Brace for a Trump Presidency: New Age Islam's Selection, 14 March 2016
New Age Islam Edit Bureau
14 March 2016
• Brace For a Trump Presidency
By Yasser Latif Hamdani
• Power without Principles
By Tariq Khosa
• Let Them Die
By Kamal Siddiqi
• Between Hope and History
By Abdulrahman Al-Rashed
• Will The US Return To Torture?
By Alberto Mora
Compiled By New Age Islam Edit Bureau
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Brace For a Trump Presidency
By Yasser Latif Hamdani
March 14, 2016
Donald Trump’s steady march towards the Republican Party’s nomination for the top job in the US has been viewed by most of us with disbelief. His rise is perplexing. Other than the fact that he is a billionaire business tycoon who converted a relatively small, inherited fortune into a large one, there are very few redeeming qualities, personal or public, that he possesses. He is not very articulate, even when he is not downright boorish. He is, by no means, a charismatic or electrifying presence, and, most importantly, he has no legislative experience. Not that one must be judged by one’s forebears, but one must still mention that his grandfather, a German immigrant to the US, was once a brothel keeper. So here we are, befuddled at the rise of a man, who really should have exited from campaign some time ago.
Some in Pakistan have compared him to Imran Khan with some justification, but the differences between the two men are just as obvious. It is true that both men have mobilised the hitherto apolitical sections of American and Pakistani societies respectively. Yet, while Khan can, at times, be almost as nauseating and foul mouthed as Trump is, Khan is, surely, charismatic because he was the country’s foremost celebrity for decades, and his record in public service, health and even education, is second to none. Perhaps, the biggest difference, however, is that Khan is a long way from getting anywhere close to the Prime Minister House in Islamabad. Trump stands on the verge of not just Republican nomination, but actually holding the most powerful elected office on the planet.
The common refrain is that the collective wisdom of American people will never allow a person like Donald Trump to become the President. His rivals, however, do not inspire confidence. Senator Ted Cruz might be in striking distance of Trump, but the map does not look good for him. In Florida, the contest is actually between Trump and Marco Rubio, with Cruz running third. This means that the 100 delegate gap between Trump and Cruz is likely to increase further. If the Republican leadership was to act and rally around Cruz right now, they could possibly muster up an anti-Trump coalition, within the party. The problem is that the Republican leadership hates him almost as much as they hate Trump. Their preferred candidate has been Senator Rubio, and they are still betting on Rubio pulling a miracle on March 15, when the Republican voters take to the polls in Florida and Ohio. There is another reason why the Republican leadership is wary of coming out full force against Trump. After Dr. Ben Carson’s emphatic endorsement of Trump’s candidacy, they are beginning to realise that only he can actually defeat the Democrats in the November election. This is because of the previously apolitical voters; which Trump has successfully mobilized. To beat Hillary Rodham Clinton would require all of the Republicans to unite and then some. Blocking Trump would not achieve that, as it would probably alienate millions of enthusiastic Trump supporters lining up in the primaries. This is too important an election for the Republicans to win. The Supreme Court seat, lying vacant as a result of the conservative Justice Scalia’s untimely demise, is also at stake. This is why the Republican Party will do all it can to block President Obama’s nomination to that seat this year.
What attracts these voters to Trump? Much of this has to do with the extremely successful propaganda that the right wing in the US has been carrying on, against President Obama, in the last eight years. By portraying him voraciously, as a socialist and a closet Muslim, a hysteria has been created that liberals in America are changing the very nature of American society, and its perceived American values; including the religious demographics of its Christian (and predominantly white) majority. This right wing wants to turn back the clock and take America back to being the place it was, before its first African American President with the middle name Hussain and a last name that rhymes with Osama began “changing” it. This is why, when Trump says “Islam hates us”, he resonates with his voters. A substantially large section of American population believes that a great majority of Muslims around the world hate them, and, the one percent Americans, who happen to follow Islam as a faith, are actually planning on taking over the US, and imposing Sharia on it. Muslim, itself, has become a derogatory term in the US; denoting derision and evoking hate, ironically, very similar to how our own extreme religious right wing in Pakistan uses the word Qadiani or Mirzai for the Ahmadis. The parallels are striking.
