy wrote in The Illusions of September 11, is “a junction of a radicalized Islam with a shrill anti-imperialism reshaped by globalization.” 

Accordingly, Roy rejected the idea that al Qaeda’s adherents in Europe were simply products of Islam and that their motivation should be seen as religious. Instead, he believed, they sought what he called an “imaginary Ummah,” a radical community of belief that was not strictly speaking part of the ordinary world of Islamic belief. That’s where I thought Roy’s analysis might be relevant to understanding Boston and the Tsarnaev brothers. 

It seemed to me that the suspected brothers could be understood as further extensions of Roy’s thesis. Like the Fort Hood terrorist, Nidal Malik Hasan, they don’t appear to be products of organized religion or organized politics. They represent, in effect, the reductio ad absurdum of al Qaeda’s global politics, which never had a realistic objective to begin with. A new caliphate? With Hasan or the Tsarnaevs, the act itself becomes the objective – an awful theaterical spectacle in which the terrorists are directors and stars.

And here is the direct response from Roy Olivier:

I wanted to ask you about the two brothers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who allegedly set off the two bombs at the Boston Marathon.  In your book, Globalized Islam, you recounted how many terrorists who act in the name of Islam were brought up in Western Europe rather than in the Middle East and who are often provoked by events outside the Middle East. Are these two brothers, who were largely raised in the United States, more evidence for your thesis? 

Yes, my idea from the beginning was that Al Qaeda and the people who used the mark of Al Qaeda were not really concerned with the core—with the Middle East, the Middle East of Palestine. They were more concerned by the periphery of the Middle East than the core of the Middle East. They were usually more concerned with Bosnia and Afghanistan, Chechnya at the end of the ‘90s; it is now Mali, Mauritania and Yemen, which is the only place where they are strong. Most of these guys have a global trajectory, they were born in one place, they go to fight somewhere else. These guys were born in Kyrgyzstan, they went to Dagestan, they speak Russian, they came to the United States very young,  they were educated in the United States, they speak English without an accent and so on. 

And they seemed to have discovered Islam in the United States rather than in Dagestan or Kyrgyzstan? 

Same thing with Mohammed Merah, the killer in Toulouse last year. They are self-radicalizing in a Western environment.

And this is the key point:

In your book, and also in your previous book on political Islam, you describe a transition from the nationalist and Marxist-Leninist movements in the Middle East after World War II to a stateless movement like Al Qaeda. Now we have something beyond that, where the terrorists may not even belong to, or be under orders from a specific group, but may only have been influenced by a radical preacher they heard. I am thinking of the Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan who killed thirteen people at Fort Hood in 2009. 

Yes, globalization and individualization are the two terms. Instead of organization, they connect through the Internet. They connect to a virtual Ummah not to a real society. For instance, most of them didn’t socialize in a Western community. They may have gone to mosques, but they were never an integral part of a congregation, they have no real life, social life. Their social life is through the Internet, all of them.

Read the full article here.

Scott Atran, overall, gives the same reasons. However, he is also concerned about the over-eaction of the media and the US. Here he is writing in Foreign Policy:

Under sponsorship by the Defense Department, my multidisciplinary, multinational research team has been conducting field studies and analyses of the mental and social processes involved in radicalization at home and abroad. Our findings indicate that terrorist plotters against Western civilian populations tend not to be parts of sophisticated, foreign-based command-and-control organizations. Rather, they belong to loose, homegrown networks of family and friends who die not just for a cause, but for each other. Jihadists pretty much span the population's normal distribution: There are very few psychopaths and sociopaths, few brilliant thinkers and strategists. Jihadi wannabes today are mostly emerging adults in transitional stages of their lives -- students, immigrants, in search of jobs or companions -- who are especially prone to movements that promise a meaningful cause, camaraderie, adventure, and glory. Most have a secular education, becoming "born again" into the jihadi cause in their late teens or 20s. The path to radicalization can take years, months, or just days, depending on personal vulnerabilities and the influence of others. 

Occasionally there is a hookup with a relative, or a friend of a friend, who has some overseas connection to someone who can get them a bit of training and motivation to pack a bag of explosives or pull a trigger, but the Internet and social media are usually sufficient for radicalization and even operational preparation. 

