When politicians wax philosophical. At least this is a step in the right direction. If politicians can shift their rhetoric from political paradigms to philosophical ones, perhaps the day will eventually come when they can take the next step and articulate themselves through a theological paradigm, when they will be able to say "Pakistan faces theological threat from militants." For now, this will have to do:
"Pakistan faces 'existential threat' from militants," by David Morgan for Reuters, September 23:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Islamist safe havens in western Pakistan are threatening the existence of Pakistan's civilian government through increased attacks, including last weekend's Marriott hotel bombing, U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on Tuesday."The nature of the threat that they face, beginning with the assassination of the current president's wife and now most recently the attack on the Marriott hotel, makes very clear to the Pakistani government that they face an existential threat in the western part of their country," Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The remote mountainous region believed to be a safe harbour for al Qaeda and other groups also poses the greatest threat of terrorism against the United States, Gates said in hearing testimony that underscored the dangers posed by the tribal lands along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan...
I say let the land of the pure collapse because it has been nothing but a land of bigotry, hatred, death, Islamic terrorist camps, dictator after dictator, Sharia laws, gross human rights violation, persecution of minorities(non Muslims) and kidnapping of non Muslim women and girls.
One more time, from the learned Indophile David McCutchion (1930-1972) who died far too young, a biting summary of the moral and political condition of Muslim Pakistan, originally found and shared here by Mr Hugh Fitzgerald, and worthy of being learned by heart:
"Pakistan should never have existed – it has cost more lives than the whole of the British Empire in 200 years.
"What should I think of a culture that burns down the British Council library in Lahore because an English publisher printed a picture of Mahomet?
"Fanaticism plus Machiavellianism plus brutality equals Islamic Pakistan.”
'Fanaticism plus Machiavellianism plus brutality equals Islamic Pakistan'.
Words that should be framed, and placed on the desk and screen-saver of every non-Muslim diplomat or head of state who has or will have anything to do with Pakistan, now or in the future; words that should be learned off by heart by all trainee kafir diplomats and aspiring leaders and generals.
I now address anyone here who is new to this comments floor: to understand why McCutchion's words are so ruthlessly apposite, please read, slowly and attentively, the chapters on Pakistan in two books by V S Naipaul - 'Among the Believers: an Islamic Journey'; and 'Beyond Belief: Among the Converted Peoples'. Naipaul's 'India: A Wounded Civilisation' should also be consulted.
'Among the Believers' and 'Beyond Belief' will give you an accessible, easy to read, even enjoyable (because so beautifully written), layman's view of what the Muslims of Pakistan have been doing to themselves over the past 60 years - and also of what has been happening to Iran, Malaysia and Indonesia, as larger and larger numbers of the Muslims in those countries attempt to live by sharia and impose sharia on everyone else, willy nilly.
As a companion volume you might like to read Dante, the 'Inferno' (D L Sayers' Penguin translation has lots of useful notes) which may be profitably approached by non-christians as an allegorical analysis of the process of disintegration and corruption of 1. the individual soul and 2. the City, or human community, if certain types of choices are made, and keep on being obstinately made, down and down and down, spiraling down and around and inward into a state of total intellectual and spiritual and physical collapse, at the bottom of which one finds a pit of ice where the Traitors bite and devour one another.
Dante wrote his book as a fiery condemnation of what he saw as the corruption of his own beloved Florence; nevertheless, it also stands for all time as an anatomy or case study of the process of self-destruction, and it applies eerily well to that process of self-annihilation which one sees in so many Islamic entities throughout history.
Those not familiar with Dante might find it amusing to speculate as to where, in that step by step descent into the abyss, you will encounter Mohammed and his son-in-law Ali the hero of the Shiites.
Non-Muslim Bollywoodites might even consider the possibility of using the Inferno as a way of obliquely representing what Islam is and what it does to the City and to the Soul.
Dumbledores Army
Just googled David McCutchion..guess what..he doesn't exist...any other leads you might offer? Thanks
nodak - try your search again, I found him without any trouble.
