Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Sabri Assassination; India's NSG Bid; Brexit & Trump; Hamza Yousuf vs ISIS

Who killed Pakistan's world famous sufi singer Amjad Sabri Qawwal last week? Why was he targeted close to home in MQM-dominated Liaquatabad neighborhood? Is the Sabri killing a failure of Sindh Rangers' Karachi operation? Who wants to see the Army-led Karachi Operation fail? India? RAW? TTP? PPP? MQM? Why?

Why is India seeking full membership of NSG? Why has its effort failed so far? How did India succeed in getting the NSG waiver to allow nuclear trade in 2008? Did Pakistan's then ambassador Husain Haqqani recommend to then President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari to not ask China to oppose the India NSG waiver? Is the NSG waiver not enough to accomplish India's goal of growing both its civil and military nuclear programs?

Why did the British voters vote 52% to 48% to leave the European Union? Do these British voters supporting Brexit have anything in common with Donald Trump supporters in the United States? Is this vote part of anti-establishment backlash against globalization, immigration and trade sweeping Europe and America? Is this result motivated by racism, Islamophobia, and xenophobia? Or does it reflect a genuine economic anxiety of those who have been left behind?

Source: Harvard Business Review
Why is ISIS naming San Francisco Bay Area based American Muslim scholar Hamza Yousuf as its enemy? What did Yousuf's viral video "Crisis of ISIS" say that so angered ISIS leaders that they named him as an assassination target in their online publication tracked by the US FBI? Is it because Hamza Yousuf has effectively challenged ISIS based on Islamic theology? Or is it because Hamza Yousuf has taken on ISIS on its favorite battleground in social media and cyberspace?

Viewpoint From Overseas host Misbah Azam discusses these questions with panelists Ali Hasan Cemendtaur and Riaz Haq (www.riazhaq.com)


https://youtu.be/LaLi85lRsck





https://vimeo.com/172752421


Sabri Assassination; India's NSG Bid; Brexit & Trump; Hamaz Yousuf vs ISIS from Ikolachi on Vimeo.

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

MQM-RAW Links

Did the West Sow the Seeds of ISIS?

Husain Haqqani's Animosity Toward Pakistan

Sadiq Khan Hails Triumph of Hope Over Fear

Trump Phenomenon in America

Is Trump Getting Foreign Policy Advice From Husain Haqqani?

Trump's Muslim Ban

What Can Pakistani-Americans Do to Stop Trump?

Silicon Valley Opposes Islamophobia

16 comments:

Iqbal said...

Many India raw agents in Pakistan involved in terrorism. See this video https://youtu.be/dX4pOPTWbU8

Riaz Haq said...

Iqbal: "Many India raw agents in Pakistan involved in terrorism. See this video https://youtu.be/dX4pOPTWbU8"

India NSA Ajit Doval's words confirm Indian proxy war in Pakistan.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2cq6ov_how-to-tackle-pakistan-by-ajit-doval-india-national-security-adviser-2014_webcam

Indian ex-spy RK Yadav has documented India's proxy war against Pakistan in his book "Mission R&AW":


http://www.riazhaq.com/2015/05/ex-indian-spy-documents-raws-successes.html



Raj said...

first of all ...even if pak would have requested china in 2008 to reject India's nsg waiver, they couldn't have rejected it bcoz the power disparity between usa and china was way more in favour of bush's america than china back in 2008.

Riaz Haq said...

Raj: "first of all ...even if pak would have requested china in 2008 to reject India's nsg waiver, they couldn't have rejected it bcoz the power disparity between usa and china was way more in favour of bush's america than china back in 2008."

Wrong! Any member of NSG could have vetoed India's NPT waiver granted in 2008. Pakistan didn't ask for the veto, thanks to Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's Benedict Arnold, Mir Jaafar, Mir Sadiq,...

Bhatia said...