The result is not a hierarchic, centrally commanded terrorist movement but a decentralized, self-organizing, and constantly evolving complex of social networks based on contingent adaptations to changing events. These are no real "cells," but only clusters of mostly young men who motivate one another within "brotherhoods" of real and fictive kin. Often, in fact, there is an older brother figure, a dominant personality who mobilizes others in the group. But rarely is there an overriding authority or father figure. (Notably, for these transitional youth, there's often an absence of a real father). 

Some of the most successful plots, such as the Madrid and London bombings, are so anarchic, fluid, and improbable that they succeeded in evading detection despite the fact that intelligence and law enforcement agencies had been following some of the actors for some time. Three key elements characterize the "organized anarchy" that typifies modern violent Islamic activism: Ultimate goals are vague and superficial (often no deeper than revenge against perceived injustice against Muslims around the world); modes of action are decided pragmatically on the basis of trial and error or based on the residue of learning from accidents of past experience; and those who join are not recruited but are locally linked self-seekers -- often from the same family, neighborhood, or Internet chat room -- whose connection to global jihad is more virtual than material. Al Qaeda and associates do not so much recruit as attract disaffected individuals who have already decided to embark on the path to violent extremism with the help of family, friends, or a few fellow travelers. 

And here is the possible reason for their radicalization:

 Like the young men who carried out the Madrid and London attacks, most homegrown jihadi plotters first hook up with the broad protest sentiment against "the global attack on Islam" before moving into a narrower parallel universe. They cut ties with former companions who they believe are too timid to act and cement bonds with those who are willing to strike. They emerge from their cocoon with strong commitment to strike and die if necessary, but without any clear contingency planning for what might happen after the initial attack. 

For the first time in history, a massive, media-driven political awakening has been occurring -- spurred by the advent of the Internet, social media, and cable television -- that can, on the one hand, motivate universal respect for human rights while, on the other, enable, say, Muslims from Borneo to sacrifice themselves for Palestine, Afghanistan, or Chechnya (despite almost no contact or shared history for the last 50,000 years or so). 

When perceived global injustice resonates with frustrated personal aspirations, moral outrage gives universal meaning and provides the push to radicalization and violent action.
But the popular notion of a "clash of civilizations" between Islam and the West is woefully misleading. Violent extremism represents not the resurgence of traditional cultures, but their collapse, as young people unmoored from millennial traditions flail about in search of a social identity that gives personal significance. This is the dark side of globalization. 

And of course, this also reminded me of Mohsin Hamid's wonderful book, The Reluctant Fundamentalist (the film version by Mira Nair is being released in the US next week).

Here is Atran again:

Take Faisal Shahzad, the would-be bomber of Times Square in 2010, or Maj. Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 fellow soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009. Both were apparently inspired by the online rhetoric of Anwar al-Awlaki, a former preacher at a Northern Virginia mosque who was killed by a U.S. drone in Yemen in 2011. Although many commentators leapt to the conclusion that Awlaki and his ilk deviously brainwashed and recruited Shahzad and Hassan, in fact they sought out the popular Internet preacher because they were already radicalized to the point of wanting further guidance to act. As Defense Department terrorism consultant Marc Sageman notes: "Just like you saw Major Hasan send 21 emails to al-Awlaki, who sends him two back, you have people seeking these guys and asking them for advice." More than 80 percent of plots in both Europe and the United States were concocted from the bottom up by mostly young people just hooking up with one another. 

Especially for young men, mortal combat with a "band of brothers" in the service of a great cause is both the ultimate adventure and a road to esteem in the hearts of their peers. For many disaffected souls today, jihad is a heroic cause -- a promise that anyone from anywhere can make a mark against the most powerful country in the history of the world. But because would-be jihadists best thrive and act in small groups and among networks of family and friends -- not in large movements or armies -- their threat can only match their ambitions if fueled way beyond actual strength. And publicity is the oxygen that fires modern terrorism. 

Read the full article here.

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by Salman Hameed

There is a risk of getting numb from the constant barrage of such news from Pakistan. But it is also important to keep these in the news. By the way, does anyone know what happened to the person accused of blasphemy in Multan? And did anyone find out what he is accused of?