Hey, it's THEIR country. They were the ones who decided the Western sections were untouchable.
In the words of a famous philosopher: as you sow, so shall you reap.
Well, it might just be time to make clear to our friendly allies that they face a bigger existential threat from us.
If they don't get out of our way and let us take down Waristan soon, we really should update their understanding of how the Pak military compares to the US military.
Clearly this is a case of nuclear blackmail, as it's called -- support our civilian gov't or else the bad guys get the nukes.
We are perfectly likely to find ourselves in a position where it is cheaper, faster and more effective to take out the Pak nuclear capacity.
In the meantime, there really is nothing in Waristan that any rational person cares about. We really should get in there and flatten the place.
In fact, that might even reduce the "existential threat" to the Pak politicos.
To SecDef (Top Secret)
Re: Use of the phrase "Existential Threat"
Not a "threat" mind you, made by Camus to Sartre in the dark corner of a cafe -- something about grinding deux mégots, the worldly remains of deux cigarettes dans l'ombre -- -- into his, Sartre's, froggish face because of his failure to praise the deep philosophizing in "The Stranger." Not a threat made by Sartre to Simone de Beauvoir because she failed to notice a philosophical nicety in "Being and Nothingness" about which Sartre had been especially proud (and having nothing to do with her making nice, or making too-nice niceties, with Nelson Algren). Not a threat uttered against all of them, Sartre, Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, and whatever contributors to La Nouvelle Revue française happened to be present that night, by an exasperated Boris Vian, having a tough time making even his loud "Fais-moi mal, Johnny " heard over the din of all the back-stabbing and mutual existential threatening going on at various tables and au zinc.
No, that's not what the phrase "existential threat" means. An "existential threat" means, nowadays when everyone and his brother finds it a fine phrase and uses it unthinkingly (always the least stressful way to go about your business) a portentous way of describing a really big threat, a huge threat, a superduper threat, a threat to the continued "existence" of somebody or something, country, a people, a civilization. Iran is said, for example, to represent an "existential threat" to Israel. That's not a good way, that's a confusing way, of attempting to express what is meant, which is that Israel's continued existence as a nation-state, a Jewish state, is threatened by Iran, or more exactly, by the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Everyone's quite stupid enough as it is. Do we have to encourage, by passing over in silence, these efforts to make us even stupider?
The threat ain't existential, it's from their own mindset.
In the Nineties, in small-town Pakistan, away from curious Western eyes, shops used to prominently display a collection-box with the Urdu legend "Support the jihad in Kashmir". Some elaborated further: "Every ten rupees you donate go to buy a bullet to kill an Infidel".
Uplifted by such humanitarian appeals, pious Pakistanis seem to have shelled out generously. By 20th Century-end these boxes had become so common, it seemed every store had one on the counter. Some were crude affairs knocked together from what may have been boards salvaged from old crates. Some were slick affairs with the sign lettered by a professional sign-painter. Of course, with such a plethora of donation boxes, it stands to reason that some may have collected zilch, barring the odd spider or candy wrapper. But they were on the counter all the same. In Islam a show of piety is all-important.
Then one day, in 2001, on Sept. the 11th, something happened and the whole world seemed to be looking hard and intensely at the Afghan-Pak region. And, hey presto! all these boxes disappeared. (These weren't the only things to do a disappearing act. Also vanished were the prominent slogans emblazoned on the Paki army barracks extolling the glories of jihad and martyrdom. Another disappearance was of tons of documents which burnt in a "mysterious" fire which broke out in ISI headquarters. Sweating colonels and majors labored for two days stoking the flames - salvaging important documents they said - before they allowed the fire trucks to douse the flames).
DA,
Mohammed would be the concierge to escort you to the depths of the Inferno to meet Allah.
An existential threat. Cannot call it Jihadist threat, or Islaofascist threat. Existential. The new Washington lexicon. Does this existential threat have anything to do with the existential threat in the Philippines? Or with the existential threat in Darfur? or in Iraq? Or in dozens of other locations globally where existential threats are killing and raping under a single banner.
