My job requires reading a lot of news daily so it seemed like a good idea to share the interesting stuff with you guys. Inshallah this will be a regular feature of my blog; passing the word along for the good, the bad and the ugly. Up next, the history of US Director of National Intelligence nominee John Negroponte – definitely ugly.
Negroponte: a veteran of subversion and dirty wars
By Bill Van Auken
President bush's nomination of John Negroponte as US director of national intelligence serves as another warning that his second term will be marked by an escalation of military aggression abroad and attacks on democratic rights at home.
The new post is supposed to centralize and coordinate the work of 15 separate civilian and military intelligence agencies in the "war on terrorism". Its creation marks the most sweeping change in the laws governing national intelligence since the onset of the Cold War more than half a century ago.
Negroponte's qualifications for this position include his involvement in the covert operations of the CIA when, as US ambassador to Honduras, he was a central organizer of the "contra" war that claimed tens of thousands of lives in neighboring Nicaragua.
He was implicated as well in the operations of death squads in Honduras itself. More recently, as US ambassador to the United Nations, he pushed for the passage of Security Council resolutions based on false intelligence that paved the way for the US invasion of Iraq.
In June 2004, Negroponte took over the American embassy in Baghdad, as the US wound up its Coalition Provisional Authority and installed a puppet Iraqi regime under an interim prime minister, the long-time CIA asset Iyad Allawi.
While remaining largely behind the scenes, Negroponte played the role of colonial proconsul, overseeing the occupation of Iraq during a period that saw a steady escalation of US violence, including the destruction of Fallujah.
According to the official story in Washington, the creation of the national intelligence director (NID) post is part of a shakeup within US intelligence in a response to the events of September 11, 2001, and is aimed at preventing future terrorist attacks.
Establishing the new post was one of the central recommendations of the bipartisan commission formed by the administration to investigate the September 11 attacks. The commission's findings were based on the premise that 9/11 attacks were the result of a "failure of intelligence," and, in particular, a lack of coordination between the CIA and the FBI.
However, information that emerged in the course of the panel's investigation and subsequently has exposed the falsity of the administration's claims that it had no warning of threatened terrorist attacks within the US and that no one had contemplated the possibility that hijacked planes would be used as missiles.
What the commission failed to probe was why these warnings were ignored and why the country's security forces were effectively demobilized on the day of the attacks.
It never even considered the most salient question arising from September 11: did elements within the administration or the intelligence apparatus allow the attacks to happen in order to create the pretext for already planned wars of conquest in the oil-rich regions of Central Asia and the Persian Gulf?
The supposed remedy to September 11 amounts to giving more power to conspiratorial agencies whose own role in the events of that day is far from clear.
The fundamental change embodied in the unification of intelligence agencies is the abrogation of the legal prohibition against the CIA and military intelligence engaging in domestic spying and covert operations.
This ban was put in place as part of the National Security Act of 1947, amid warnings by both Democrats and Republicans that the newly formed CIA could turn into an "American Gestapo".
Now, under Negroponte, the framework is being erected for precisely such an all-encompassing secret police apparatus, with extraordinary powers and resources to spy on and suppress anyone seen as a threat to the American ruling elite and its government.
Ironically, while Negroponte is ostensibly tasked with unifying the disparate intelligence agencies, he has been accused of launching his own rogue intelligence operation in Iraq.
The US think tank Strat for, which has close links to US military and intelligence circles, reported that Negroponte ran his own "parallel intelligence service" in Iraq, because he did not trust the CIA's Baghdad station chief.
There has been a proliferation of such informal intelligence services, Strat for noted, most famously the Pentagon's "counter-terrorism evaluation group," created to substantiate the bogus claims of ties between the Iraqi regime and Al Qaeda.
The spread of such off-the-books operations, Strat for noted, "sets up the new national intelligence director (NID)- yet to be appointed-for failure As long as government agencies and on-the-side intel projects undermine each other, the NID will not be able to bring all intelligence efforts under one umbrella.
The proliferation of small, separate intelligence groups also hurts collection efforts by impeding the government's ability to paint a clear picture of the realities on the ground-in Iraq and elsewhere."