In the mean time, a former principal of Liaquatabad College was gunned down in Karachi. Just like that.

KARACHI: Poet and former principal of Liaquatabad College Professor Sibte Jafar was shot dead in Karachi on Monday, Express News reported. 

According to initial details, unidentified armed men opened fire at Jafar while he was commuting through the Liaquatabad area on his motorbike. 

Jafar’s body was shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital. 

Police have started its investigation and more security personnel were summoned to keep the security situation in the area under control. 

Evidence collected from the crime scene suggested that a 9mm pistol was used in the crime. 

In the immediate aftermath of Professor Jafar’s murder, professors and lecturers in the province have announced a boycott of educational activities on Tuesday.
Apart from his educational duties, Professor Jafar was well known for his sozkhwani and marsia recitals. He was also known for his poetry. 

It has not been confirmed as yet if this was a sectarian attack.

And an assistant professor of medicine at Abbasi Shaheed hospital was also shot dead in Karachi. Just like that.

KARACHI: Assistant professor of medicine in Abbasi Shaheed Hospital Dr Asad Usman was shot dead in Nazimabad on Tuesday, reported Express News. 

Unidentified men shot at Dr Usman and a guard on Tuesday afternoon. Injuired, they were rushed to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital where Dr Usman was pronounced dead by doctors. 

Dr Usman served in the medical ward of the same hospital. 

Family, police and other personnel are reaching the hospital for investigation.
A number of intellectuals and activists have recently been targeted in the city.

I'm curious how common it is for professors to be killed in this manner in other countries? Two professors in two days.

I will try to have some relatively uplifting posts tomorrow.

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by Salman Hameed

Bomb blasts against Shias in Quetta and Karachi. Targeted killing of the social worker and the director of the amazing Orangi Pilot Project in Karachi. Burning of a Christian neighborhood in Lahore. Targeted killing of a shia doctor (and his son). These are some of the highlights just from the past few weeks. But there is no sign of the abating of this tide. Now we have a blasphemy case in Multan against a visiting lecturer in English at Bahauddin Zakariya University (tip from Anila Athar Hasan). It seems that this time it is again a turn of Ahmadis (my guess - since there is a reference to them in the news item below) to face the wrath of the "pious" and the "pure" and their form of justice: "He made a blasphemous remark on Facebook! Execute him! Actually - this is exactly what they are saying:

The anger boiled further against a visiting lecturer of English Department of Bahauddin Zakariya University, who committed blasphemy, as the students brought out a rally against him while Tehreek Tahaffuz-e-Namoos-e-Risalat (TTNR) held protest meeting here on Thursday. 

The participants of the rally and protest meeting demanded immediate arrest and execution of the culprit, hurling a warning to the government that they would be forced to take to roads if the action was not taken forthwith. The visiting lecturer and MPhil student in English Department Junaid Hafeez made blasphemous comments on a social networking website which sparked strong reaction in BZU. The BZU administration announced that the admission and hostel allotment of the culprit were cancelled and a ban was imposed on his entry. He fled. 

Meanwhile, addressing a joint meeting of all religious parties under the umbrella of TTNR, the leaders Qari Ahmad Mian, Dr Ashraf Ali Ateeq, Asif Mahmood Akhwani, Rao Zafar Iqbal, Syed Khalid Mahmood Nadeem, Inayat Ullah Rehmani, Syed Kafeel Shah Bokhari and others strongly condemned the incident and said that qadianis were being given shelter by some elements in BZU. They added that frequent incidents of blasphemy and preaching of qadianiat took place in BZU but no action was taken against the culprits. They asked the government to take notice of concurrent blasphemy incidents at BZU and launch an immediate action otherwise the workers of TTNR would be forced to encircle the varsity and punish the culprits themselves.

What kind of reporting is this? This so called newspaper article already says that "he committed blasphemy" and then goes on to refer the Ahmadis by their pejorative name of Qadiani. But the news item said that Junaid Hafeez fled. Since the police never catch anyone after terrorism acts, I'm sure that their incompetency will this time be beneficial. Oh - no wait. They caught him and have sent him back to Multan to face blasphemy charges.

