The Osama-doctrine : Has the justice really been done?

By: Hassan Zaingiri

‘Justice has been done’ is how US president Barak Obama hailed and celebrated the killing of Al-Qaeda Chief Osama Bin Ladin who Americans say was hiding in Abottabad town of Pakistan and was killed in a commando action by US forces last week.

But the way Osama was “finished off” has woefully exposed the human face of ‘lone super-power’ who doesn’t stop from trumpeting its ‘belief’ in ‘human values’ and ‘free trial’ and ‘justice’, reports Hassan Zainagir.

 It is now an admitted fact that Bin Ladin was unarmed when the compound he was housed in was stormed. Apart from the surviving family members, now in Pakistan custody, even some officials in US have stated that Osama was unarmed when US troops shot him dead. And as the bullets pierced him, Obama watching the ‘live coverage’ of the momentous event in the Situation Room of the White House with his team-mates spoke up ‘we got him’.  The ‘Geronimo’.

CIA officials, who directed the ‘Geronimo EKIA’ operation, have also lent credence to the allegation. Giving details of the operation they have told reporters that prior to killing Osama they dropped the stunned bombs in the compound which on exploding produce shock waves, making the people incapable of any movement/action. That also reflects why there were no casualties on American side.

What the world wants to know from Americans is why in this backdrop – when he was unarmed or left “stunned” – Bin Ladin was not captured alive? That course taken, undoubtedly, would have proved a treasure trove and a more reliable source for the US to decipher the information, US believed, he possessed regarding 9/11 and other ‘anti-American’ ‘terrorist’ activities and the Al-Qaeda network.

That US chose not to publish the picture of Osama’s body as further added mystery to the issue. Washington says the pictures are gruesome as his face has been badly disfigured. (Beastliness of the so called champion of human values and its xenophobia knows no bounds). But was not hanging of Sadam Hussain provocative too? This raises the question was Osama shot beyond possible recognition or was the operation an eye wash? Did America fear that Osama would have walked free for lack of evidence if brought to trial. Osama dusted off his involvement in 9/11. 

Many a time America expressed their desire to get Osama alive. Guantanamo Bay prison they had chosen to incarcerate the Al-Qaeda chief in and ‘bring him to justice’ through a ‘fair trial’. The killing of the aged ailing leader with some of his family members, all unarmed, in the house he had taken shelter has echoed a strong resentment from civil society in Europe, United Nation’s and human rights groups all over the world. They have despised the American action as a ‘cold-blooded assassination’. Even condemnation is growing from some sections of media inside the US itself. Though Pakistan is maligned and mucked at for ‘providing a safe heaven’ for Osama but American action, under International Law and Geneva Convention, is held a flagrant violation of the territorial sovereignty of an independent country. Pakistan has protested on the US strike terming it ‘unauthorized unilateral action’ taken without its knowledge. Its anger is that on one hand, US didn’t share the intelligence with it, and brazenly violated its sovereignty, on the other it has directed all guns of arrogance against her, forgetting Islamabad’s role in handing over hundreds of Al-Qaeda and Taliban ‘terrorists’ including some high profile leaders like Khalid Sheikh, Amjad, Abu Zubaida, Libey, and never forget, the nuclear science knowing Aasiya Sidiqa.

As if murder of unarmed Osama was not enough to satiate the vengeance of the Americans, the hastily decision of the Washington (two hours after the completion of the ‘mission’) to dump his body, whom once Americans and the West glorified as ‘Mujahid-e-azam’, in the deep waters of the Indian ocean (they only know where) has enraged the entire Muslim world – including those who opposed his ideology. The noted Muslim scholars including grand Al-Azhar University have strongly protested over this brutality that has all the trappings of crusade mentality and Hitlarian mindset.

Howsoever drugged you might be in eliminating your enemy, once he is dead, it is obligatory for you to show respect to the dead body and hand it over to the next of his kin. In absence of his kins, the state is morally and legally bound to carry his last rites in strict compliance to the religious injunctions of the deceased. Muslims throw their bodies in sea under certain compulsions as when they are on board the ship and someone dies. Here, Osama was murdered in the house and the body was flown to Bagram air base. They were under obligation to first inform the descendants of the Osama, who they knew were residing in Saudi Arabia (Incidentally Umar bin Osama, one of the sons of the deceased Al-Qaeda chief, has strongly reacted to the manner his father was killed and dead body thrown into waters of Indian ocean. In a letter he asked Americans to come up with evidence of Osama’s death within 30 days, or, he threatened, he would approach the International Court of Justice). The statement of Umar clearly shows his family in Saudi Arabia was not approached.