Negroponte's objective was just that - to counteract the assessment of the CIA, whose station chief filed an end-of-the year report giving a bleak assessment of the US occupation and warning that resistance could spiral out of control.
Negroponte answered the assessment with a lengthy dissenting report of his own, painting a far rosier picture of what is widely seen as a debacle. Negroponte will doubtless continue along these lines, aligned with Peter Gross, the new director of the CIA.
Before Iraq, Negroponte's formative experience in matters of intelligence was his stint as US ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985. He was sent to take over the embassy in Tegucigalpa after his predecessor failed to heed warnings to keep quiet about the growing wave of assassinations, disappearances, jailings and torture carried out by the military-dominated regime.
Negroponte not only halted any reporting of human rights violations, he oversaw their escalation during his four years in the country. He secured a 20-fold increase in US aid to the Honduran military - from $4 million a year to nearly $80 million. He also presided over a vast expansion of CIA activities in the country, with the local station becoming the agency's largest anywhere in the world.
The CIA's operations included the organization, training and equipping of a military unit known as Battalion 3-16, which carried out the abduction, illegal detention, torture and murder of thousands of Hondurans, including journalists, union activists, student leaders and others.
Those who survived reported being brutally beaten, shocked with electrodes, subjected to sexual abuse and kept naked in cells with little or no food or water. Many also testified that they were interrogated by US personnel during their captivity.
Honduras was crucial to US policy in the region, functioning as a military base for Washington's covert war against Nicaragua - a war that would claim some 50,000 lives, mostly as a result of terrorist attacks by the CIA-organized "contra" army.
Negroponte served as a key link between the contras and the illegal network formed by the Reagan administration under Lt-Col Oliver North to provide covert funding after Congress had voted to end US aid to the mercenary force.
What we have here is an unmistakable signal that Washington intends to escalate a criminal policy that has already produced unprovoked wars, assassinations and the widespread use of torture. - Courtesy: World Sociailst Website.
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We're back from the UAE. Subhanallah, it was a wonderful trip, mainly due to the people we met there who shared their friendship and generosity with us. May Allah bless them for their kindness.
I think I had the most fun on the last day. We hadn't been able to do much independent shopping or sightseeing due to our large business itinerary. We were very graciously shown all the famous sights and even got a whirlwind tour of the major cities. Me though, lurker and people-watcher that I am, I wanted to get into the mix of it and see how it was on the ground.
With less than 10 hours till our flight back home and thankfully, a relatively open schedule, I got my chance. Me and the parental units were dropped off by our hostess at the old Abu Dhabi souk, or market with instructions on how to get home and even a house key in case we were locked out.
After seeing miles and miles of polished glass sky-ticklers, palatial estates, civic monuments and corporate castles, it was so refreshing to find myself in the crumbling and crowded bazaar of Abu Dhabi's lower and middle class. Finally, a place with soul.
It's once mod cement architecture, pocketed lanes, shuttered stalls and wares encroaching on any unclaimed space looked a lot like the bazaars of Pakistan. Much of the souk looked as if it was recently ravaged by a fire and the burnt out stalls now used as large garbage dumps had me forgetting more than once were I was. Even the hawkers interspersed their shouts of "arba dirham!" with Urdufied "four rupees!"
The only difference were the people, who came in the most amazing spectrum. I couldn't say there was any group that was the majority. I was happily lost in the jumble of men and women from Sudan, the Philippines, Somalia, Jordan, Poland, Palestine, Nepal, Egypt, Morocco, Iran and every kind of desi. There were Hindi-speaking Keralites, turban-clad Sikhs, sari-wrapt Bengalis, Pathans in their high-water shalwar and many others I could only guess at.
My once-terrible but now forgotten Arabic was never really tested as nearly all my shopkeepers were Urdu/ Hindi or English speaking. The readable confusion on my face after my question of "li kam?" was answered would tip the few Arab vendors off at my foreignness, and they'd hold up their hands to save me the trouble of trying to remember the Arabic word for 20. Many would go one further and quickly switch over to heavily accented Urdu, which was great to hear.