There is no end in sight. The last couple of years seem to be the beginning of a much darker night.

And yes, these things are not limited to minorities. Just see the case of our own friend and astronomer, Umair Asim, in the burning of his school for supposed blasphemy charges (see here and here)

Also read this from last August: Let's paint our flag green, we don't deserve white (those who are unfamiliar, the white was supposed be the symbol of religious (non-Muslm) minorities as part of the nation of Pakistan).

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by Salman Hameed

It seems that some clerics may be turning to violent jihad after being shut-out from clerical positions. This comes from the dissertation work of Rich Neilsen, and briefly reported in the Economist (tip from Saleem Ali):

Now Rich Nielsen of Harvard University has examined the books, fatwas (religious rulings) and biographies of 91 modern Salafi clerics, as well as of 379 of their students and teachers. He found that the main factors behind radicalism are not poverty or the ideology of their teachers (as might be assumed) but the poor quality of their academic and educational networks. 

Such contacts determined the clerics’ ability to get a good job as imam or teacher in state institutions. In Saudi Arabia and Egypt, where most of the 91 came from, the government has long co-opted religious institutions. Those who failed to land a job were more likely to avow violence as a tool for political change.

So a bad combination of state control of religion and a general culture of nepotism can lead to creation of Jihadists. I wonder if his study included Pakistan, where religious education is not controlled in the same way as in Egypt and Saudi Arabia (religion is still used by the Pakistani government, but its control over clerics is less than the hold of the Saudi government or  the pre-Arab Spring Egypt). Okay back to article: 

The figures are startling. Clerics with the best academic connections had a 2-3% chance of becoming jihadist. This rose to 50% for the badly networked. 

Mr Nielsen reckons he has proved causation by controlling for other factors—eliminating the chance that those more inclined to extremism shun state jobs, for example. “It’s about a glass ceiling,” he says. “Clerics who don’t get positions must compete to appeal to an audience. Jihadist views are a way of making themselves appear credible, since there is often a high cost associated with it, such as prison time.” 

His research may help those seeking to stem the rise of radical preachers. Rather than spending a fortune snooping on them and then jailing them, it would be cheaper to offer them a decent job.

I don't know much about the rest of the work - but this seems interesting.

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by Salman Hameed

I start up the computer this morning to read:

Lahore: A mob of almost 3,000 people, forced a Christian community to flee for their lives on Friday, leaving behind their houses and possessions.

No - this is not just about blasphemy. This is about the breakdown of law & order. There is also frustration and deep economic problems. But an outrage draped in religion provides just enough cover to get away with murder (sometimes literally). It is hard to speak against such actions as it is easy to silence the voice in the name of justice against blasphemy. We saw that with the assassination of Salman Taseer couple of years ago and with the self-exiled Pakistani ambassador to the US, Sherry Rehman (she is now facing blasphemy charges). We saw in more detail the exploitation of the blasphemy law with the burning of a girls' school in Lahore - that was run by our friend and astronomer, Umair Asim (see here and here for more details).

So we come back to this latest shameful act in Lahore:

This occurred in the Badami Bagh area, when one of the Christians was accused of blasphemy against Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). 

The charged group gathered around Joseph Colony on Noor Road, led by Shafiq Ahmed, who was in search of the accused Savan, alias Bubby. The mob attacked Savan’s house, partially burnt it and pelted it with stones. Other houses in the locality – home to about 150 Christian families – were also attacked.  Many residents, including women and children, hastily fled to save themselves. 

Savan could not be found. However, his father was caught and badly beaten. The vehicle of a pastor, who reached the area to inquire about the incident, was also damaged.

Okay - so they couldn't find Savan - so they badly beat up his father.

The episode began at 1 pm in the afternoon and did not conclude till the evening, when a large number of police personnel finally reached the spot and averted further damage.
The police placated the mob by registering an FIR under section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code (death sentence) against Savan and ensuring that he would be given into their custody to decide his fate. They also took Chaman Masih into custody. 

Despite all this, the protesters continued to claim that they would not let the families return until Savan’s arrest.