Obviously, hatred for Muslims and other migrants alone is not what is fuelling Trump’s rise. The economic recovery in the US has not reached down to everyone, and certainly, not that section of American society, which comprises the blue collar workers of the American “rust belt”, and, people who have not gone to college. They view with trepidation, the rise of economic powerhouses in Asia like China and India, which they see as steadily taking their manufacturing jobs away. Trump’s rivals, both amongst Republicans and Democrats, have little to offer. On the Democrat side, Sanders has captivated the left leaning Americans with socialism. To the average American, socialism remains a dirty byword for big government and economic control. It was this ideology that Carson alluded to, whilst endorsing Trump; stopping short, only, of conflating the entire Democrat Party with the Chinese Communist Party. This places Clinton in a tough spot. On the one hand, she has to veer left to ensure that Sanders’ supporters have finally come around to voting for her. On the other hand, she knows that she cannot go too left because it would alienate many of the independents, at the time of the general election in November.
The upshot is that, in my view, the Republican leadership will ultimately back Trump, no matter how abhorrent they find him. There is a real danger that once it happens, Trump will beat the Democrat nominee with relative ease. There are other reasons, too, to think that the Republicans will win the presidency this year. With the exception of Bush senior’s victory in 1988, neither party has managed to hold the White House for more than eight years since Harry S Truman. Therefore, we must brace ourselves for President Trump taking office early next year. For the first time in a very long time the Republican right-wing will control both the legislature and the executive wing, and the consequences of that will be felt around the world. Let us hope that I am ultimately proven wrong.
Yasser Latif Hamdani is a lawyer based in Lahore and the author of the book Mr Jinnah: Myth and Reality.
Source: dailytimes.com.pk/opinion/14-Mar-2016/brace-for-a-trump-presidency
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Power without Principles
By Tariq Khosa
March 14th, 2016
In a move that is bound to demoralise the highly professional police command, the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has asked the federal interior minister to provide Rangers for Peshawar’s security. This requisition, made without taking the inspector general of police (IGP) on board, amounts to saying that the Peshawar police are unable to cope with law and order challenges.
As a nation, we have developed the habit of looking for short cuts. KP went through the worst of times in terms of terrorism between 2001 and 2013. Yet the police coped with the challenges heroically. Even then, no one called for the Rangers.
The letter written by the chief minister reflects a strange lack of clarity and coordination within the policymaking corridors of power in a province that has so far been projecting the mantra of good governance and effective policing. Credit had generally been given by the media and civil society where it was due, ie to the leadership of the nascent political party in power in that province.
Deploying Rangers in Peshawar would be one more step towards militarising the internal security apparatus.
So, what is happening behind the scenes? Is it a power struggle amongst stakeholders who stand to lose authority? Is the corroded bureaucracy feeling powerless against an increasingly confident police command? Are the forces of status quo trying to reassert their control over the police? Through decades of misrule, politicians and bureaucrats have kept the police under their thumb to wield power without principles.
The call for the deployment of Rangers in Peshawar is yet another step towards the militarisation of the internal security apparatus. Instead of addressing the gaps and investing in improvements in urban policing structures, politicians are seeking short cuts in fixing a problem through a force that is not trained for community policing. To me, it amounts to a creeping coup against the criminal justice system as a whole.
Successive political and military governments are responsible for weakening the police as the frontline instrument of law. The trend started during the Ayub era in 1958, when the functions of border security were withdrawn from the police and handed over to a paramilitary force that was eventually named the Rangers. The then IGP West Pakistan, A.B. Awan, lodged a strong protest and quit his job.
A classic example of neglecting the development of professional urban policing is the case of Karachi. The Rangers were called in for a certain period and with limited objectives in the mid-1990s. Like the proverbial camel let into the tent, they have not left. Now, they even want to establish their own police station, register FIRs, investigate cases, apprehend criminals and submit charge sheets in courts. They were called in aid of the civilian police but have ended up being a parallel police force.
Karachi should have been introduced to a metropolitan policing model by raising the level of police command, enhancing professionalism and introducing specialisation. Instead, citizens have ended up with the perception of a politicised, corrupt and criminalised force, thanks to the highly controversial political set-up that has not allowed the federal government to post a professionally competent provincial police commander. Only yes-men are required by the politicians in general. This also reflects adversely on the prime minister who appoints the provincial chief secretary and IGP.
The interior ministry has let the Rangers take dominant patrolling and security roles in Islamabad, too. Similarly, we have seen the Frontier Corps in Balochistan being diverted from its original mandate of effective border control to a conventional policing role. Police jurisdiction has shrunk from the entire province in 2007 to about 5pc of the territory today. The myopic sardars prefer the Levies, a ragtag militia, over a professional police organisation.