Present diplomatic onslaught for full membership of NSG without signing NPT would have only conferred India a status of nuclear weapon state at par with P5 as NPT recognizes only 5 states that can have nuclear weapons & forbids others from acquiring it. India made a good attempt with 47/48 countries supporting it

Riaz Haq said...

Bhatia: "Present diplomatic onslaught for full membership of NSG without signing NPT would have only conferred India a status of nuclear weapon state at par with P5 as NPT recognizes only 5 states that can have nuclear weapons & forbids others from acquiring it. India made a good attempt with 47/48 countries supporting it"

At least 10 countries, including Brazil, China, Ireland, New Zealand, Switzerland and Turkey opposed India's NSG membership.

Chandra said...

India is part of the elite MTCR group. But Beijing's application to join the MTCR is still pending and some analysts believe that India may use this as a bargaining chip in its NSG discussions with China.

Riaz Haq said...

Chandra: "India is part of the elite MTCR group. But Beijing's application to join the MTCR is still pending and some analysts believe that India may use this as a bargaining chip in its NSG discussions with China."

There is no real value for China or Pakistan in joining MTCR. Both are self-sufficient in what they need. So why bother entering into new obligations limiting your choices?

Read more here: Why Pakistan doesn’t want to join MTCR http://www.dawn.com/news/1268091

Amit Raghav said...

Riaz Sahab,
Angoor khatte hai.

Waise India does not get much benefit joining NSG, India alraedy have waivers. and doing business with most of NSG countries

Riaz Haq said...

Diversity in #America: Only 55.8% of Millennials (born 1980-2000) r White http://brook.gs/29a1Bis @BrookingsInst #Trump2016 #HillaryClinton

Racial diversity will be the most defining and impactful characteristic of the millennial generation. Newly released 2015 Census data points to millennials’ role in transitioning America to the “majority minority” nation it is becoming.

Millennials between ages 18 and 34 are now synonymous with America’s young adults, fully occupying labor force and voting ages. They comprise 23 percent of the total population, 30 percent of the voting age population, and 38 percent of the primary working age population. Among racial minorities their numbers are even more imposing. Millennials make up 27 percent of the total minority population, 38 percent of voting age minorities, and a whopping 43 percent of primary working age minorities.

Millennial diversity stands out

More important for the future is the clear disparity between the racial makeup of the millennial generation and of preceding generations. Millennials were born during a period of heightened immigration and more modest white growth

As of 2015, the population 55-years-old and older, which includes most Baby Boomers, is “whiter” than the country as a whole (75 percent vs. 61.6 percent) and, among them, blacks are the largest racial minority. Those in the 35- to 54-year-old age group, including Gen Xers and the tail-end of the Baby Boom generation (at 61.5 percent white, 17.6 percent Hispanic and 12.5 percent black), roughly represent the national racial composition.

Plainly, the millennial generation is ushering in the nation’s broader racial diversity. Overall, millennials are 55.8 percent white and nearly 30 percent “new minorities” (Hispanics, Asians and those identifying as two or more races). Back in 2000, when millennials were just beginning to impact demographics, this young adult age group was 63 percent white, whereas in 1990 it was 73 percent white.

Quite a few states exhibit more diversity in their millennial populations than the national numbers show (see Map 1). In California, less than one third of millennials are white, and more than 60 percent are new minorities (see Table 1).

Minorities comprise more than half of the millennial populations in 10 states, including Texas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and New Jersey. In 10 additional states, including New York, Illinois, Virginia, North and South Carolina, minorities comprise more than 40 percent of millennial residents. Other states have whiter millennial populations, but only nine states are home to largely (over 80 percent) white millennial populations (e.g. Wyoming, Iowa, West Virginia, and Maine).

Riaz Haq said...

AR: "Waise India does not get much benefit joining NSG, India alraedy have waivers. and doing business with most of NSG countries"

Yes, I agree. For all practical purposes India is treated as a member after the NPT waiver. I said this in my analysis on talk4pak.

But, as a full legitimate member of NSG, India will have the power and the satisfaction to keep Pakistan out of NSG. That may be why India wants it and Pakistan and China are opposing it.