But thankfully the police arrived to register an FIR against - what - Savan?? Well, this was meant to placate the mob. So when does the state (and the police) have to "placate" the mob? And this is where blasphemy law comes in. The government knows that any outrage based on religion can bring people out on the streets in large numbers - and the rulers would of course want to be on the "side of religion".

In the mean time, 100 Christian homes have been burnt. Well - I guess they should have realized that their presence could be perceived as offensive to some pious Muslims - and should have left Lahore voluntarily. Oh - now they must have learnt the lesson.

Read more about this latest embarrassing episode here.

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by Salman Hameed

This is very well done. Artist Gavin Aung Than has animated Malala's story in a way that retains and conveys her charm and optimism. You can see the full illustrated story here: Malala Yousafzai - I Have the Right (tip from Slate). 

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by Salman Hameed

The spiral of violence is continuing in Pakistan. This time there is a car bomb that leveled off two buildings in a shia-dominated neighborhood in Karachi, killing 45 people and injuring 150. It is increasingly becoming an open season on minorities, but shias have been bearing most of the brunt for the past few months. All of this is sad and painful and these kinds of attacks are reminding me more and of Iraq (see this earlier post: Is Pakistan Spiraling Down the Way of Iraq?).

Interestingly, we had Darrin McMahon as our speaker just this past Thursday and he gave an fascinating talk on the history of happiness. But at dinner, he mentioned that he had visited Karachi in 1991 - and absolutely loved it. In fact, he said that it reminded him a bit of the culture in southern Spain, where he has spent a considerable amount of time. What he remembered most was the warmth of people welcoming him in Karachi and his visits to a number of mosques in the city. And then he said that he misses that Karachi. Me too.

Coupe of items. Here is a song Khoon (Blood) by the band Topi Drama about the recent killings of shias in Pakistan (tip from Faisal Irshad):


Topi Drama - Khoon Hai from Topi Drama on Vimeo.

Also, if you are in Karachi, there is a protest gathering on Monday at 1:00pm:

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by Salman Hameed

There are only three counties left with active polio cases: Pakistan (58 cases last year), Afghanistan (37 cases) and Nigeria (121 cases). This is a disease that has no cure, but can only be prevented. But alas, it seems that it may be harder to eliminate it from theses last few countries. Last month, nine polio workers, mostly women, were killed in different cities in Pakistan. The effort is back on with increased security, but one of the security policemen was killed late last month.

Now comes the news that 9 female polio workers have been killed in northern Nigeria:

Nine female polio vaccinators have been killed in two shootings at health centres in northern Nigeria, police have told the BBC. 

In the first attack in Kano the polio vaccinators were shot dead by gunmen who drove up on a motor tricycle. 

Thirty minutes later gunmen targeted a clinic outside Kano city as the vaccinators prepared to start work. 

Some Nigerian Muslim leaders have previously opposed polio vaccinations, claiming they could cause infertility. 

On Thursday, a controversial Islamic cleric spoke out against the polio vaccination campaign, telling people that new cases of polio were caused by contaminated medicine.
Such opposition is a major reason why Nigeria is one of just three countries where polio is still endemic. 

But this is believed to be the first time polio vaccinators have been attacked in the country.

It is tragic for the children there and it is tragic for the workers. Especially, what have the workers done to die like that? It is suspected that Boko Haram is behind the attacks. The name of the group literally means "Western Education is Forbidden" in Hausa language. According to the Wikipedia entry on this group, they oppose man-made laws and modern science. There you have it. I have no idea, but I'm curious to know if they use any modern medicine at all - from drugs against malaria to simple antibiotics.

In any case, read this polio story here.

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by Salman Hameed

The situation in Mali is getting worse. I had couple of posts last year on the destruction of Islamic tombs by these radical Islamists (see: Can Muslim archaeological sites be saved from Muslims? and Need some outrage on the destruction of Islamic heritage in Mali). But that is just one of the myriads of problems. The conflict in Mali is already impacting Algeria and Libya, the old colonial power - France, and the oil companies in the region. I know we have to be careful in making comparisons, but there are some other similarities with the conflict in Afghanistan as well. The tribal/ethnic group at the center, the  Tuareg, span the border areas of multiple countries, including Mali and Algeria. The landscape is spread out with sparse pockets of populations, and there is a foreign, western force, trying to stabilize the central government in Mali, as well as conducting direct military actions against the Islamists. Plus, the extremists are using a brutal mixture of local customs with some of Islam's harshest punishments.

