It has always puzzled a large number of people as to why the Taliban seem to be generating a lot of support in the Pakistani countryside. After all, a group that believes in a harsh interpretation of Islamic jurisprudence and acts to implement their beliefs should not be succeeding at this rate. Even in a society where women are not supposed to have equal rights, are not supposed to show their faces (or their bodies) to strangers, or come out in the open, the customs imposed by the Taliban are draconian. Women cannot come out of their homes unless escorted by a male relative (even if it is an emergency), cannot study in schools, and numerous other such practices are enforced by the Taliban in the area that they control. However, even men are not left untouched – music is deemed un-Islamic unless it is music in praise of Allah, men are forbidden to shave and should have turbans, no watching movies, be sure to follow the calls to prayer during the day, and so on. Recently, they killed both the man and woman who had eloped and whose families had reported them.
So, a bit of research, and one started reading a lot more about the society where the Taliban thrive. The rural areas of Pakistan are societies that are extremely backward; there is little economic development, feudalism and the power of the moneyed and the landlords is immense, the instruments of the state (bureaucracy, police, judicial, etc) are not of much help to the common man and corruption is immense. In such areas, the promise of bringing in Islamic law (sharia) that does not distinguish between the rich and the poor can attract a huge number of people, can make them converts. As a bonus, the people who make up the Taliban are people who resemble the poor rural folks a lot; they are less educated, poor; the difference is, they are part of a movement that can look the moneylender / police man / feudal lord in the eye and not have to back down. Here is an article that explains the Robin Hood type of image (link to article):

continue reading "Why the Taliban seems to be rolling through the countryside"

For a long time, Libya has remained on the edge of the global community because of its open support for terrorism. Libya was an open and acknowledged supporter of international terrorist groups (and earned a direct attack from the United States way back in 1986 for a bombing carried out by Libyan supported groups in a Berlin disco frequented by American servicemen). This was also followed by the explosion in a Pan Am fight over Lockerbie that killed all 270 on board and for which Libyan agents were blamed (and Libyan men were prosecuted and sentenced for the same crime. The consequence was a series of sanctions.
And then suddenly, a few years back, in 2003, Libya apparently and suddenly turned over a new leaf (suspicion was that it was done after the attack on Iraq under Saddam Hussein which showed the Libyan leader, Gaddafi, that his rule was under threat and could be attacked very easily; however, there were no apparent plans as such for any attack on Libya at that time). As a part of this, Libya stopped all efforts on developing nuclear weapons, and turned over all the plans and parts of its effort over to the US. And in a final effort, Libya agreed to pay compensation to the families of those who were killed in various terrorist activities such as flight bombings and the blast in the Berlin disco:

continue reading "Libya pays final compensation for terror"

In a scathing criticism of the Army Corps of Engineers, and generically of the way that the various Government institutions such as Congress and Senators representing the state of Louisiana operate, TIME has published an article talking about investigating why the flooding of New Orleans happened after hurricane Katrina, and the prime reason seems to be because of defective policy by the Army Corps of Engineers, as well as a great deal of bad allocation of funds by Congress to meet electoral (political) and other needs rather than a good deployment of these funds over a period of time. This is a good article, a must-read:

continue reading "Katrina, New Orleans and the Army Corps of Engineers"

In October 2001, when the US, a potent military force routed the Taleban in a straight military battle along with the Northern Alliance, and the heat was turned on Pakistan to withdraw support to the Taliban, the whole world could not have been wrong in predicting the end of the Taliban and maybe some peace to the impoverished country. However, the US made a number of strategic mistakes, such as letting the top leadership of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban go in the battle of Tora Bora, focusing on Iraq to the detriment of reconstruction of Afghanistan, and then the criminal mistake in not pressurizing Pakistan on the accord signed with the Taleban in Waziristan that allowed the Taleban to regroup, build a base again and keep on fighting in Afghanistan. Now the situation is that the Taliban is resurgent in large sections of Afghanistan, fighting regular battled with the NATO forces, and pressurizing the reconstruction projects by kidnappings, killings, etc. In such a situation, NATO is happy with occasional successes:

continue reading "NATO struggling against resurgent Taliban"