After bargain hunting for two hours with my mom (and my poor unwilling dad) I'd picked up something for everyone on my list and was ready to have lunch. We walked a mile down the Burjer Kinj and had my years of wondering ended with my first Whopper. Big as my head and just as meaty, it tasted like beef on bread. Dunno why I expected different. Two bites in I handed it to my mom. Shoo, with a Baskin Robbins next, door why waste stomach space on unwanted stuff?
We then went on a wild goose chase to find a shop that sold crystal. With no one to guide us except for confused but eager cashiers, we decided to simply walk in the direction 'home' was and keep our eyes peeled for a upscale gift shop along the way. We walked up and down, through and under the entire district, and though we never got the crystal, my dad managed a few blisters and for a while there I had a sporty limp. Eventually we settled on a dried flower arrangement with the idea of bringing crystal for our hosts the next time we visit.
Gifts in hand, we decided to walk home. With fries and a scoop of Raspberry Cheese Louise inside me, it seemed like the wisest choice. My parents, guilty of whopperdom, could only agree. That and I think we were in awe of the endless expanse of level pavement and crosswalks. Who knows when we'll have another chance to walk till we drop? And drop we did. We walked at least 5 miles that day, and when we finally got home to Islamabad later that morning we slept a good 10 hours straight.
I think the most beautiful thing about the lovely outing was the freedom. Everywhere we went were groups of independent women shopping unmolested and without concern. Though many times I got ahead of my parents and was shopping alone, no one ever bothered me. There was none of the whistling, hooting, touching or harassing that one finds in Pakistan. And though I later found out from my mom that I was briefly being followed by a young man, I never even noticed. Here, if you've been targeted by idiots, there's no way can't tell.
It was a great trip and now we have a whole lot to look forward to. Subhanallah.
If you've read Abez's blog you know I'm in the UAE. I woulda told you guys that myself but it didn't seem that important. It's just a short trip to see the cities and hopefully decide which one will be our eventual home. But now that I need to update, all I have is UAE on my mind, so that's what you guys get. It's the only thing on the menu. If you don't want it, then no soup for you!
Leave it to me though to come down with a fever and an ear infection before we even land. This is like grammar school all over again. Instead of getting sick on school days, like all my lucky friends did, I always got sick on the weekend. Once I made it home Friday I'd start turning green and would miraculously become well on Monday. Curses! No extra days off and the two days of respite from The Man ruined. I've always been great with my timing.
So I'm trying not to be sick and crabby but it's hard. I'm not the most cheery person on my best days, and with my ear ringing like a phone that won't shut up and variously being hot and miserably cold, I'm a bit like hell warmed over. Only a bit though. ;)
So here are my thoughts on Abu Dhabi, which is the only city I've managed to visit so far.
* It's full of men in dresses! :D Yeah I know they're called thobes and they're not REALLY dresses, but I thought I'd start off on an exciting note. :D
* The Abu Dhabi Airport is a must-see. I love things that are just hideous to the point of hilarity. It reminds me of the last rounds of the Nintendo game Contra when you're in the belly of a giant alien. It's a domed monstrosity with weird circular tile patterns in blue, green and purple. Very intestinal.
* There be penguins in them dar hills. My brother has a friend who calls me and Abez penguins on account of our wear long dark jalbayas. They're not all that common in Islamabad, but we seem to be the dominant species here. There are birds of other, sparser plumage, but they aint no thang but a chicken wang when compared to my fellow robed sisters.
* If I live in Ayrabia Imna get fat. All the women here are on the sizeable size. After dining at a Lebanese restaurant and seeing my amazing range of international franchise food options, I can see why. It was meat meat meat, salady stuff doused in olive oil, meat, bread, meat and sodium laden pickles. And no this isn't a complaint, it's my wrap sheet. I et em all! And now I feel loggy.
* You can take the villager out of the village but you can't take the village out of the villager. The plane to Abu Dhabi was chock full of Pakistani laborers going off to work. There were all kinds, but mainly villager types. I have no beef with villagers, they're some of the best people I know. My only prob with the ones on the plane can be summed up in four words: foot-printed toilet seat.