Forestall and Marshall must be revolving in their graves at this latest Secretary of Defense.
Hmmm....just one or two simple NUKES from Pakistan, I mean ALLAH, should work, right?
The president of Paki, needs to take the situation seriously & join forces with the USA. IT'S PAYBACK TIME!
The reasons why the North west frontier is ground sacred to the cause of jihadism throughout the South East Asian Muslim community (regarded by many as a kind of second Medina) can be found in the article:
The Hidden Roots of Wahhabism in British India by
Charles Allen for the World Policy Journal at:
http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/articles/wpj05-2/allen.html
A more or less sophisticated war on the west has been conducted from the area almost continuously since the 1820's while the existence of an al-Qaeda type ideology in India, has roots reaching back into the 18th century. To a Deobandi or Wahhabi Muslim it would be easy to argue that the tribal districts are a more venerable and admirable embodiment of how an Islamic polity should conduct itself than Pakistan itself could ever be.
In 'Allah und Eva',a wonderfully titled book about the deplorable condition of women in Pakistan, author Betsy quotes the Catholic archbishop of Mutlan:
"Die Menschen hier gehen miteinander um wie die Bestien. Sie stehen nicht einmal am Anfang der Zivilisation"
"People here treat each other like animals. They are not even at the beginning of civilisation."
http://www.welt.de/welt_print/article1061438/Der_triebhafte_Mann_als_Mass_aller_Dinge.html
The above should read 'Betsy Udink'. Book originally written in Dutch and translated into German. Have not come across an English translation.
Lets make sure I have this right.
Pakistan under Musharrif in 2003 becomes our ally and we give them money.
Musharrif in 2007 is on the outs because the US wants him to hold elections that he don't want.
Through some covert actions, all of a sudden, the US is successful in getting elections against Musharrif's wishes and the new candidate gets assassinated.
Musharrif says he is operating in the best interest of his country but the US wants free elections or else.
Pakistan gets free elections and Musharrif is out.
The US has its way.
Taliban moves in on Pakistan and now Gates says
Pakistan has an existential threat.
It sure sounds like some good planning on the part of the USA. Nice job, USA.
It sure sounds like some good planning on the part of the USA. Nice job, USA.
Posted by: Spot on at September 24, 2008 5:54 AM
Like this: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/09/23/bush-pakistan.html?ref=rss
champ writes:
nodak - try your search again, I found him without any trouble.
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I had no trouble either. I wonder if Nodak searched for the wrong name? Or if he/she is encountering a censored search? Some countries will block certain search results. Just curious...
Alert- Bush is operating "true to form". To me, he is predictable. He screws up everything he touches. As I said some time ago, I had "the opportunity" to work with someone in his category a long time ago. The man is a dunce and a fool in addition to not knowing anything about the real world..
We should abandon Muslim countries that want to kill us. Their loss is our gain. Let the Muslims beg us and kiss our feet to convince us to stay or go there.
And who created the huge jihad epicenter in Pakistan/Afghanistan in the first place? None else but Robert Gates himself, first as the Intelligence Directorate chief of the CIA, then as its acting director, then as its actual director. Throughout the '80s and into the '90s, Gates relentlessly aided jihad, first against the Russians in Afghanistan, then, as the Russians pulled out, against the anti-jihad Communist leader Nazibullah. And finally, after the gruesome torture-mutilation-murders of Najibullah and his brother by Gates' jihadists, the grand Jihad Nach Norden against the former Soviet republics Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, with the aim of pushing jihad all the way into Russia. This CIA's grand jihad drive was derailed due to the valiant resistance of Tajikistan's and Uzbekistan's apparatchiks Rakhmonov and Karimov, who truly are heroes of Resistance to the Global Jihad.
There is a saying in Russia: "Don't dig a pit for someone else, lest you end up in it yourself". Now, Gates sits in the Afghanistan pit he himself dug for the Russians.
Ruslan Tokhchukov, EnragedSince1999.