To make a bit of a sense of all the mess, here is a Fresh Air interview with Adam Nossiter from early January. It provides some context to what is happening. This interview was conducted before the French bombing and the hostage crisis of Algeria. Nevertheless, you can get an idea of the interests of the different sides in the conflict.

Here is the bit on the destruction of tombs:

On al-Qaida in Mali's efforts to suppress culture in the region:
"The al-Qaida group, especially in Timbuktu ... has set about the systematic destruction of the above-ground mausoleums — some of them centuries old — that the local people ... venerate because they contain the remains of people considered saints in the Sufi religion. And so they've systematically taken pickaxes and hammers to these monuments and leveled them, and this has been very, very shocking for the people in Timbuktu. They've expressed their horror to me over the phone shortly after having witnessed this. They've also banned any kind of music — and, of course, Mali has a very rich musical culture — but even so far as banning musical ring tones on cellphones. If they catch you with a cellphone that plays a tune, they'll confiscate it and they'll punish you. The only thing you can have on your cellphone is a verse from the Quran."

Listen to the full interview here.

And in all this mess, you may find dark humor in knowing that the US trained officials in the Malian army overthrew the democratically elected government (from NYT):

 For years, the United States tried to stem the spread of Islamic militancy in the region by conducting its most ambitious counterterrorism program ever across these vast, turbulent stretches of the Sahara. 

But as insurgents swept through the desert last year, commanders of this nation’s elite army units, the fruit of years of careful American training, defected when they were needed most — taking troops, guns, trucks and their newfound skills to the enemy in the heat of battle, according to senior Malian military officials. 

“It was a disaster,” said one of several senior Malian officers to confirm the defections.
Then an American-trained officer overthrew Mali’s elected government, setting the stage for more than half of the country to fall into the hands of Islamic extremists. American spy planes and surveillance drones have tried to make sense of the mess, but American officials and their allies are still scrambling even to get a detailed picture of who they are up against.
Now, in the face of longstanding American warnings that a Western assault on the Islamist stronghold could rally jihadists around the world and prompt terrorist attacks as far away as Europe, the French have entered the war themselves.
...
 Over the last four years, the United States has spent between $520 million and $600 million in a sweeping effort to combat Islamist militancy in the region without fighting the kind of wars it has waged in the Middle East. The program stretched from Morocco to Nigeria, and American officials heralded the Malian military as an exemplary partner. American Special Forces trained its troops in marksmanship, border patrol, ambush drills and other counterterrorism skills. 

But all that deliberate planning collapsed swiftly when heavily armed, battle-hardened Islamist fighters returned from combat in Libya. They teamed up with jihadists like Ansar Dine, routed poorly equipped Malian forces and demoralized them so thoroughly that it set off a mutiny against the government in the capital, Bamako. 

A confidential internal review completed last July by the Pentagon’s Africa Command concluded that the coup had unfolded too quickly for American commanders or intelligence analysts to detect any clear warning signs.

Read the full article here.        

And here is a take from Glen Greenwald on the French (and US) intervention in Mali (emphasis in the text below are from the original article):

Finally, the propaganda used to justify all of this is depressingly common yet wildly effective. Any western government that wants to bomb Muslims simply slaps the label of "terrorists" on them, and any real debate or critical assessment instantly ends before it can even begin. "The president is totally determined that we must eradicate these terrorists who threaten the security of Mali, our own country and Europe," proclaimed French defense minister Jean-Yves Le Drian. 

As usual, this simplistic cartoon script distorts reality more than it describes it. There is no doubt that the Malian rebels have engaged in all sorts of heinous atrocities ("amputations, flogging, and stoning to death for those who oppose their interpretation of Islam"), but so, too, have Malian government forces - including, as Amnesty chronicled, "arresting, torturing and killing Tuareg people apparently only on ethnic ground." As Jones aptly warns: "don't fall for a narrative so often pushed by the Western media: a perverse oversimplification of good fighting evil, just as we have seen imposed on Syria's brutal civil war." 

