Normally, I would post something like this as part of my series on "Let's Play, "What the Hell Happened Today in Pakistan?" (or Afghanistan or Iraq) However, this is too horrific for any degree of humor. The latest outrage from Pakistan: Five women buried alive for the crime of wanting to find their own marriage partner. In effect, a group honor killing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gVrIel539jQ#!
Thanks, Gary
ReplyDeleteUp until now I thought the War on Women was those dastardly Republicans who were hesitant to pay for women's contraception bills. I guess Obama put that all straight.
Wonder which "assault on women" the editorial board of Cosmopolitan or the NY Times thinks is worst. How about all the other women's groups around the world? They don't know about this?
We know which assault the administration feels is most pressing.
This all began when the Reagan administration gave their support to the regime of Zia ul-Haq, who lacked much support for his coup d'etat, and sought the support of Islamists by Islamizing what had been a thoroughly secular state made up of those ethnicities who were Muslim rather than Hindu. (This also shows the idiocy of responding to riots with ethnic and religious partition, but that was a long time ago, right Gary?)
ReplyDeletePakistanis who have the sense to recall a better day, refer to the current generation of zealots as "the Zia generation," those raised on this tripe.
But Zia was happy to take American money, and to denounce our enemies, the socialists in India, so may have been a SOB, but he was OUR SOB, as was Osama bin Laden back in those days. Its a case of the chickens coming home to roost, as Rev. Jeremiah Wright might say.
Siarlys,
ReplyDeleteWow. This is one of your best ever. Are you suggesting that honor killings in that region now known as Pakistan only began when we supported Zia? Of course, it is all OUR fault.
Hey Siarlys,
ReplyDeleteI just figured it out. The reason the Cubs haven't been in the World Series since 1945 is because the US dropped bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I told you Gary, the curse on the Cubs ends when a black man is twice elected president of the United States. Watch for a World Series victory in the next four seasons. (Yes, I'm hedging my bets about whether it will be THIS YEAR. I don't really have much confidence in superstition, but it can be fun, sort of like playing the lottery once in a blue moon.)
ReplyDeleteNow, as to Zia, Both Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan retained long standing traditions common to the region which we find grisly (and rightly so). Burning the daughter in law to death in a "kitchen accident" when all her family can muster has been wrung out of them in dowry payments, wives dying on their husband's funeral pyre, honor killings, hanging a young couple who fell in love across caste lines...
But, I don't see you devoting a lot of attention to this in India, you are focused on atrocities in Muslim areas. Most of this stuff is cultural, and regional, not mandated by Islam.
I haven't done a thorough statistical study, but from general reading I would be surprised if honor killings in Pakistan were so blatant, widespread, or frequent during the first 35 years of the country's history. Islam was not a quasi-state religion at the time.
It became more politically significant under Zia. And the U.S. unhesitatingly supported Zia. So its not ALL our fault, but that it became so pervasive and intractable that Fousesquawk takes notice from half way around the world -- U.S. foreign policy did make a significant contribution.
As I never tire of pointing out, under Reagan and Bush I (aka George II -- which makes his son George III), the U.S. bet on supporting Islamists to undermine the rhetorically socialist tendencies that dominated the Palestinian movement, as well as Arab National Socialist regimes in Iraq and Egypt. Ditto for Pakistan.
It was a very bad call.