Interesting funny blogs on Obama's Killing

[ravishingravi]

Gotcha! The news the world had been waiting for ever since the United States declared war against Al-Qaeda in 2001 has finally arrived: Al Qaeda’s numero uno, the most wanted man in the world, Osama bin Laden has finally been killed. According to reports coming in at the time of writing this piece, the wealthy Saudi turned Islamist terrorist died in an attack on his hideout just outside the quiet Pakistani city of Abbotabad. The unprecedented operation was carried out by a team of US marines that had been monitoring Laden’s movements in the area for the last many weeks. A lot more detail report is expected to come in, especially after US President, Barak Obama, went live on television to give the news to his people and the world at large. As CNN and BBC were showing thousands of Americans gathering outside the White House, cheering the news, the sounds and sights coming from Pakistani channels are at best bizarre. As news anchors shoot away reading the fast unfolding news, they seem unsure whether to describe Osama’s reported death as ‘wo marey ja chukey hein’ or ‘mara ja chukka hai’, – both mean ‘Osama has been killed’, but the first sentence uses words like ‘chukey hein’ that in Urdu and Hindi is used to give respect to someone older. So, as Pakistani newscasters (especially on the ever-animated hyperbolic private channels), continue to zigzag between ‘chuka’ and ‘chukey,’ it was only a matter of time before we began seeing what is called the ghairat brigade, or the pride brigade take their seats in front of the camera. Pakistan’s private TV channels are brimming with the most gung-ho characters of this brigade – talk show hosts with an addiction for anything conspiratorial and rhetorical, and never far from using sheer jingoism to give weight to the shenanigans of the Pakistani right-wing, especially regarding the rightists’ blinding hatred for the US, the West, India and Pakistani politicians. So until the writing of this piece, and merely an hour after the news about Osama’s death poured in, the usual suspects in this respect are up and running questioning the validity of the report. The two star anchors of big media houses started behaving as if their jobs are now on the line since Osama is dead and America seems to have won at least this aspect of its war against al Qaeda. Then one after the other they started breaking with a photo which was published on the internet sometime in 2009. The cynical display is quite pathetic, almost akin to the shock the loud mouthpieces of the agitated right-wing exhibited when Raymond Davis made a smooth exit from Pakistan, on the behest of Pakistan’s security agencies that, ironically, were alleged to have been propping up a number of media men and politicians such as Imran Khan to pump up anti-Americanism in Pakistan. Respected journalists and analysts like Najam Sethi, Ayesha Siddiuqa, Hasan Askari and Farrukh Saleem are right to suggest that large sections of the country’s intelligence agencies are using certain media personnel and politicians to drown America’s concerns about Pakistan protecting certain al Qaeda members and those belonging to militant Islamist outfits that America says the Pakistani establishment considers to be ‘friendly.’ Nevertheless, whereas the largely knee-jerk and quasi-reactionary narrative peddled in the name of ghairat in the media and from the mouths of some politicians and TV anchors is now sounding as empty as empty can be, the government and the military-establishment will have to think on its feet. With Osama’s dramatic demise, the Pakistani establishment cannot hide anymore behind the padding its clumsy doings in the war against terrorists was being provided to them by sympathetic media men. They have to answer one very simple question: In spite of the Americans claiming that Osama was hiding somewhere in Pakistan, why did the Pakistani military, who too has lost numerous soldiers in its war against al Qaeda and the Taliban, continued to deny it? What’s more, in a frenzy to impress their masters in certain sections of Pakistan’s security apparatus, these media men and politicians were not even immune to unleash rhetoric that can leave Pakistan and its people not only isolated, but suffering from collective bouts of paranoia, delusion and xenophobia. Whereas now it is becoming more than clear that Pakistani security agencies and the Pakistani government did have an inkling at least as to what the Americans were planning to do, instead of asking the question ‘what Osama was doing hiding in a compound situated in an area where there is sufficient presence of the Pakistan army and ISI,’ these TV men were quick to suggest that the man killed may not be Osama. In fact, one of them confidently announced that according his sources (that’s a nice way of putting it), the man killed was not Osama. But lo and behold! Only an hour after curious claim came the report that the Americans have released the pictures of the dead body and face of Osama. As I go on monitoring the media, the atrocious narrative questioning the validity of the news championed by these talk show hosts-turned-anchors-turned-presenters had fallen on its face and gradually replaced by a line that suggests that the Pakistan military (not the government) should also be given credit for this prize catch. That is when the race to publish the image started. Perhaps the Pakistani security forces and institutions did play a role, but, again, with the emergence of the corpse of Osama in Pakistan, we should be asking, does this episode not validate almost all the other allegations and concerns that the US has exhibited regarding Pakistan’s rather shadowy and topsy-turvy war against terrorists? We have to prove to the world that Pakistan is not a country that accommodates and hides mass murderers. But then, what to expect from a country some of whose politicians and media raise more hue and cry about US drone attacks (that have killed around 2,000 people, most of them militants), rather than about suicide attacks by Taliban/al-Qaeda that, ever since 2004, have slaughtered over 34,000 civilians, policemen and army personnel http://www.dawn.com/2011/05/02/gotcha.html