The French bombing of Mali, perhaps to include some form of US participation, illustrates every lesson of western intervention. The "war on terror" is a self-perpetuating war precisely because it endlessly engenders its own enemies and provides the fuel to ensure that the fire rages without end. But the sloganeering propaganda used to justify this is so cheap and easy - we must kill the Terrorists! - that it's hard to see what will finally cause this to end. The blinding fear - not just of violence, but of Otherness - that has been successfully implanted in the minds of many western citizens is such that this single, empty word (Terrorists), standing alone, is sufficient to generate unquestioning support for whatever their governments do in its name, no matter how secret or unaccompanied by evidence it may be.

Read the full article here.

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by Salman Hameed

First of all, hello to our regular monitors at the Department of Homeland Security. They have been forced to release the list of keywords they use to monitor social media. Ahmm. Yes, if you just mention Pakistan, I guess you will get some hits on your post (oh - the hits just went up :) ).

Second, if you are interested in checking out what is going on in Pakistan other than craziness, here is a good start: Dispatches from Pakistan:

A book that charts Pakistan’s aspirations and challenges. 

Writing about Pakistan is cliché-ridden. Fear is the dominant motif: mullahs, terrorists, nuclear bombs. And beneath that is victimhood: refugees from floods and military adventures, women in burqas, emaciated children. Little of the actual fabric of everyday life comes across. Nothing of the struggles against neoliberalism, nothing of the struggles against the kleptocracy of Military, Inc. Nothing of the searing poetry from Gilgit, nothing of the graffiti from Gwadar. 

Pakistanis are alive. Sold by governments who should save them, killed by secret agencies who should guard them, bombed by American drones, ‘structurally adjusted’ into starvation, beaten, rendered, tortured and disappeared, and yet, inscrutably, immutably, even joyously, they are still alive. 

DISPATCHES FROM PAKISTAN is an introduction to that liveliness, with sixteen original essays that take us from Balochistan to Baltistan, and poetry from Jalib and Riyaz. This collection is essential reading for anyone who is invested in the social history of transformation underway in Pakistan. 

With shrewd analysis rendered in accessible language, DISPATCHES lays plain the complex and vitally important conditions unfolding in 21st-century Pakistan.

It looks fantastic and serves as an antidote to much of the news coming out of Pakistan. It is edited by Madiha R. Tahir, Qalandar Bux Memon, and our friend Vijay Prashad.

But darker news from Pakistan is also hard to ignore. Here is a short talk (about 17 minutes) by Pervez Hoodbhoy on the current situation in Pakistan. The talk was recorded in March of 2012 and there is another political crisis engulfing Pakistan right now (in case, you are interested in learning about the current circus in Islamabad, here is Ayesha Siddiqa's article: Qadri leads a long march to nonsense). There have also been more attacks on Shias in the last couple of months, and the last carnage has led to protest by the public (also see this piece by Kamila Shamsie: No Solidarity in Pakistan).



Also see this earlier post: Is Pakistan spiraling down the path of Iraq?

Two more things related to art and the issue of terrorism in Pakistan: Here is an illustration of a Pakistani flag by musician Usman Riaz that got a lot of attention after the Shia massacre in Quetta:

And I wanted to again post this fantastic Urdu cover of Zombie by Bakht Arif:

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by Salman Hameed

This is a movie that will definitely lead you to have a long conversation afterwards. Of course, coming from Pakistan, it adds an additional layer to the watching of the film. But even without that, there are many ways to talk about Zero Dark Thirty, the film about the hunt and the killing of Osama bin Laden. But what message you take from the film will definitely depend on your own viewpoints. The film-makers more or less leave that up to you. Does it work? UMass film professor, Kevin Anderson, and I sit down to discuss and review the new Oscar nominated film, Zero Dark Thirty:


You can find all our other reviews at our Film Autopsy site.