* Shakeshakesheikh... The place is run by sheikhs whose giant portraits stare down at you from billboards, public art, store-fronts and pasted to the backs of cars. I've already been told my general dislike of monarchies, governments and authority figures in general won't go down well here. I'm supposed to keep my fist-shaking to myself. Yipes.
* Materialism is the suck. This place is very madrun (modern) despite all the wonderful Hollywood stereotypes about the barbarity of Ayrabia that say otherwise. We just came back after touring a four-story mall. I was done after the first corner of the first floor, but my mom wanted to see it all. I felt like I'd stepped back in time and was being dragged through Old Orchard by my girl-friends. Sigh. I feel like I'm being collared and tagged for the rat-race of consumption again.
* Sand - It's not just a good idea, it's the law.
* I like Pakistan.
I'm overdue for an update but I can't be bothered to care. Neither can ya'll. It's dead up in here. Sigh. As they say in my house - to a jaunty tune nonetheless – it's no body's fault but my own, chachachachacha!
I have been meaning to write something with meaning, but it hasn't happened yet. Blame it on nothing but all engrossing laziness. Writing flippant nonsense with no social value whatsoever takes only half a thought, and for this bird-brained owl, that's usually all I can muster. The heavy stuff is such a commitment and usually comes out weird and open to debate anyways. Again, I be a sloth-monkey in the extreme.
So here's a compromise – poignant shorts. I'm just gonna give you the premise on the stuff I'm too istoopid to properly hammer out and leave it to you to think about them further. If you have any brilliant epiphanies after that, I take credit for them, of course. If you don't, work harder! The lazy lounge aint big enough for the both of us.
******
All over the world Muslims are generally on the receiving end of injustice. They are oppressed, humiliated, killed, beaten, silenced and homeless. We are the world's refugees; believers in the world's most misunderstood religion; the bogeymen for a large majority of our fellow humans. It's a bleak time, possibly the Last Time. But, as bad as things can be, rest assured of one thing – no one can put you in hell. Where you'll spend your eternity is completely up to you. Belief or disbelief is something that is entirely in your own hands, no matter what other physical compulsion you may face. Judgment is for Allah alone and He knows what is in our hearts. Let that always be a light that gives you hope.
*******
I'm a total brat. And you thought this was going to be like Fuzzy Memories by Jack Handy. Not quite. Right now I have to be honest with myself. I'm an ungrateful snot and I need to stop. I love my parents but I have a hard time showing it. It's not that I'm disobedient. No, I do as I'm told for the most part. It's just that I'm not particularly nice. I find myself rolling my eyes at the same unfunny jokes they've been making for the past forever. My teasing has too much bite. I'm impatient with their human failings, expecting them to be, as parents, perfect. Abez is always saying "they're not going to be alive forever," which is her way of telling me to shape up before they're gone and I have no more chances if repaying the kindness they've shown me.
I was reminded of this again when I read Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake. It is only after the main character's father dies that he catches sight of the love and humanity that had eluded him when his father lived. He, like me, spent most of his time dissatisfied and irritated with his parents instead of cherishing them. He saw what they did not do for him instead of the incalculable things that they did. The change of focus he needed came only after one parent went where he could not follow. I couldn't help but feel a terrible sickening guilt as I read that chapter in The Namesake. May Allah help me make that change before it is too late.
******
Wisdom lives in places you don't expect to find it. My little brother is one of those places. Between his really great realizations like – "I weigh 100 pounds more than you," "You know you could make a lot of money as a professional wrestler" (said to my tiny Chai) and "Imagine how bad it would be if your food fought back" (after watching National Geographic) he throws in some curveballs. "I'm really grateful I've learned how to live without. It's a life skill."
This is coming from the boy who's spent weeks in Pakistan's hills with nothing more than some clothes, forgetting food and toiletries. He laughingly tells me how he and his friend shamelessly pilfered, out of hunger and humor, the chips and cookies other boys had brought. He's ridden in cramped wagons, standing up the entire 6 hours, to let other people sit. He's been through hell and has the scars to prove it.
He was telling me he's met a lot of people in Pakistan who do nothing but complain. They say they can't eat the food, it's terrible. He just laughs, pulls their plate over and says he's had worse, and he has. They complain about the noise. Or the flies. Or the heat. Or the boredom. He says those things only bother you if you let them. "Man, everything is a luxury. People need to realize that."