The lurking fear in Americans that his land burial would have ultimately provided a sanctimonious site to attract Osama’s followers is said to be the reason for opting the “sea  burial” course . But that fear in no way should have insulated Americans to Muslim sensitivities, which is so arrogantly trumpeted under the hubris of technological advancement. For arguments sake let us presume burying site of Osama would have venerated into a Shrine, gravitating number of Muslim youth to it, what hampered Obama administration, as a last option, from having the last remains of a Muslim (whatever his ideological moorings) lay in rest in Guantanamo Bay, which the ‘civilized’ Americans have chosen to convert into an animal farm quarantined for those who it thinks dares to yell at its imperialist nudity.

Whether or not the burial site of Osama might have become a mausoleum for his followers is a debatable preposition, but the sacrilegious affront to Muslims by US and in the highly provocative and insulting way, has in it all the ingredients to fuel rage and hatred in Muslim world against the US. That way Osama eliminated would prove a ghost for her, haunting it again and again. Osama in person is ‘finished’ but in finishing him the White House has, unwittingly, given a new lease of life to the Osama-doctrine. That is how “justice has been done”! 
   
Hassan Zainagiree can be reached at : zainagiree@yahoo.co.in

Osama Bin Laden

By: Maqsood Ahmad 

Srinagar, 14 May: Pakistan has all along aligned itself with the US and NATO mainly for economic reasons and Kashmir policy as it is a historical fact that during the cold war era, India was aligned both militarily and otherwise also with the Soviet block and used to derive all kind of support from the Soviet Union particularly on Kashmir.

Soviet Union used to veto all resolutions moved in the UN Security Council on Kashmir and other Indo Pak issues in India's favour. After the disintegration of Soviet Union, it was expected that Pakistan would get all out support from the Western Block particularly the US in getting all its disputes with India particularly on Kashmir settled and would ensure implementation of the UN resolutions on Kashmir. Not only Pakistan but we Kashmiris also generated high hopes that our dispute  would get settled and we would be allowed to exercise of Right to Self Determination for determining the future political set up of our territory in accordance with the UN Resolutions.

Unfortunately this did not happen but instead it was US that blocked all chances Pakistan got in forcing a settlement of Kashmir dispute with India such as during the 1962 India’s China War when Pakistan was pressurized by the US not to bring any kind of military pressure on India to get the Kashmir dispute settled and also during the Kargil war when the US forced Pakistan to cease fire and return to the original positions held by it.

Besides, the US also used Pakistan against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan without giving it anything in return and has been using Pakistan against Taliban whom the US used to address as Mujahideen  when they were fighting the Soviet forces in Afghanistan, and are now calling them as terrorists. Not only that, instead of supporting Pakistan in getting its problems with India particularly on Kashmir  resolved, it is showing a tilt towards India for its economic considerations as well as its Anti Muslim and Anti Islam and Anti Kashmir policies. The United States went all out against Taliban and Osama bin Laden and killed thousands of innocent and unarmed Afghan men women and children through drone attacks on civilian population, travelers and jirgas which has even been acknowledged by the puppet ruler of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai. They killed hundreds of Civilians in  Waziristan area of Pakistan with these drone attacks. . What action it took against its forces. What action US took against the killers of thousands of Muslims by Modi & Co in Gujrat and Indian security forces in Kashmir. Just denying visa to visit USA is no action and is ridiculous. What action it took in the massacre of innocent and unarmed civilian population of Lebanon and Palestine by the Israeli troops. Even if it is accepted  that OSAMA BIN LADEN was a terrorist but he was just an individual. What about the  states like Israel and India who are resorting to state terrorism. 

The US wastes no time in mobilizing NATO and its other allies when any local uprising takes place in any Muslim country but when it happens in a country where there allies of friends are involved, they just do not bother and actually help the oppressor like in Kashmir, Palestine.The US is also trying to squeeze Pakistan by depriving it of its strategic depth in Afghanistan and giving India an increased role and space in Afghanistan. This goes to prove that US is not a reliable and trusted friend and is Anti Muslim, Anti Islam and Pakistan has had enough occasions to substantiate this argument. Pakistan has invited trouble in its own country and with its own people by pursuing the policies in the interest of US. Pakistan needs to rethink about its foreign policy and need not rely on the US. US is treating Pakistan like a prostitute and enters its territory and conducts military operations at its free will against some economic aid which is also tagged with so many conditions. Pakistani authorities shouls understand that Americans military operations within Pakistan soil are not going to stop here after the elimination of Osama. Americans will continue to conduct direct military operations inside Pakistan unilaterally on one pretext or the other. Sometimes, they will make an excuse of pursuing Mulla Omar, sometimes Al-Zuwahiri and so on and so forth. The only thing that will stop US from conducts military operations is when they suffer human losses and for that Pakistan needs to retaliate militarily. This is the only reason they pulled out from IRAQ and are now trying to find a face saving in coming out from Afghanistan.  It needs to make friends within its own country  rather than create enemies in the interest of US. 

