Khost bomber
Monday, 11 Jan, 2010
A VIDEO purporting to show a Jordanian suicide bomber, who killed several CIA agents in Khost, seated next to Hakeemullah Mehsud, the leader of the TTP, raises some very troubling questions. While the authenticity of the video has not yet been established, the initial consensus seems to be that it is genuine. Even if it is not, what is clear is that statements claiming responsibility for the attack have been attributed to the TTP and that the TTP has not contradicted those claims as yet. Here, then, seems to be a spectacular example of collaboration between the TTP, Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban. (Al Qaeda has already released a video paying tribute to the Jordanian bomber, while the CIA’s forward operating base in Khost was almost certainly being used to direct operations against the Haqqani network on both sides of the Pak-Afghan border.) So does the attack signal a new phase of heightened cooperation between the various militant groups straddling the Pak-Afghan border? We must recall that Waliur Rehman, a South Waziristan TTP kingpin, recently boasted that the TTP has sent “thousands” of its men to fight the American-led forces in Afghanistan — a claim that has largely been dismissed as propaganda, but which indicates the keenness of the TTP to drum up its role in Afghanistan.
Moreover, do recent events make nonsense of the so-called good Taliban/bad Taliban distinction that the Pakistan Army allegedly makes? Certainly, many have pointed to the problem inherent in the army’s strategy of focusing its operations on those groups that are directly attacking the state here: cross-pollination between ‘discrete’ militant groups has made such a distinction hard to justify. In some cases, the army has had some limited, short-term tactical success with its approach, but the strategic and long-term costs are hard to justify. For example, before the operation in South Waziristan, an ‘understanding’ was reached with Hafiz Gul Bahadur in North Waziristan to stay out of the battle. He did, but then in many cases he has either given sanctuary to TTP militants from South Waziristan or allowed them safe passage. While we remain aware of the fact that the Pakistan Army does face some very real constraints — opening too many fronts may cause violence to spike even higher inside Pakistan, operations need to planned and paid for, etc — and that the American ‘do more’ demand is problematic, there is also the reality of a hydra-headed enemy. And, as with the mythical Lernaean Hydra, cutting off only some of those heads will not defeat the threat.
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Books and children
Monday, 11 Jan, 2010
AS television viewing, electronic games and the Internet have come to hold sway over children’s leisure hours worldwide, parents have been complaining that children are losing interest in books. Although reading books has not traditionally been a popular pastime in Pakistan, given the country’s low literacy rate and poor state of education, publishers have begun to pay more attention to the needs of young readers. For the first time in years, good-quality modestly priced reading material for children is available in bookshops. But why is this flood of children’s literature in English and Urdu failing to attract new readers? Why aren’t more children reaching out for books? And why are the readers of yesterday not so enthusiastic about the printed word anymore?
Reading for pleasure, which introduces young minds to new ideas and information, must not be allowed to die. In fact, the need to actively promote reading by children still exists and should be pursued vigorously and imaginatively at all levels. Whatever strategy is adopted, it is important that some basic principles be adhered to. Book promotion should not be a one-time effort. Encouraging reading should be an ongoing process and a collective effort by parents, teachers, publishers and education planners. It is a participatory process and reading out to younger children, especially by parents, can help them develop the reading habit as they grow older. It is unrealistic to expect children to read non-curricular books simply because they have been exhorted to do so. Similarly, schools should allot space and a reasonable budget to libraries headed by those who are booklovers and can stimulate the children’s interest in their stocks.
This is no doubt a challenging job at a time when there are so many distracting factors that take away children from books. Yet technology such as the Internet and television are no substitute for the human interaction books can provide if they are used as a means to bring readers together. It is ironical that at a time when publishers have responded to the demand for children’s literature and there is a deluge of children’s books in the market, the readers should be disappearing.
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University affiliation
Monday, 11 Jan, 2010
TRANSITIONS are never easy. The hiccups that remain in the half-decade long process of affiliating Punjab’s medical colleges with the University of Health Sciences show how such efforts have to be sustained. The students of the Fatima Jinnah Medical College, a women-only institution in Lahore, are protesting daily against their institution’s affiliation with the university. They say that when they enrolled, they did so because they wanted to get their degree from the University of Punjab with which their college was then affiliated and that the college should not be affiliated with the University of Health Sciences, a process that has yet to be completed. This argument is discriminatory if not implausible. All other medical colleges in Punjab, public and private, are already affiliated with the University of Health Sciences. How can the students of a lone college hold out without being seen as ‘special’?
This, however, does not absolve the education authorities of blame. They created false hopes among the students that the Fatima Jinnah Medical College would become a university instead of having to change its affiliation. This could not come about because of administrative and financial constraints but it kept the college away from the affiliation process. The officials also failed to convince the students that the changed affiliation would not hamper the international recognition of their degrees. The result? The University of Punjab is maintaining a complete examination system for medical education for a single college. Now the issue is no longer under the education department’s jurisdiction. The Lahore High Court has taken suo motu notice of the protests and the court is expected to resolve the issue sooner rather than later. One hopes that it has also been noted that the provincial government has failed to successfully handle an issue that is minor compared to other challenges.
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OTHER VOICES - North American Press Connect the dots
Monday, 11 Jan, 2010
THE average American television viewer sees enough double-crosses on the hit series 24 not to make the mistakes the CIA did in letting a double agent get close enough to bomb a spy base in Afghanistan….
… Five days [after the attempted jetliner bombing], Jordanian physician/suicide bomber Humam Khalil Abu-Malal al-Balawi set off a blast that killed five CIA officers; two contracted employees of Xe Services, the security company once known as Blackwater USA; and a Jordanian who was working with the CIA. Surely it was desperation for information, and not just sloppiness, that led the CIA to drop its guard and not search Balawi thoroughly before letting him into a room with operatives. Balawi had provided useful information in the past, but his background was suspect. Indeed, the doctor, who formerly expressed jihadist sentiments, may have been coerced into spying for US ally Jordan.
The CIA had high hopes for its planned meeting with Balawi, expecting him to provide information that might lead them to Osama bin Laden or at least his lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri. That Balawi instead delivered a bomb adds credence to a new report that criticises the emphasis of US intelligence-gathering in Afghanistan on capturing or killing insurgents. Maj Gen Michael Flynn, the top US military intelligence officer there, says it would be more helpful to learn more about the local population, their politics, economy and culture….
Gen Stanley McChrystal … has also stressed that military success requires a better understanding of the Afghan people. Just as certain is the need for all the US intelligence-gatherers, military and civilian, not to get so desperate for a lead to a target that they are lured into the type of fatal inattention to security that allowed a suicide bomber to enter into their midst and complete his awful mission. — (Jan 8)