Share this story!            

EDITORIAL: Boykin Vs Bin Ladin

When President George Bush embarked on his ‘war on terrorism’, he employed the same binary logic as Osama bin Laden: those not with Mr Bush were necessarily against him. But in the face of mounting criticism of this simplistic formulation at home and abroad, Mr Bush was forced to nuance his approach. America’s war was not against Islam, he said, or the Muslims, but against extremism. This message was aired even as the US went into Afghanistan; it was communicated in the run-up to, and during, the war on Iraq; and the Bush administration has kept it up even after creating chaos in two Muslim countries and threatening two more. Still, the dark reality of American administration’s evangelical agenda occasionally cuts through the public relations gloss.

The special registration process and racial profiling is just one aspect of this; the other aspect is the continuing campaign against Islam and the Muslims by various leaders of the Christian churches in the United States; the bias of news coverage, that varies from the crudity of Fox News to the more subtle images projected by other channels, is clear to everyone; the US attorney-general John Ashcroft is widely known to be a devout Christian ‘hostile’ to Muslims; the conservative Christian right is a core constituency of Mr Bush and so on. Last November Mr Bush had to rebuke the Evangelists for their anti-Islamic rhetoric after Pat Robertson, a popular conservative commentator who sought the republican Presidential nomination in 1988, likened the Muslims to the Nazis. The administration is worried about the political fallout of such overt anti-Islamic sentiments. But the problem is that it has been placating the rightwing and putting people with proven anti-Islamic credentials in high positions.

It nominated Daniel Pipes to the United States Institute of Peace despite widespread allegations of bias in Mr Pipes’ work on Islam. The appointment was delayed only after the news caused much brouhaha but was then confirmed. Recently, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has promoted William G. “Jerry” Boykin as lieutenant general and appointed him as Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence. In that position, Mr Boykin is “not just another Pentagon apparatchik or bureaucratic warrior. He has been charged with reinvigorating Rumsfeld’s ‘High Value Target Plan’ to track down Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Mullah Omar and other leaders in the terrorism world”. Is he the right man for the job?

We know that this officer from the elite Delta Force was at all the wrong places in the 1980s and 1990s. He was part of the botched hostage rescue operation in Iran as well as of the notorious Black Hawk Down operation in Mogadishu, Somalia, which left 18 US elite troops dead in a fire-fight with Somali fighters. And he has a block on his shoulder. Mr Boykin has been making appearances at various gatherings of the Christian right and in the churches likening the US army to the army of God fighting the forces of Satan. This man is now hunting for the alleged terrorists. He is placed very high in the Pentagon hierarchy and is brimming with anger and religious zeal. By all accounts he is a loose cannon. He has now been compelled to render a feeble apology for his wayward remarks after some commentators have unearthed his background. But that is not enough. Neither is it enough for Mr Bush’s national security advisor Condoleezza Rice to distance the administration from Mr Boykin’s remarks. If the administration’s war is really not against Islam, Boykin should be asked to pack his bags. Mr Bush cannot afford to have people like him playing the final battle between the forces of ‘good and evil’. Isn’t that Bin Laden’s job? *

Hudood: PML-QA should support PPP

The Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians has decided to move a private member’s bill in the national assembly on the status of women. This is the first of a series of bills the party plans to move. A similar resolution has also been tabled in the Sindh assembly. The decision is in keeping with the PPPP’s manifesto and has the party’s full backing. Since women are the prime victims of Hudood laws and other Islamic clauses, the bill threatens those regressive laws. This has got the Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal to sit up and take notice. Its leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman has warned that the MMA would not allow revocation of these so-called Islamic clauses in the constitution. MMA spokespersons have also said the move could force the alliance to part ways with ARD (Alliance for Restoration of Democracy), the opposition conglomerate. What should the PPPP do? Should it continue with its opposition to General Pervez Musharraf and the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid-e-Azam and withdraw the bill to save the opposition alliance? Or should it press ahead with what it stands for and let its dubious liaison with the MMA break up?

We would recommend the latter course. No one can deny the PPPP’s role as a democratic force. But there is also the logic of the present situation. By heeding the call for democracy, and remaining undecided on the more enlightened aspects of General Musharraf’s agenda, the PPPP allowed the MMA to steal its democratic thunder. However, the reality of MMA’s ‘democracy’ has been exposed by the actions of its government in the NWFP. Further, the political situation has become deadlocked. Clearly, the PPPP needed to become pro-active. It has now taken that welcome decision and should be supported by the ruling PML-QA and General Musharraf. Through this move, the party has signalled to the government that while it is ready to accept the Legal Framework Order, it is prepared to participate in the process of governance. This is a mature decision and the government needs to catch the ball in flight and carry it to the goalpost. This is also an acid test for General Musharraf. If he is true to his own vision, he will hold the hand the PPPP has extended him by indicating that the party wants to become a part of the governance process. If he uses this to deepen the rifts between the opposition, he would expose himself to the charge of being a petty tactician. The PPPP has thrown the gauntlet and the other side should pluck up the courage to pick it up. *

Home | Editorial

Share this story!