Word.
It is a cool spring night. Outside nothing moves save startled shudders of rain-beaten branches. The dim reflections of yellow streetlights in the gathering puddles make the wet world look unhealthy and virulent. The fortunate many who have homes and loved ones are tucked away indoors. Even the night-stalking dogs and rats are absent, safely hidden in their dank dens. It is just as well.
Through a foggy window a young woman can be seen. She is made small by the masses of paper – loose and bound – that cover the desk she sits at. A square of white light issuing from the gap in the mess tells of the presence of a computer screen. The blank look of concentration on the woman's face reveals her preoccupation. She works away, oblivious of the imminent peril.
Behind her moves a silent being. The creature inches closer and closer, the drop of footsteps lost in the clacketyclackety of rapid-fire typing. By the time the victim realizes something is amiss, it is too late. Like greased lightening, the creature shoots out its hands and puts them on the woman's exposed neck. The typing and singing is suddenly cut short by the sound of the woman's agonized scream-
"ACK! ANIRAZ! KEEP YOUR FREEZING COLD FINGERS OFF ME!"
The Icicle Woman cometh.
I've run out of iron tablets and have sadly discovered that I do actually get colder. Today I'm at a new low - totally frozen despite sweater, hat and thick clothes. I walk into the room and grab my mom's hand, and she pulls it away gasping. Touching Abez with my icy fingers is a crime punishable by defensive whacking. My dad just looks at me in abject sadness as he sees me wandering around the house hugging myself for warmth. My little brother thinks I'm a mutant.
Consequently my family has dubbed me Icicle Woman. This is only one notch up from my Green Grouch alter ego, complete with shiny cape and facemask. Like I've said before, as far as super powers are concerned, I'd have preferred something much cooler *rimshot*. All those pre-teen weekends spent agonizing over my lack of supernatural abilities I don't think I ever wanted the power of cold. It's so 80s. Remember the superhero Iceman? I don't.
Abez, however, has thrown a wrench in the works and insists that she had super villain, not super hero, in mind when she dubbed me Icicle Woman. Harrumph. I know what I am - a bit of both maybe, like Spawn, the Punisher or Wolverine. Which would make me a…. I dunno. This is too far into the realm of severe dweebiness for my comfort. Moving on.
I guess I'll settle on unknown. I'd have to be. With my getup you can't expect me to be able to strike fear or confidence in the heart of the average citizen or criminal. Showing up as my purple lipped, blue nailed self, clad in my trademark Cat-Hat, over-size sweater, woolly scarf and mismatched socks, the only reaction Icicle Woman would be certain of is confusion. That managed, I'd have to wing it from there.
True, my most common exploit is to leech the body heat from my family members, but who ever said that was a bad thing? I do it to Abez to wake her up and keep her on her toes. I press my icy fingers to my momma just to get some motherly attention ("Girl I don't want to see you till you've got a sweater, hat and socks on!") And when I offer my frigid hand to my super-heated abbu, it's to save him from burning up – think living air conditioner. My lil bro I don't bother with. He's got cooties. Or is that me. I forget.
I could be good though. When feeling exceptionally altruistic, I could fly around the tropics and make cold drinks for the miserably hot locals. The UN could deploy me as its Special Envoy To Cool Off Heated Diplomatic Catfights. In times of widespread illness each hand could be used as a cold press for fever-stricken patients (a trick my fellow icicle Crayon has taught me). On slow days I could be dropped into boiling beaches to cool them down for swimmers like a living ice cube.
My other abilities are admittedly bleak. I can be an ice princess. Watch me go from warm to frigid in ten seconds flat when approached by greaseballs or immigration-hungry in-law hopefuls. And when the occasion calls for it, I'm up for chilly put-downs "You're doing a great job of individually killing my goodwill for mankind." "For someone with so little to be proud of, you're remarkably self-confident." "You must be doing your species proud." I can be stone cold.
So hero or villian? I dunno, but if I had my choice, like Strongbad I would prefer to use my powers not for good, but for awesome.