There was some talk recently of the deployment of Rangers in south Punjab for an operation against terrorists and hardened criminals. The iron man heading the province is too experienced not to foresee the implications of such a move. While keeping the police under his thumb, he has provided resources to raise a state-of-the-art counterterrorism force and also aggressively, though selectively, launched the Counterterrorism Department. He has also kept the bureaucracy on a tight leash through effective monitoring.
Instead of building the capacity of the criminal justice system, politicians have repeatedly made the mistake of calling upon the civil armed forces and army. These forces have so far not developed the mindset of being subordinate to civilian authorities.
The chief minister of KP is advised not to induct civil armed forces in the urban policing role. The answer lies in enhancing the professionalism of the police department. They have done an admirable job over more than two years. The real issue is the tussle for power between an elite cadre of administrative services and the provincial police command.
For the sake of the citizens, who are their real masters, may I urge the bureaucracy and the police of KP to hold their horses and mend fences? They have to rise above their turf battles. The chief minister knows that it is the new draft police law that is the bone of contention. While agreeing to stringent accountability before elected forums, the police have sought administrative and operational autonomy that has been agreed to by the cabinet sub-committee and political leadership.
For the police, my advice is to reach out to those opposing their autonomy and work as a team for the larger benefit of the citizens they serve. Only their professionalism, competence, integrity, and dedication will gain them public trust and the political leadership would then not feel the need to induct Rangers for police functions.
To the politicians my request is that police services are already groaning under arbitrary rule. There is hardly any space left for self-respecting, dignified and professional officers. For the sake of peace and good order, please encourage conscientious and competent police officers. The principles of merit, integrity, professionalism and impartiality need to be upheld for democracy to flourish in our land. Kindly use your power with principles.
Tariq Khosa is a retired police officer.
Source: dawn.com/news/1245478/power-without-principles
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Let Them Die
By Kamal Siddiqi
March 14th, 2016.
In February, health officials of the Sindh government confirmed the death of a total of 143 children aged up to five years in Tharparkar district because of malnutrition and other causes since October last year.
This is a tragedy. What is shameful is the fact that Tharparkar is a Hindu dominated area of the country. Possibly that is why it is being neglected. In a report compiled by the Sindh government’s health department, the death toll during January in Thar has been put at 40. The official figures show that 31 children died in October, 28 in November and 44 in December last year.
Now let us compare this to the findings of our civil society. According to them, the death toll since January has risen to over 190 children. This is based on information gathered by journalists from parents, villagers and elected local bodies representatives. By exposing the lie of the Sindh government, now journalists are being taken to task by government officials.
Sindh Health Minister Jam Mehtab Dahar has alleged that the media is misreporting the number of children’s deaths in the drought-hit region.
Dahar claimed that “only” 32 children have died in the past month. He said doctors in Thar have also been complaining about media’s reporting, which presents “misleading” numbers.
Not to be left behind, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah also said that he was “disturbed” not by the deaths but by the manner in which the deaths were being reported.
The media had quoted Dr Mohammad Iqbal Bhurgari, civil surgeon at the Mithi Civil Hospital, as saying that “only” 44 children had died in January and 16 more in February at the hospital.
But when asked about the fate of more than 80 children the hospital referred to other cities, Dr Bhurgari said he had no information whether they survived or perished.
A report by a local NGO said that a total of 2,599 children were admitted to hospitals and dispensaries in the districts over the past four months. Besides this, more than 28,000 children were examined at outpatient facilities. This gives one an idea of the size of the problem.
But our Sindh CM remains unrepentant. He has said that his government is providing one bag of wheat to each family every month for free. He also claimed that his government has been providing wheat to 1.6 million Tharis for the last five years, “but their population has increased now.” This claim itself is dubious.
What Shah sahib did not say was that the wheat being provided was of very poor quality. Most of the wheat bags are infested with insects in some instances the wheat is no longer fit for human consumption and yet it is still being supplied by government officials.
Shah also shared more pearls of wisdom. Countering criticism of his government over the issue of Thar deaths, he pointed fingers at the Punjab where he claimed, 3,000 people died from dengue fever in the past few years. But nobody questioned the Punjab government, he said, adding that the Sindh government was “unnecessarily” being criticised over the Thar issue.
According to Qaim Ali Shah, the best healthcare facilities are provided to the Mithi district headquarters hospital, which has air-conditioned rooms and 24 incubators – facilities that are, he said, not even available in Karachi in such large numbers. This is a blatant lie. No such facilities are being accorded to the people of Thar.
