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This is just funny. Stephen Colbert takes Sean “Waterboard me for Charity” Hannity’s Tree of Liberty apart.

And for those that don’t know, Sean Hannity had said that he would submit to waterboarding to prove that it was not torture. Granted, he has yet to follow through on the promise, much like his leader George W. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished,” we encourage him to step up to the challenge that Keith Olbermann put forward. Read the rest of this entry »

Newsweek International has an interesting story penned by Fareed Zakaria about how the world should accept that a radical Islam exists and how to live with it.

It is not just in the Swat valley that Islamists are on the rise. In Afghanistan the Taliban have been gaining ground for the past two years as well. In Somalia last week, Al-Shabab, a local group of Islamic militants, captured yet another town from government forces. Reports from Nigeria to Bosnia to Indonesia show that Islamic fundamentalists are finding support within their communities for their agenda, which usually involves the introduction of some form of Sharia-Islamic law-reflecting a puritanical interpretation of Islam. No music, no liquor, no smoking, no female emancipation.

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Were he to hold Western, liberal views, Shinwari would have little credibility within his country. The reality-for the worse, in my view-is that radical Islam has gained a powerful foothold in the Muslim imagination. It has done so for a variety of complex reasons that I have written about before. But the chief reason is the failure of Muslim countries to develop, politically or economically. Look at Pakistan. It cannot provide security, justice or education for many of its citizens. Its elected politicians have spent all of their time in office conspiring to have their opponents thrown in jail and their own corruption charges tossed out of court. As a result, President Asif Ali Zardari’s approval rating barely a month into office was around half that enjoyed by President Pervez Musharraf during most of his term. The state is losing legitimacy as well as the capacity to actually govern.

What I would like to understand is why the United States continues to call them extremists and Islamists, while negotiating to bring them into power in Afghanistan? If the United States feels comfortable with Gulbadeen Hekmatyar in power in Afghanistan, how can you honestly criticize Pakistan for making a peace deal with the militants in Swat?

And for reference, when Swat was still a Princely state, prior to 1969, the rule of law in the area was Sharia. Justice was effective, quick and accepted by all, which today’s Pakistan doesn’t have. Being a native of Swat, I know the old system because my family was part of it. It was also part of the agreement made with the Government of Pakistan to when it was included in the Federation.

Is Sharia bad? No. It is an extremely effective form of justice, but it must be interpreted with the honesty and clarity of Solomon. The problem that most of us are concerned about is with the interpretation, not with Sharia itself.

I stumbled on this website today and it has really gotten my attention for a few reasons. Before I get into the reasons, let me share a little about MEMRI TV.

MEMRI TV based on the information listed at the About page:

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) was founded in 1998 in Washington, DC to bridge the language gap between the Middle East and the West by monitoring, translating, and studying Arab, Iranian and Turkish media, schoolbooks, and religious sermons. MEMRI is headquartered in Washington, D.C. and has branches in Baghdad, Tokyo and Jerusalem, and a staff of over 70 working around the globe. MEMRI’s research is translated into English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish with a subscriber list of over 75,000. MEMRI is a 501 (c)3 organization and is incorporated in Washington, D.C.

Seems like a simple media monitoring organization that is funded through donations. But when you start to browse the site, you realize that it is nothing more than a collection of speeches, schoolbooks and media stories that are geared at pointing out that Muslims are terrorists.

Check out the page that has been created for Pakistan. The videos posted are from Baithullah Mehsud and others that the Western world consider terrorists translated from our national languages into english for the Western media to reference when creating biased stories.

Why don’t the Muslim bloggers do the same thing for the Christians? Many Christians say that if Jesus Christ were to come back today, most of the Christian world would not recognize Him.

Watching what is happening in Gaza, I find it hard to dispute that belief.

Now that the Mumbai Terror act is over and the finger pointing/attempts to connect Pakistan to it, I found a series of articles that would make anyone wonder if the Indian government, police, media or the sole terrorist they have caught have any idea what the plan was or how it was executed.

Let’s start from India Times, who states that “the gang of terrorists who wreaked mayhem in Mumbai for three days were made to believe by their Lashkar bosses that they were not being sent on a suicide mission and that they would be coming back.”