[ravishingravi]

Mods, it was supposed to be interesting/funny. Blogs by Paracha paint a very gloomy picture. http://www.dawn.com/2011/05/02/the-man-the-mujahid-the-murderer.html The man, the mujahid, the murderer … Born into a wealthy family in Saudi Arabia, Osama Bin Laden is said to always have been conservative, but not a fanatic. Little is known about his past which was most probably unremarkable with him being one of the many children of a multi-married Saudi construction tycoon. In fact he was the seventeenth child of a man who fathered up to 52 children. Interestingly, although Osama’s father became extremely rich thanks to his contacts with Saudi Arabia’s royal family, he remained a strict adherent of his country’s puritanical Sunni Wahabi Muslim faith, whereas Osama’s mother, a Syrian woman, did not prefer wearing the veil and was said to be more educated than her billionaire husband. Osama’s first marriage was to a 14-year-old Saudi girl (he was 17 at the time), and in 1974 he enrolled in the economics and management faculty of Jeddah’s King Abdul Aziz University. The university, at the time, was bustling with young radical militants most of whom had begun to arrive from Arab countries such as Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Morocco in the late 1960s where their comrades had been persecuted by those countries’ secular Arab nationalist governments. Saudi Arabia’s monarchy had been alarmed by the rise of secular nationalist regimes in various Arab countries, most of whom had also tilted towards the Soviet Union during the Cold War. That is why the Saudi regime began to openly receive young militants who were opponents of these nationalist governments, many of whom became students and ideologues at the King Abdul Aziz University. These young ideologues were almost entirely unopposed here, quite unlike the situation they had faced at university campuses in Egypt and Syria where student outfits of various Marxist and Arab nationalist parties were also strong. Many of these young militants had also escaped to study in Pakistan. Although they found sympathy from Jamat-i-Islami’s student wing, Islami Jamiat Talaba (IJT) in the late 1960s and early 1970s, they were also confronted by a strong presence of various left-wing and liberal student groups who supported Arab nationalist regimes. In those days, universities in Karachi and Lahore had large numbers of Palestinian students, many of whom, with the support of Z.A. Bhutto’s government and leftist student groups, set up a student wing of Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) whom the militants had opposed. At King Abdul Aziz University, Osama discovered the political dimension of puritanical Islamic discourse (later labelled as ‘Islamism’), where an exhibition of piety is coupled with political and militant action to help create a ‘true Islamic state and society’ ruled by a revived Islamic caliphate. When a group of Saudi Wahabi radicals took over the holy mosque in Mecca in 1979 and were eventually cleared out through a bloody gun battle between Saudi forces (trained and maneuvered by French military experts) and the rather delusional militants (who had with them a man who claimed to be Islam’s awaited avenger, Mehdi), Osama sympathised with the militants

[ravishingravi]