Parents carrying their ailing children to hospitals are complaining of a lack of proper medication, staff, and facilities. Health departments in Thar have been functioning with minimal facilities and deplorable conditions for many years. There are very little funds. Corruption takes care of the rest.
Officials lament the shortage of doctors, paramedics and health professionals. At least 300 more doctors and hundreds more paramedics are required urgently. But the Sindh government itself stopped doctors of a private university that wanted to come and help. They had them turn back on the threat of having them arrested.
Instead of treating it as a human tragedy, the Sindh government has politicized the issue. At the same time, children continue to die in their hundreds. It is time the tragedy is discussed at national level. We cannot let so many children die because of the ego of one man.
Kamal Siddiqi is Editor of The Express Tribune
Source: tribune.com.pk/story/1065064/let-them-die/
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Between Hope and History
By Abdulrahman Al-Rashed
March 14, 2016
In the early 1980s, we traveled as students from Washington to Cairo as part of a political science study tour. During the trip, I do not know why our teacher decided to visit the Diplomats Club, a beautiful old building on Talaat Harb Street.
We met a number of workers in the Egyptian Foreign Ministry there and everything in it suggested nobility and reminded us of the days of the Pashas. Our teacher, Alan Taylor, said that the Egyptian diplomacy survived even after the 1952 revolution.
Most of the elite families, or those who excelled in their studies, held significant political positions abroad. The private club, which was designed by a French architect, used to symbolize high-end diplomacy; it included people from ambassadors to cooks who were assigned to work in Egyptian embassies around the world. Ancient Egyptian diplomacy, similar to the hundred-year-old Diplomats Club, preserved their traditions.
Ahmed Aboul Gheit, the new secretary-general of the Arab League, is a veteran diplomat who has had a remarkable run across Egyptian diplomatic missions from New York to Moscow. As a foreign minister, he has dealt with different regional issues and conflicts with major powers.
Although there are those who complain about Egyptian monopoly over the post of the Arab League secretary-general, no Arab country has been able to provide what the 22 member states used to agree upon, except agreeing on the host country’s suggestions. No candidate or country, other than Egypt, has been accepted by all others.
If events of the past are anything to go by, the real problem is not the position — as several changes have been made to empower the Arab League — but the persistence of Arab conflicts.
The inability of the member states to start a political discourse has thwarted the rest of its activities, paralyzing most of its work. The League’s headquarters and the position of the secretary-general are not the problem. This became evident when, under pressure from Saddam Hussein and Hafez Assad, the League’s headquarters were moved from Egypt to Tunisia and handed over to Chedli Klibi. Nonetheless, this did not prove to be a step forward.
With Aboul Gheit in power, we do not expect miracles, although he is the best person to manage the League, which was founded when Britain announced its support for any Arab Association after World War II. The new secretary-general recognizes the importance of the League and the importance of what it represents. He knows that it could be of great value if the governments of the member states overcome their differences and agreed to cooperate.
The Arab League represents a huge region with resources that can make it a major power. It is the fourth in terms of global population (300 million people) and the second in the world in terms of area surface. The challenge is in achieving a collective Arab agenda; Arab governments have failed to take advantage of the Arab League to benefit their citizens so they have transformed it into a forum for disputes.
I do not think that the new secretary-general can change this reality if its influential member states fail to agree on common projects leading to development and stability. Dr. Nabil El-Araby, the secretary-general whose term ended, held the position during times of chaos and revolutions. More importantly, he was able to save the League from collapse and total chaos.
The new Arab League chief, Aboul Gheit, has assumed charge at a time that is no less dangerous, with the growing threats from Iran and the raging wars in Syria, Libya and Yemen, as well as political differences between member states at its worst.
Abdulrahman al-Rashed is the former General Manager of Al Arabiya News Channel. A veteran and internationally acclaimed journalist, he is a former editor-in-chief of the London-based leading Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat, where he still regularly writes a political column
Source: dailytimes.com.pk/opinion/14-Mar-2016/between-hope-and-history
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Will The US Return To Torture?
By Alberto Mora
March 14, 2016
Donald Trump has declared his intentions: He wants to make America torture again. He’s said that as president he would use waterboarding “and worse” on terrorists and “take out” their families. We might expect such rhetoric from a candidate so politically inexperienced and prone to bullying, but what is more alarming is how little distinguishes his torture enthusiasm from that of the other leading Republican candidates, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
Granted, neither is as blunt as Trump. Rubio refuses to condemn torture and then offers a favorite dog-whistle statement: Captured terrorists “are getting a one-way ticket to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, [where] we are going to find out everything they know.” Cruz relies on his well-honed double-speak; he claims to be against torture — which he then defines as “excruciating pain that is equivalent to losing organs and systems.” That, of course, was the same narrow definition the Bush administration used to justify its torture policies.
