Photo Post

Haven't done this in a while, so it's gonna be a biggie.

Photos from the past week approximately:

Iraq.

Berlusconi, you are a fat pig. Italy deserves nothing better than a fascist billionaire.

Morgan "had to copy-paste his last name" Tsvangirai, I hope you teach Robert Mugabe a big lesson in "What Happens to Corrupt Dictators."

Pakistan.

It's the woman in the middle who makes this pic. Something about airline prices.

Keep smilin' brother.

Phew! Beating the shit out of a car sure does work up an appetite. Good thing E. Honda taught me the hundred-hand slap.

Idols for the idolaters...

That's rice she's picking up. Look at the expression on the Iraqi soldier's face and tell me you don't ever wonder about going over there, if only to punch his face.

Oh you know, Mr. Clean works wonders. (Iraq, where else?)

"No such thing as evolution."

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Loving Democracy

Excerpt from NYtimes.com :

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/world/asia/09pakistan.htm

Behind the scenes, the United States is trying to dampen enthusiasm for Mr. Chaudhry, whom Washington sees as too much of a Musharraf opponent.

The United States ambassador, Anne Patterson, met with Mr. Zardari, and suggested that the Supreme Court judges except Mr. Chaudhry should be reinstated, said Shahbaz Sharif, a senior member of the Pakistan Muslim League-N.

In a meeting with Ms. Patterson this week, Tariq Mahmood, a former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, said he told her that the United States should “appreciate the results of the elections” in which secular political parties received an overwhelming vote.

He said he told the ambassador: “My message was very simple: You love democracy, you live in a democracy, why do you want to deprive us? You are always supporting the dictator.”

Why indeed, Ms. Ambassador.

Photo Art Gallery

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Silence

To *hell* with Musharraf and all his peons, paymasters and allies.

Your days are numbered, President-General.

That's all I have to say about this.

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Pakistan on the Precipice

Pakistan's well-liked, populist leader Benazir Bhutto's return to her native country was the stuff of history. The word "triumphant" is a good start in describing the events of Thursday morning October 18. Greeted by hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of elated supporters, the Muslim world's first female leader stepped off the jet on to her native soil for the first time since being exiled 8 years ago. The streets of Karachi were jam-packed, the entire nation of 160 million (and millions abroad) discussing the event unfolding as if this little figure was about to miraculously solve the nation's myriad problems with a wave of her hand.

The miracle never happened. Instead, there came a disaster.


In the wake of the double car-bombing, while corpses still lay on the street at this hour and the irrelevant death toll statistics climb, emotions flare and the naked truth of the situation this country finds itself in is laid bare for the entire globe to see.

Extremism is not the right word for what happened in Pakistan late this evening. Jihad is not correct either, nor its many variants and derivatives like terrorism or fundamentalism. This was the act of psychotics, of animals and savages, of beings who deserve no mercy and shall receive none from God or us vicegerents of His on Earth.

Those amongst the mujahideen in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Chechnya and elsewhere who claim that civilians are legitimate targets in their war are wrong. They are so wrong in fact, that they believe that God Himself is on their side. They believe somewhere in their minds, honestly believe, that their God wants them to machine-gun mothers, to explode vests amongst crowds of factory workers, to assassinate children and grandmothers for the right to ascend to Paradise.

These are not Muslims, nor Jews, Christians or Hindus. These are not even human beings.

And yet, of all the nations who have a fundamental responsibility to promote and defend a faith from aggressors, and to rescue it from incompetents and mushrikun, the United States of America has taken upon itself to save Islam.

No, I won't blame the U.S. for this decision. There are enough valid things to blame it for. Nay, I condemn the leaders of the Islamic states. I condemn Mubarak, al-Assad, Abdullah and Musharraf. I condemn Abbas and Abdullah II, al-Maliki and Zayed and al-Maktoum, and Aziz. These are the creatures who claim to be men and leaders while they sit in their palaces and estates as rivers of blood flow around them. These will all meet their Creator in the end.

This is it, oh sons and daughters of Jinnah and Iqbal, oh Children of the East. The last line's been crossed. Your fate lies at the end of two polar opposite paths, either salvation and glory or failure and anarchy. How you decide will affect your children and the children of every nation that shares your faith, your opposition to evil and your hopes for something better than the status-quo. Choose wisely.

Good ol' Pic Post

Haven't done this in a while... here be a smattering of images from across the globe taken over the past week:

Mourners hold vigil at Virginia Tech.

The view from an American outpost in Ramadi, Anbar Province, Iraq.

