Whirling Dervish

Blessings to all the humble, you all have a nice weekend and try to meditate and try to whirl a little...

‘Living Under Drones’

LONDON: ‘Living Under Drones’, a new report from Stanford and New York universities, was a difficult piece of fieldwork — I was with the law students in Peshawar as they tried to interview victims of the CIA’s drone war. But it has made an important contribution to the drone debate by identifying the innocent victims of the CIA’s reign of terror: the entire civilian population of Waziristan (roughly 800,000).

Until now, the dispute has revolved around how many drone victims in the Pakistan border region are dangerous extremists, and how many children, women or men with no connection to a terrorist group. Until the area is opened up to media inspection, or the CIA releases the tapes of each Hellfire missile strike, the controversy will rage on.

However, there can be no sensible disagreement over certain salient facts: first, the US now has more than 10,000 weaponised drones in its arsenal; second, as many as six Predator drones circle over one location at any given time, often for 24 hours a day, with high-resolution cameras snooping on the movements of everyone below; third, the Predators emit an eerie sound, earning them the name bangana (buzzing wasp) in Pashtu; fourth, everyone can see them, 5,000ft up, all day — and hear them all night; fifth, nobody knows when the missile will come, and turn each member of the family into what the CIA calls a “bugsplat”.

The Predator operator, thousands of kilometres away in Nevada, often pushes the button over a cup of coffee in the darkest hours of the Waziristan night, between midnight and 5am. So a parent putting children to bed cannot be sure they will wake up safely.

Every Waziri town has been terrorised. We may learn this from the eyewitness accounts in ‘Living Under Drones’, or surmise it from the exponential increase in anti-anxiety and anti-depression medication across the region. Sometimes it is difficult for those in the west to understand. But for me, it brings to mind my mother, Jean Stafford Smith. In 1944 she was 17. She had left the safety of her school in the countryside to do a secretarial course in London. Each evening she took the bus home from Grosvenor Place, behind Buckingham Palace, to her digs off Tottenham Court Road. Back then, darkness would truly descend on the city, as the blackout was near total.

Sixty-eight years on, my mother retains vivid memories of the gathering gloom. When the doodlebugs (as V1s — Hitler’s drones — were called) came over, she knew that she was safe so long as she could hear the engine; only when they fell silent did she have to worry where they might fall.

In 1944, two doodlebugs hit the environs of Buckingham Palace, near where my mother learned shorthand. One blew out the secretarial school’s windows. A second killed more than 100 people who had been singing hymns in the Guards Chapel on Birdcage Walk. It was a weekend, so my mother was back at her digs.

My mother, an eternal optimist, never really thought she was going to die, even when — on June 30 1944 — a drone struck Tottenham Court Road. Perhaps reminiscent of the tragedy of 7/7 (the tube and bus attacks in 2005), a witness described “a bus, still packed with people sitting in all the seats, but all the glass blown out and all the skin blown off their faces”.

Many suffered far more than my mother. Indeed, fear for those you love can be more devastating than facing danger yourself: my grandmother Vera, a formidable woman, lived 60 miles north of London near Ely, and worried constantly about her youngest daughter. The ripples of anxiety spread wide.

So little changes. Current RAF doctrine tells us, euphemistically, how “the psychological impact of air power, from the presence of a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) to the noise generated by an approaching attack helicopter, has often proved to be extremely effective in exerting influence…” Perhaps they mean “terror”, as described by David Rohde, a former New York Times journalist held by the Taliban for months in Waziristan.

Rohde describes the fear the drones inspired in ordinary civilians: “From the ground, it is impossible to determine who or what they are tracking as they circle overhead. The buzz of a distant propeller is a constant reminder of imminent death.”

I hope that this report reminds us all what the US — with British support — is doing to the people of Pakistan. Maybe then there will be less surprise at the hatred the drone war is engendering in the Islamic world — and a chance that we will reconsider what we are doing.

Clive Stafford Smith is director of Reprieve
—By arrangement with The Guardian

Musings for the humbles

Foxy News?

Americans in India

Books you need to read

Really?

if you have any complaints, now you know
where to go

humble follower is grateful to all the sources

Peaceful religion?

Can Mother Teresa go to heaven...

His Holiness The Guru sent me the following to read. Humble follower wants to share it with all. Enjoy my friends, may peace be on you. This is true for people of all religions, we too hear "so and so is going to hell" because Jesus said so. You ask them did you read in the Bible? They say, so and so told me so....

*Can Mother Teresa, a non-Muslim, go to heaven? *

*By Hussain Nadim in The Express Tribune Pakistan*

*"She can't go to heaven? But she saved thousands of lives.*

*The recent killings of Shias and blasphemy charges against a young

Christian girl are not a product of some foreign militant group terrorizing

our peaceful land.*

*The incidents of violence against minorities and sectarian groups are

largely a result of the ideology that exists in all corners of our society.