I spent five years in the Bush Pentagon as Navy general counsel and confronted such perverse thinking about torture then. I witnessed personally the damage inflicted on our military when it acceded to the demands of George W. Bush, George Tenet and Donald Rumsfeld to use torture. After the debacles of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, I saw how difficult it was to restore discipline, values and honor to the military, and how American lives were lost when terrorists and foreign fighters were given cause to join our enemies.
Gen. Michael Hayden suggested the answer might be yes during an interview last month. “If [Trump] were to order that once in government, the American armed forces would refuse to act... You’re required to not follow an unlawful order,” said the former director of the NSA and CIA on “Real Time with Bill Maher.” He’s right that torture and the targeting of innocents are violations of international (and U.S.) law. He’s right, too, that given the lessons learned after the Abu Ghraib scandal, the U.S. military would not carry out such an order.
But we should take note of Hayden’s silences as well as his words. He was mute, for instance, on what the CIA, the Department of Justice or other federal agencies would do if ordered to torture. Given that the CIA was the ultimate tool of choice to apply torture during the Bush administration, a refusal by the military to torture is no guarantee that other agencies would also refrain.
It’s ironic that Hayden — the most vigorous current defender of CIA practices during the Bush era — is the one now sounding the alarm about Trump’s torture talk. To be sure, Hayden arrived to lead the CIA after the Bush administration largely had suspended its use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” and “extraordinary renditions.” So he doesn’t bear responsibility for creating those policies. But he did help shield the CIA from accountability and reform and, as a result, he helped make torture cost-free to those who devised and inflicted it.
Our failure to hold ourselves accountable drains the crime of torture of its proper gravity, serves to encourage those (like Trump, Rubio and Cruz) who wish to use it again, and helps explain why being pro-torture is no longer stigmatized. A 2015 Pew Research Center survey found that 73% of Republicans and 58% of all Americans think “torture can be justified against people suspected of terrorism.”
As mentioned, although Hayden said the military would not torture, he tellingly did not say the CIA would also refuse to do so.
Current CIA director John Brennan has devoted his skill and energy not to reform, but to blunting Senate oversight of its disastrous Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation program and to ensuring that those responsible for it stay on the promotion ladder.
The story is much the same at the Department of Justice, which gave legal cover to the Bush administration’s torture policies. It failed to censure any of the attorneys involved or to prosecute anyone for inflicting or authorizing torture. Instead the DOJ has, perversely, focused its energies on prosecuting torture whistleblowers; shielding torture documents from discovery in judicial proceedings; supporting a dysfunctional military commission system that can’t resolve how to deal with the torture of its defendants; and asserting state-secret objections in federal courts to block every claim for civil remedies pursued by torture victims.
A President Trump or Atty. Gen. Cruz bent on restoring torture would find much to like at the DOJ and the CIA.
Compared with these largely unreformed agencies, the U.S. military looks positively enlightened. I have discussed the issue with scores of three- and four-star flag rank officers. To a man and woman, every one opposes torture and regards with contempt the Bush administration’s decision to use it. Its illegality, though, is not the only reason. Like Arizona Sen. John McCain, they recognize that the character of an America that tortures is coarser than one that does not. They understand that we must foster a world that is less, not more, cruel and that adherence to the architecture of international law and human rights is in our national interest.
It is, of course, the military that experienced first-hand the strategic damage caused by our use of torture. Torture diminished our ability to sharply distinguish our principles and war aims from those of our Al Qaeda and Islamic State enemies. It hurt international public support for American leadership and tore at the fabric of the alliance we had created.
By using torture we also handed our enemies a gift. We alienated millions of Muslims whose support is critical to success in the war on terror. From Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib to the present, we enabled the Taliban, Al Qaeda and now Islamic State to use the theme of American cruelty against Muslims as a recruiting tool — and that message remains potent because it was true.
The fevered talk of torture in the Republican primary reveals how thoroughly the allure of torture has infected our nation, how shallow our understanding of the cost and consequences of torture remains, how lacking our leadership is on this critical issue, and how close we are again to picking up the weapon whose use would destroy what we seek to protect.
Alberto Mora, a senior fellow at Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, was general counsel of the Navy from 2001 to 2006
Source: dailytimes.com.pk/opinion/14-Mar-2016/will-the-us-return-to-torture
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