The India Times reports the name of the jihadi as Ajmal Amir Kasab, who identified his partners in crime as:

Abu Ali, Fahad, Omar, Shoaib, Umer, Abu Akasha, Ismail, Abdul Rahman (Bara) and Abdul Rahman (Chhota)

The account of the plan is as follows:

• All the terrorists were trained in marine warfare along with a special course Daura-e-Shifa conducted by Lashkar-e-Taiba that transforms routine terror strikes into specialized raids by commandos.
• Group set off on November 21 from an isolated creek near Karachi without the deadly cargo of arms and ammunition.
• Group received arms and ammunitiion on board a large Pakistani vessel which picked them up the following day. The vessel, whose ownership is now the subject of an international probe, had four Pakistanis apart from the crew.
• A day later they came across an Indian-owned trawler, Kuber, which was commandeered on the seas. 4 of the fishermen were killed, but its skipper, Amarkit Singh, was forced to proceed towards India. Amarkit was killed the next day, and Ismail took the wheel
• Ismail, a trained sailor, used the GPS to reach Mumbai coast on Nov. 26.
• Group shifted to inflatable boats, 10 nautical miles from Mumbai, before disembarking at Badhwar Park in Cuffe Parade.
• From there, they mandated to kill indiscriminately, particularly white foreign tourists, and spare Muslims split up into five batches. 2 (Ismail & Ajmal) took a taxi to Victoria Terminus. 3 other batches of 2 each headed for Overoi Hotel, Cafe Leopold and Nariman House. The remaining 4 went to Taj Hotel.

And what I thought was an interestingly drafted line of text:

Incidentally, Kasab and Ismail were the two who gunned down ATS chief Hemant Karkare, additional CP Ashok Kamthe and encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar. Read the rest of this entry »

You know when you are dealing with a reputable newspaper, when they are able to post audio proof of what was said in an interview. The Wall Street Journal, a few weeks back, did an interview with Asif Ali Zardari, in which he categorically called the Kashimiri freedom fighters “terrorists.” Once the interview was published, the Government of Pakistan used every angle to try to say that they had been misquoted but the Journal. 

On the 18th of October, the Wall Street Journal posted the audio from the interview to its website for everyone in the world to hear Zardari call the freedom fighters in Kashmir “terrorists.” He said it and it’s on record…. have a listen and decide for yourself.

As the United States steps up border raids into Pakistan, troops from both countries have commenced a deadly game of brinksmanship. Although aimed at asserting each other’s military presence along the Pakistan-Afghan border, the skirmishes risk outright hostilities.

U.S. strikes in Pakistan are nothing new. Washington has conducted unilateral missile strikes since soon after its invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001. American pilotless surveillance planes have been flying over the restive border with near impunity for much the same time.

From Air to Ground

But the tone of the U.S. presence changed this year. In July, President George W. Bush approved covert ground raids into suspected militant hideouts in the Waziristan region of Pakistan, much of which is a Taliban stronghold. Militants use the region as a sanctuary from which to strike foreign and Afghan troops in neighboring Afghanistan. Thus far, U.S. forces attempted at least three ground assaults. The only confirmed ground invasion of Pakistan, on September 3, led to the deaths of around 20 civilians, including women and children. No militant leaders were believed captured or killed in the raid.

This ground assault led to unprecedented rhetoric from Pakistan condemning the United States. Even Chief of Army Staff Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, normally quite evasive with the media, said that the Army would defend Pakistan’s territory. The Pakistani government summoned the U.S. ambassador to the foreign office and blocked NATO supplies vital to the multinational force’s continued operation in Afghanistan.

Pakistan averted two other attempted ground raids when its border forces fired warning shots at U.S. helicopters ferrying commandos into Waziristan. On the most recent occasion, Pakistan and U.S. troops exchanged fire for five minutes. Pakistan’s government later claimed that its army fired flares, not bullets, at the helicopters, but this explanation did not sound very convincing.

Ostensibly, Washington fears that Waziristan – and other tribal regions – could become a staging area for further attacks on the United States if the Pakistani army doesn’t root out pro-Taliban forces. But Washington doubts whether Islamabad is capable of doing the job. Read the rest of this entry »