Congolese militia boy.

Canadian soldiers off duty in Kandahar, Afghanistan enjoy some icecaps and coffee.


An orphaned cougar in Vallejo, California.

Pakistani human rights advocate Asma Jehnagir submits a list of missing persons to a court in Islamabad.

Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin lies in state in Moscow.


Gunmen in Somalia prepare for battle.

Democratic candidates for President debate in South Carolina.

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Of Dictators and Dissent

Nobody thinks in terms of human beings. Governments don’t. Why should we?
- Harry Lime, played by Orson Welles in the film “The Third Man” (1949)

Two enfolding foreign events are happening as I type this. They are seemingly unrelated but equally abhorrent to me. Their seeds had been growing for many years, yet both seem to be germinating within days of each other. Unrelated in perhaps quantitative terms, yet they both elicit the same amount of fury and indignation from I. Dictators, despots, tyrants, call them what you will, but they are one and the same: the worst of beings. Those who were blessed with power, influence and indeed intelligence, but who chose to use their gifts for mass suffering and corruption. Though of all their faults, the sin of Vanity is their ultimate demise, as it is with so many people of political power.

Robert Mugabe and Pervez Musharraf, Presidents of Zimbabwe and Pakistan respectively, have probably never met. I’m not sure quite myself. Yet what a grand conversation they would have if one of them decided to give the other a call today.

Mugabe, improbably 83 years old, has been running Zimbabwe for twenty-seven years now. I say improbably because while he has managed to live to an age even most of us healthy Canadians may not get to, his people won’t. According to the World Health Organization they have a life expectancy of 34. That means most college students would be well over the hill if they happened to be born in Zimbabwe. Just ten years ago, it was 63. Inflation in the country is estimated to be somewhere north of 1000%. A loaf of bread costs the average Zimbabwean $80,000 in their currency. Dysentery and cholera are rampant in the capital of Harare, because their tap water is drawn from a source downstream from their sewer outlets. Unemployment hovers around 70%.

Yet Mr. Mugabe hardly thinks his government, nor God forbid himself, ought to take any responsibility. According to him, it’s the foreigners who are responsible. Blame it on the Brits, or the Americans, whichever, he says.

President-General Musharraf, who rose to power in a coup d’etat back in 1999, has ruled Pakistan since. He’s been courted by all the bosses of the world establishment. In a whirlwind tour at one point, the man met with, in succession: Jacques Chirac of France, Gerhard Schroder of Germany, Tony Blair of the United Kingdom and George W. Bush of the United States. Next time you are planning a visit, see if you can make an appointment with any one of these men’s secretaries.

Musharraf’s great contribution to intellectual debate has been his promotion of the doctrine of “enlightened moderation,” Newspeak meaning some sort of balancing of hardline religious extremists and Western secularism. His country has been going nowhere fast pretty much since its independence in 1947. No Pakistani Prime Minister has managed to complete a term in office without being deposed, shot, hanged or experiencing some other gruesome fate. An old joke about Pakistan says that while most countries rule an army, here is one where an army rules a country. For it is the Pakistan Army that truly pulls the strings in that nation. The rest of the pretend government is not much more than an illusion, and a bad one at that.

Recently though, both dictators have managed to get themselves in a bind. Mugabe, in typically thuggish style, had police first arrest, then beat opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. The assault left him with a fractured skull. Mugabe has also made threats against anyone else who objects to his rule. The country has since been plunged into the brink of emergency as opponents have taken the incident as the last straw in the series of Mugabe’s disgraces. Rebellion has begun.

Musharraf, in a drunken state of hubris, decided that he just did not like Chief Justice of Pakistan’s Supreme Court Iftikhar M. Chaudhry and decided to not only oust him from his seat (an unconstitutional act in itself) but also place him and his family under house arrest. His phonelines, both land and mobile, were blocked, as were his television and newspaper services. Reaction was swift from the country’s lawyers, of all people, who united, and despite facing savage opposition from police shock troops, went on strike and took to the streets.

Both countries are now in the midst of upheaval. On its face, revolt and political protest of this nature can be ugly. But underneath the surface, there is something rather beautiful and indeed, sacred. In even the dark corners of the Earth where the dawn of justice and popular will has not broken, there are those who would risk life, limb and property, without guarantee of success, to do what is right. To fight the best fight human beings can fight; that is, against tyranny and oppression.

Islam, to take an example of the major religions, forbids violent action against even an unjust government. Yet when that government begins to oppress, it has a crossed a line that unfortunately only action can restore. These two men have crossed that line.

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