The trouble in Pakistan started after 9/11 when Pakistan shifted  its Afghan policy  and went all out against Taliban to please the US administration during the Musharraf regime. Pakistan needs to assert and survive as a free and independent Nation. Pakistan needs to generate its own resources for its survival and not depend on the US economic aid and if they are unable to do it, they have no right to exist as an independent country . Pakistan should strictly adhere to and follow the sayings of its National poet Dr Sir Muhammad Iqbal:  “Aay Tair-I-Lahoti, Us Rizk sey Mout Achi Jis Rizk sey Aaati ho parvaaz mein kotahee”. Pakistan should not bother about any military misadventure of the US as the US cannot afford to intervene directly and invade any country they want. US has in the recent past intervened directly in IRAQ and Afghanistan and has met with failures and has not been able to fulfill its desires/objectives as envisaged/planned by it and is now trying to have a face saving to come out of Afghanistan. 

The US has refrained from intervening in other countries defying their dictates subsequently after Afghanistan such as Iran, North Korea etc in view of its bitter experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. US has also not taken a lead role against Libya and has left the Libyan crisis to be handled by NATO. It is a changed scenario. It has been established that it is not going to be a smooth sailing for the US to invade any country. US, instead of being a friendly country is an enemy of Pakistan. It has forced Pakistan Govt. to kill its own people and bombard them. It has also worked against Pakistan in respect of its relations with India.

Pakistan needs to enter into defence treaties and pacts with its friendly neighbouring countries like Iran, China etc and give up its dependence on United States and stand upright and live with honour, self respect and dignity.

Author : Er Maqsood Ahmad Shahdad can be reached at: maqsoodshahdad@hotmail.com

After Bin Laden, will China become US foe?

Srinagar, May 12:  (Writer-South Asia) The demise of Osama bin Laden offers the US an opportunity to declare an end to the War on Terror. In the view of many Americans, a strategic adjustment of US foreign policy appears inevitable. Besides, the US media is riddled with analyses of how to handle a rising China, reports Global times (5 May).

Do the prescriptions and analyses imply that US policy would aim to undo the development China has achieved in recent decades?

For a long time, the Chinese people have been haunted by the anxiety that, one day, the US will confront China. This has turned out to be unfounded – so far. In the perception of experts at home and abroad, the counter-terrorism war, mainly in the Arab world, has served to prevent the US from "disturbing" China during the past decade. As trouble continues to spread in the Middle East, the US may remain pinned down in the region for another 10 years.

These viewpoints, to some extent, are reasonable but exaggerate the situation. For the US, the concerns aroused by those authoritarian states in the Arab world are not comparable to developments rooted in the rise of China. Given that China's GDP may exceed that of the US within 10 years, this may become the primary factor to threaten the latter's global hegemony.

In a US versus China scenario, will confrontation be the only option? More  people in both countries answer in the negative. For the US, it would seem rational to maintain the status quo rather than provoke China, thereby triggering risks that would  hurt the US.

In the near future, the US may pour more money and resources in handling the rise of China. As a counterweight, China has enough power to prevent the revival of the kind of confrontation the US had with the former Soviet Union. China's peaceful rise might be unsettling to the US, but that has not spurred recasting of its foreign policy toward the world's most populous country. Besides, it is not a coincidence that China's pace of development has dwarfed the efforts of the US to contain China.

A down-to-earth approach would be to expand further the vibrant Sino-US economic cooperation, which is a powerful enough process to squeeze out any right-wing paranoia in the US. Periodic skirmishes between the US and China may be unavoidable, but downright deterioration in bilateral relations could be destructive to both.

No external force can stop China's rise. What China needs is confidence in maintaining its rapid development. A confident China can prevent any molehill of a dispute with the US growing into a mountain of conflict.

Doubtless, the US is an omnipresent superpower. The rise of China is certain to cause friction with the US, and this demands the prevalence of a peaceful and calm mindset on both sides. Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once noted that if the US treats China as a foe, China would be a foe. Put differently, from the Chinese perspective: If China treats the US as a foe, the US would be a foe.

Muslim guards Hindus in stereotyped Pakistan

By Amar Guriro in Karachi, Pakistan, for Silent Heroes, Invisible Bridges.

It may not sound unusual that Murad Bukhsh Baloch takes pride in his religion and work, both.

Baloch is a unique Muslim who serves as caretaker of Hindu cremation ground and graveyard, depicting harmonious coexistence in a heavily stereotyped country like Pakistan.

Gujjar Hindu Cremation Ground, around 150-year-old burial-and-cremation facility for Sindhi Hindus located in Pakistan’s southern-most metropolis Karachi, is significant for half-million followers of the religion here.