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by Salman Hameed

The news coming out of Pakistan is getting grimmer by days. There seems to be a general breakdown of society at different levels. No it is not complete chaos yet - but if the present descent continues, it may very well be. There is an increasing power of the various religious factions and they are going after the minorities. Just this past month, over a hundred graves of Ahmadis were desecrated in upscale neighborhood in Lahore. The Shia minority have been facing an onslaught of attacks and death threats via text messages (also see this post about the protest against "Shia genocide"). The Pakistan-Taliban had threatened secular parties in northern Pakistan, and today they killed its prominent politician, Bashir Bilour, in a suicide blast in Peshawar. And amidst all of this, Karachi - Pakistan's largest city, is going through one of its most violent years ever (and that says a lot). All of the above links are just from the past 30 days!

And if this wasn't enough, just this past October, the Taliban decided to shoot 14-year old Malala in Swat - because she was critical of them. In addition, 5 female health workers were shot just last week in different parts of Karachi as they were immunizing kids from polio, and four more in northern Pakistan. As a result 3.5 million kids missed polio vaccinations as the work was abandoned by the UN.

But these grim tales are not limited to large scale organized violence only. At an individual level we have the blasphemy law that can bring the worst of the society. I have written extensively about the incredulous blasphemy case against my astronomer friend, Umair and his father, and the subsequent burning of their high-performing girls school in Lahore. I had compiled a list of some blasphemy-law related cases just from the month of October this year.

And now comes a chilling story of a mob lynching in Dadu over a blasphemy accusation:

A mob in Pakistan has stormed a police station and beaten to death a Muslim man accused of desecrating the Koran. 

The victim's body was then set alight, according to witnesses. 

The unnamed victim had earlier been handed over to the police after burnt pages of the Koran were found in a mosque in Dadu district, 330km (200 miles) north of Karachi, where he had been staying overnight. 

Hours later a mob went to the police station, seized the man and killed him.
The district police chief, Usman Ghani, told the BBC the gruesome incident was filmed on mobile phones. He said the footage was being reviewed to identify culprits.

What kind of individuals do this and what was going through the minds of individuals who thought of even making a video! Who is the video for? Their kids? A souvenir for their loved ones?

A more fortunate man was given death sentence in Chitral (northern Pakistan) for blasphemy, just this past month. And less than two weeks ago, protests erupted in Islamabad to demand the arrest of a doctor accused of blasphemy by his nephew.

This is a society in decline. Religion and religious factions in Pakistan are providing an easy route to chaos. But this has more to do with a central breakdown of any semblance of authority. The blasphemy law, then, is simply just one more log in the already existing fire. But fire it is.

Back in 2008, I had this comment after increasing number of attacks by the Taliban on Pakistan's intelligence agencies and elite military units:

This also underscores the general stability of Pakistan. If these bombers can hit some of the highest security targets, what hope do cities have from preventing such attacks. In fact, it almost seems that the organizations behind these attacks are, at present, simply showing-off their strength. They certainly seem capable of creating mass chaos in Iraq-style bombing campaign in cities, where the population is far greater than in Iraqi cities (by way of comparison, Iraq's population is ~25 millions, and Pakistan's is 165 million). 

[12/22 correction: Iraq's population today is 33 million and Pakistan's is 177 million]

I really hope and wish that Pakistan can somehow reverse this downward spiral into chaos. Otherwise, we are going to find out what an Iraq-style mess would look like in a population that is more than 5 times bigger than Iraq.

Apologies for a somber post. But this is just a reaction to one grim news after another from Pakistan. Hope next year will be better.

Here is an excellent cover of Zombie by Bakht Arif - commenting on the current state of Pakistan (tip Ayesha Siddiqa):

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by Salman Hameed

The movie hasn't opened here yet - so I can't comment on it. I did read the novel when it came out, and liked it (especially the part set in the US). But I'm looking forward to Mira Nair's take on Mohsin Hamid's novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist (plus it has Hampshire College alum, Liev Schreiber). Of course, we are going to review it as part of our Film Autopsy when we get it here in Amherst. But - boy, won't it be interesting to see it back-to-back with Zero Dark Thirty? In any case, here is the Guardian's take on The Reluctant Fundamentalist from the Venice Film Festival:

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