Whether you are a liberal or conservative, educated or ignorant, we all

share the blame for such incidents.*

*On this very topic, a heated argument in my class erupted when I asked a

simple question to my students:*

*“Is Mother Teresa going to heaven?”*

*To my surprise, more than 80% of this educated elite answered the question with a vehement ‘no’. All of those who answered in the negative explained that while Mother Teresa was a noble woman, she was not a Muslim and, hence, could not enter heaven. This ideology is the first step towards the action of violence and brutality.*

*Below is a dialogue with one of my students who represented this school of thought:*

*“So, Mother Teresa is not going to heaven?”*

*Student: “No, since she was not a Muslim.”*

*“But she saved thousands of lives.”*

*Student: “Well, she was to be rewarded for that in this world, but one

can’t enter heaven until he/she says the Kalima.”*

*“So you’re saying only the Muslims are going to heaven, no matter how evil they are?”*

*Student: “Yes, evil Muslims will be punished for some time, and will be

sent to heaven after the punishment.”*

*“So, when you die, you’re going to go to heaven no matter what you do in this world, just because you we’re born a Muslim?*

*Student: “Yes, precisely!”*

*“Did you decide where you were born?”*

*Student: “No.”*

*“Who decided that?”*

*Student: “God.”*

*“So, God has already decided at your birth that you’re going to heaven;

whereas Mother Teresa, having saved thousands of lives, will be going to

hell?”*

*Student: “Err… I think so. God has said it in numerous places in the Holy Quran. Had the ‘message’ reached her and she converted to Islam, she would have been able to enter paradise.”*

*“Is accepting the message more important, or following the message?”*

*Student: “Following it, of course.”*

*“Do you think you follow the message of Islam?”*

*Student: “Well, I try to, but I don’t think so.”*

*“Do you think Mother Teresa followed the message of Islam?”*

*Student: “Umm, well she didn’t offer namaz or read the Holy Quran, but she did follow the message.”*

*“So, she still can’t go to heaven after having followed the message of

Islam?”*

*Student: “I don’t know. I’ll have to do further research on that.”*

*“Forget that. Have you read the Holy Quran?”*

*Student (enthusiastically) : “Yes!”*

*“With translation or only the Arabic text?”*

*Student: “Arabic only.”*

*“How do you claim that something is written in the Holy Quran when you have not really read it?”*

*Student: “I don’t know. I’ve heard about it.”*

*“So, Mother Teresa is going to hell because you’ve heard from somebody that it is written in the Holy Quran, who probably heard it from somebody else?”*

*Student: “Hmm.”*

*“You’re basically assuming that it is written in the Holy Quran, and

assuming that Mother Teresa is not going to heaven.”*

*Student (frustrated) : “I don’t know.”*

*“Do you accept that without reading or understanding the Holy Quran,

whatever you claim about it is mere assumption?”*

*Student: “Yes.”*

*“Good. So, can Mother Teresa possibly go to heaven now that you’re not God, and do not have the absolute knowledge about the day after?”*

*Student: “I don’t know, may be?”*

*This dialogue depicts one of the root cause of most of the sectarian and

religious problems in Pakistan. Our beliefs and knowledge about the world has been told to us by someone who heard them from somebody else, and so on. In our culture, the idea of self-exploration does not exist and people have taken beliefs and ideas to be for granted.*

*Moreover, we are so bogged down into petty debates that we have lost track of what really is important for our survival. We need to really get over and beyond the petty debate about who is going to hell or heaven. There is a desperate need to change the narrative and debate in our households, classrooms, and most importantly, our media, so we can start thinking about issues that are urgent and real. As long as our debate doesn’t change, we will continue to discriminate against other sects and religions.*

President and women

This was Sunday's message:

credits due to all sources.

Smart people

Act like Americans, stop being afraid

Bull Fighting!

This bull fighting needs to be stopped, this is cruelty..

credits due to all sources

These people?

Go back?

Xenophobia or patriotism?

We are a nation of phobias some very common ones are:     Homophobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia, abortionphobia, terrorphobia, liberalphobia....... and the list goes on. No wonder most of the nation is on medication.


credits due to all sources

Conservatives must support Gays, or...

....their will be no rain on the red states, your pigs and cows will die, your crops will dry out, you will be begging the blue states for juicy steaks, sweet corn and mashed potatoes.

Listen to the monk, you conservatives, here is one more reason for you to start supporting Obama. Read the following and start supporting Obama and Gay marriage, choice is yours. You know your steak is at stake?

Immigrants and GOP

Religious weapon

U.S. ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens and other innocent embassy staff members in Be-Ghazi were killed  in cold blood in the name of religion. This was a protest against a silly movie made by a mean person. 
Angry mobs do not attack with rocket launchers and automatic weapons? Or do they? 
Or is it  the religion itself that is the biggest weapon? A WMD (weapon of mass destruction). Give it in the hands of cunning preachers, evil politicians or in the hands of people of little intelligence and see the destruction. All the efforts in the world to curb WMD (nuclear and chemical), any thoughts on curbing the most dangerous weapon? The religious weapon? Hello GOP? Will you do that? But it seems if you come to power with Romney in the White House, it will be like a theocracy? What do I know, I am just a monk!

I am delicious

credits are due to all the sources

Women's rights

Credits: gary mark stein etc.

Renegade Raging Grannies "Legitimate Rape"