Just inside huge main entrance gate, Murad has been watching the dead Hindus pouring in to the ground for a quarter of his life.

A mixed gathering of Hindus on the eve of a dear ones demise. Such ceremonies can be held at home as well as at cremation ground and graveyard. – Photo by Amar Guriro

Located in thickly populated Lyari town, the stronghold of late Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, which she had chosen for her wedding party, Baloch is not only looking after this 22-acre graveyard and cremation ground but also arranging woods and other items required for cremation since 1990.

He passionately cleans and maintains statues lying in small temples inside the premises. He also lights up lamps inside the temple, an important religious rites.

“It’s pleasure to serve the alive and the dead,” he says, adding, “Islam teaches me co-existence and peace.”

With 3 million population as per 1998 national census, Hindus are the biggest religious minority of Pakistan.

Majority of Pakistani Hindus are living in Karachi, Mirpurkhas and Sukkur regions of southern Sindh province. Majority of them belong to lower castes, they work as landless peasants, ironsmiths or construction labour.

Besides looking after the arrangements, Baloch guards this prime land in the heart of the city. Like other Asian urban centers, Karachi is a rapidly growing city where land grab for high-rise buildings is the biggest challenge.

‘Targeted killings’ claimed thousands in recent years, some of them fell prey to land grabbers. Sprawling land of Gujjar Hindu Cremation Ground remains seriously vulnerable.

He smilingly remarks, “The Balochs known to be warriors and even before Pakistan’s creation, we have served the Hindus for decades in Karachi.”

Once Karachi was a Hindu dominated city and most businesses belonged to them.

In creation of Pakistan and modern day India in 1947, most of these Hindus migrated to the Hindu majority cities in Maharashtra state across the newly-carved border.

According to official data, today Karachi is home to over half a million Hindus. Except a few, Hindus mostly are poor and belong so-called lower castes. The poor ones bury their dead, while the rich and upper-caste Hindus cremate their deceased dear ones.

Besides performing a role of traditional pundit (religious leader) in the temple, guarding the land and taking care of other religious rites, Baloch also serves warden for ashes, which were kept in this graveyard.

Hindus burn their dead and preserve the ashes in a cremation ground. Each of 130 earthen pots or plastic jars here is tied with red-and-white cloth, wrapped in flower wreaths and tags carry various identification details in Sindhi, Urdu, Hindi or English language.

The facility is not exclusive to the Hindus as Buddhists, Japanese and Chinese communities also preserve ashes of their dead here.

Ironically, when family members of the deceased wanted to take their ashes to immerse them in holy water of Ganges in India, the Pakistani Hindus were denied such religious rites across the border after 1971.

After India actively patronized Pakistan’s Bengali to break from the country, bitterness soared to the highest point. Both India and Pakistan tightened visa procedures for each other.

Only recently, the Pakistani Hindus won this right from India and ashes Baloch had been guarding for the last 21 year were taken there to immerse in the holy Ganges.

While talking to this correspondent, he was continuously directing some men to keep an eye on the workers, as construction was underway in the cremation ground.

When he was a child, his family lived near the historical cremation ground where people used to spend their evening as there were not many public parks around back then.

As a child, Baloch witnessed several bodies being cremated in the ground.

“I used to wonder why Hindus burn their dead,” his elders used to tell him that it is an important rite of Hindu religion.

He still remembers image of Maharaj Durga Bharati, a Hindu pundit and caretaker of the cremation ground, who used to perform religious rituals during the funerals.

“Bharati was a nice man who distributed candies and toffees among the children and greeted everyone, even Muslims in this Hindu graveyard-cum-cremation,” recalls Baloch.

Nostalgic Baloch says those were good times when nobody discriminated on the basis of religion. People were indentified with their respective profession.

He doesn’t have any problem working here, thus he wants his son Ayaz Baloch to succeed him.

Dr Govind Ram Dheerani, secretary general of Pakistan Hindu Foundation, says, “I am happy to find Baloch as caretaker of the graveyard as only a Muslim can work properly here in a country like Pakistan.”

Though religious extremism is on the rise in Pakistan, since the partition in 1947, inter-communal relations in Sindh remained generally peaceful, and the province has never witnessed any major anti-Hindu violence. Knee-jerk reaction to extremist Hindus’ demolition of Babri Masjid in Indian city of Ayodhya in 1992 is the only incident of its kind.

The Hindus and Muslims of Sindh enjoy a shared cultural heritage besides common Sufi influences.

Though in recent years some of Pakistani Hindus migrated to different countries, but rarely Sindhi Hindus have left the country as majority of Sindhi Hindus still enjoy living in Pakistan.