His Final Moments Tariq’s surma-rimmed eyes gleamed cold and hollow. He had known Tariq for ten years, enough to know that he was serious. Dead serious. ISI handlers of high value assets usually are. And Tariq, Tariq was one of the best. He had to be. After all he was Tariq’s asset. On hindsight, he felt he should have seen this coming. It had been a horrible weekend from the very start. On Friday, there was that horrible royal wedding which he had to endure sitting with his youngest wife. She had kept sobbing and ooh-oohing “so cute” throughout, an experience worse than having a camel bite your balls. And he knew what was like, having experienced it many years ago. He had reminded her that she too was married to a prince. But somehow she didn’t seem to be too pleased by that observation. Saturday, the weather had been horrible and the kababs had been over-cooked. But nothing could have prepared him for this shocker on Sunday morning. ‘I am sorry. We have to lay you off. Or in your case, lay you out.’ He tried to sweep away the rising tide of panic. “I thought we had an arrangement Tariq. You guys pretend to hunt me. The US pays you millions for that. You use it to buy candy, perhaps a few guns. Some of it goes to the Kashmiris and some of it goes into protecting me so that you can get the next installment. From time to time, you guys kill some shepherd and pass him off as Al Qaeda’s No 3 man. I thought this was all going well. Why do you want to get rid of the golden egg now, of all times? Tariq adjusted his military cap, impatiently. ‘See that’s the problem. You have become so isolated from the world. Forgive me for saying this but that you are now a fossil, Like Simi the White. That arrangement you talked off that was with the old boss, the Mushy General. The new boss wants to do things different. And he has to. The world has changed sir. The US wants to withdraw from Afghanistan steadily and they cannot do it without answering to one question to their people “So what have we achieved?” If you are killed, then they have that answer. Perfectly concise. And simple enough so that the dumbest can get it. You know the ones who enjoy Justin Bieber. And this provides their president an “achievement” before the next elections, and trust me sir he needs a few if he wants to win. For us too, in the ISI, getting the US to leave would be good. We are sick and tired of this war, sick and tired of the problems in transporting opium past those predator drones. The Yanks laying off a bit is exactly what we want. To be honest sir, the US has cottoned onto our little game of jihadi blackmail for a long time. It just couldn’t have gone on. When we give you to them, we will get a bagful of chips which we can then cash in for more diplomatic pressure on the Indians on Kashmir and Afghanistan and more arms and ammunition for us. Plus we need the Taliban back on our side—this good and bad distinction **** no longer works. Remember why the US went after Taliban in the first place? They were fine with those people when they acted as agents for that Indian plane we hijacked. Nothing really terrorist about that, in the eyes of the Americans. It was when they put their ass on the line for you that the US went after them and “Taliban” became a dirty word. With you gone, the Taliban will once again be rehabilitated by the US (perhaps under different names), past sins will be forgotten, and we can get back to doing what we brought them up for—controlling Afghanistan and later on Kashmir.’ He was angry now, spluttering with rage. ‘ You think you guys are going to get away by hanging me out to dry. Does your boss have any idea of my value, what I mean to the Islamic world?Do you think your countrymen are going to let you get away with handing their biggest hero over like that? And even forgetting that, who will be your jihadi master-mind?’ Tariq kept his cool. ‘With due respect sir, you were a jihadi master-mind, around the time when people thought Christina Aguilera would be the future of music and that Parthiv Patel would be India’s wicketkeeping-batsman superstar. Perhaps it’s because you cannot show your nose to the sun. But the fact is you have lost a lot of your operational influence. We have better brains now, people whose names the Yanks don’t know, who manage the business well. No one much watches your videos too any more—- why there were more downloads of the Asmit Patel-Ria Sen sex video than your latest missive. Your significance, if anything, is merely that of a symbol—and a symbol becomes more powerful when the man behind it is dead..’ ‘So what you are saying is that you have found your Sachin, Pollard, Rayadu, Harbhajan and Malinga and that I have become a Shikhar Dhawan who you can comfortably let go.’ ‘Couldn’t have put it better myself. Just because Ronald McDonald’s dies doesnt mean McDonald’s closes down ! Just because Heffner dies doesnt mean boys will stop playing….’ Tariq coughed, somewhat apologetically.. ‘You see, sir, you were always a foreigner. You have always had Palestine and the US as your focus. We here care just about Kashmir and the destruction of India. In all these years, you never did much about Kashmir did you except one or two words in your speeches? We had to do 26/11 all-by-ourselves with no input from you or your near foreigner friends. And it went off bloody well too if I may say so. So just put yourself in our shoes, what value do you have for us in this the new world order? The stage has been set for your demise already. Mr 10% has already taken 2.5 million, the 10 per-cent off your booty. The Taliban are on the path to rehabilitation. Within some time, Al-Qaeda with their Palestine focus shall wane in Pakistan to be replaced by more India-facing Jihadi groups, baksheesh from the US will come in ting-a-ling and we will resume our activities in Afghanistan and then in Kashmir with Taliban friends freed up from having to fight the US.’ ‘You have made a mistake. The good Muslims of this country won’t forget your treachery.’ He was hyper-ventilating now, the warm spit drooling down the side of his mouth. ‘We have that managed. This will be spun as an entirely Yankee operation—-we Pakistanis had no idea you were here. And so of course telling the Americans and cooperating them does not arise. There might be some anguish on the streets but don’t worry it will be directed at the Yanks and at the moron President. If he gets bumped off as a result, all the better.’ His head slumped onto his chest. They had figured this out pretty well. ‘So what happens now?’ ‘ They will come soon. They will run about like they do in the movies, no American will be injured, bullets will fly and that will be that. Some people may ask how come the Americans faced so little resistance inside the mansion, considering how strong your security perimeter has always been. They might say that this shows that we gave you away. But those won’t be too many people.’ Tariq said, smiling for the first time. He felt sick, sick to the base of his stomach. And scared. ‘Can’t you get me off, for old times sake? I mean at least let me know who wins DID Champs—Team Jalwa or Team Josh and whether KKR makes the play-offs? Please.’ ‘Sorry no can do big-man. The deal has been made. It has to be on a Sunday to make the Monday morning headlines. Bad news on Friday night, good news on Sunday night—-remember? So today and now it has to be.’ Tariq turned towards the door and stopped. With his back towards him, he said, in a hushed whisper, ”Good-bye sir.’ Then he walked away briskly, before breaking into a half-run. He sat silent, hearing and not hearing, counting now the seconds till they would burst in. Images of two buildings floated in his mind, of people, their faces twisted in fear, running about or calling their loved ones one last time, of metal melting, of flames, of men and women waiting for their inevitable death, terrified and alone. He had seen these images before. Every time he had told himself—they had deserved it, those infidels. They had deserved the wrath of God. But then why was he today, just like them, waiting helplessly..waiting for the end? No answer came. The deafening sound of a hovering helicopter blotted out his final thoughts. http://greatbong.net/2011/05/02/his-final-moments/