Huang Lee, HK said...

"China sees no value in MCTR". This is incorrect. In 2004 China applied to join the MTCR, but members did not offer China membership because of concerns about China's export control standards.

http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2004_11/MTCR

Riaz Haq said...

HL HK: ""China sees no value in MCTR". This is incorrect. In 2004 China applied to join the MTCR, but members did not offer China membership because of concerns about China's export control standards."

I stand by my assessment. The fact that China has made no accommodation nor made any further effort to join indicates it sees little value in it.

Mahesh said...

If you listen some of the Pakistani General's claim of 20000 RAW agents, there are two conclusions that can be drawn.
1. Pakistan is such a weak state that the so claimed "elite" NAP Military can't prevent such a massive infiltration.
2. The likely conclusion is that the claim is completely bogus and there are hardly any takers at the UN, US, the West or even China.

Riaz Haq said...

Mahesh: " If you listen some of the Pakistani General's claim of 20000 RAW agents, there are two conclusions that can be drawn."

I have not heard the figure of 20,000. But there's plenty of evidence, including the recent arrest of Kulbhushan Yadav in Balochistan and British police documents linking Pakistan's MQM party militants to RAW.

Listen to Indian NSA Ajit Doval's words confirming Indian proxy war in Pakistan.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2cq6ov_how-to-tackle-pakistan-by-ajit-doval-india-national-security-adviser-2014_webcam

Read Indian ex-spy RK Yadav who has documented India's proxy war against Pakistan in his book "Mission R&AW":


http://www.riazhaq.com/2015/05/ex-indian-spy-documents-raws-successes.html

Riaz Haq said...

Liberal #Islam is not the answer to #ISIS. #secularism #liberalism http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/philosophy/liberal-islam-is-not-the-answer-to-islamic-state … via @prospect_uk

"Forged in the age of empire in the 19th-century, one of the central paradoxes of liberalism has been its propagation of universal concepts in the service of particular interests. In the 19th-century Muslim world, these interests were defined largely by British imperial concerns. Today, liberal values are defined more broadly as stemming from a shared western heritage reaching back for legitimisation, as the British colonialists often did, to antiquity. Classical economic liberalism has recently even been prescribed as a panacea for both the Muslim world’s civilisational underdevelopment and its problems with extremism by the American scholar and policy adviser Vali Nasr and the Turkish journalist Mustafa Akyol

For Nasr and Akyol, Muslim liberalism is a happy coincidence between the values of Islam and those of the west. But such Muslim liberals grasp for connections between Islam and the west through a modern ideology which by its nature has no provenance in the Muslim world. In this way, liberal Islam’s relationship to the west becomes parasitic rather than based on any elective affinity. This is why the more that Muslim liberals aim for synthesis, the more their faith is seemingly diminished.


Liberal Islam’s third problem is its preoccupation with the idea of defining a “true” Islam that excludes or even labels as heretics or non-Muslims those who don’t adhere to this perceived consensus.

Perhaps the most popular response to Islamist extremism has been to reiterate the idea that the majority of Muslims are moderate. The problem here is not that most Muslims are not moderate (they are) but that projects encouraging Muslim moderation can be used against minorities, including within Islam, because they involve a process of “orientalising” others. This has been evident in the British government’s fostering of “moderate” Islam through its Prevent policy agenda for over a decade and its promotion of Britishness in more recent years—strategies which arguably have both divided Muslims and alienated them from wider society, especially those with conservative beliefs.

This mode of “othering” in the name of moderation also conflates extremism with heresy. So similar arguments about being beyond the pale of “mainstream” Islam can be applied to both terrorists like IS and those on the margins of Islam who may disagree with established forms of religious authority, or simply represent the wrong sect. It also ties together the will to marginalise dissent to the need for more authoritarian forms of leadership: witness the strange sight of western governments bolstering traditional Islamic centres of authority such as Al Azhar in Egypt—an institution whose legitimacy has been sustained by authoritarian governments."