[Peace-discuss] End the war against pakistan

[C. G. Estabrook]

  Pakistan erupts after US jailing of 'daughter of the nation' Aafia Siddiqui
Thousands take to the streets to protest as scientist convicted of attempting to 
kill US soldiers gets 86 years
* Declan Walsh in Karachi
* guardian.co.uk, Friday 24 September 2010 18.48 BST

Pakistan protests Pakistani protesters burning tyres in Lahore. Photograph: Arif 
Ali/AFP/Getty Images

Pakistan's prime minister hailed a scientist convicted of attempting to kill 
American soldiers as the "daughter of the nation" today, and vowed to redouble 
efforts to secure her return to Pakistan.

Thousands of protesters took to the streets after a New York court sentenced 
Aafia Siddiqui, a US-educated neuroscientist and mother of three, to 86 years in 
jail.

Police fired teargas and scuffled with protesters surging towards the heavily 
fortified US consulate in her hometown, Karachi.

In Multan people burned posters of Barack Obama and the former ruler General 
Pervez Musharraf.

At least 5,000 people attended the largest, and most peaceful, rally in 
Peshawar, where a mostly male crowd cried anti-American and jihadi slogans.

The protests were led by activists from the religious party Jamaat e Islami and 
Imran Khan's Justice party – minority political forces that have seized on 
Siddiqui's case as a means of attacking President Asif Ali Zardari's government.

But Siddiqui's case has attracted deep support from across the political spectrum.

Her plight taps into deep anti-American hostility in a country where a recent 
survey found that just 17% of Pakistanis view Washington favourably.

The protesters' shouts have been amplified by private television networks that 
have offered uncritical coverage of a murky case that, even after a lengthy 
trial, is dogged by as many questions as answers.

In an effort to quell criticism of the government's failure to secure Siddiqui's 
repatriation from the US, prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani told parliament 
today he had appealed to the US to release Siddiqui in order to "improve its 
image" in Pakistan.

"We all are united, and we want the daughter of the nation to come back to 
Pakistan," he said. The government spent $2m hiring defence lawyers for 
Siddiqui; today Gilani said he was willing to negotiate an extradition treaty 
with the US to facilitate her early return.

In the trial Siddiqui, a diminutive 38-year-old, was accused of snatching a gun 
from an American soldier in an Afghan jail cell in July 2008 and opening fire.

Although she hit nobody, she herself was shot in the stomach by an American 
officer and, a month later, flown to America to face trial.

Many Pakistanis believed she could not receive a fair hearing – she was tried 
near the site of the World Trade Centre attacks – but she weakened her defence 
with frequent intemperate outbursts against the US government and speeches 
against Jewish conspiracies that caused her to be ejected from court several times.

Her case was also weakened by the Taliban leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, who issued 
a statement of support.

She was found guilty in February. But the trial, which concentrated on the 
events in Afghanistan, did little to illuminate the wider mysteries of 
Siddiqui's story.

In March 2003 she disappeared from Karachi with her three children, one of whom 
was six months old, and only resurfaced in July 2008 when she was arrested in 
Ghazni.

US prosecutors said she was carrying details of prominent American monuments, 
bomb-making notes and a small amount of cyanide.

Siddiqui's supporters insist she spent the missing five years at the US 
detention centre in Bagram, north of Kabul, and her youngest child may have 
died. US officials deny she was in their custody.

In 2003 US officials accused her of belonging to al-Qaida and being married to 
Ammar al Baluchi, a nephew of the 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Muhammad. 
Siddiqui's relatives deny this is true.

Baluchi and Muhammad are currently imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay.

The case is likely to remain on the agenda between Pakistan and the US. Yvonne 
Ridley, a journalist and campaigner for Siddiqui, said supporters would step up 
pressure through a campaign of civil disobedience.

"It will involve blocking Nato supply lines into Afghanistan," she said. "This 
is not going to go away."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/24/pakistan-aafia-siddiqui-jailed-protests

On 9/24/10 1:35 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> A major goal of US policy in the Mideast for years has been the control of 
> Pakistan, where we originally encouraged jihadism and the development of 
> nuclear weapons in violation the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
>
> The administration's question is whether the authorities in Pakistan are 
> "honest politicians" in the sense defined by Lincoln's Secretary of War at the 
> outbreak of the Civil War: "An honest politician is one who, when he is 
> bought, will stay bought."
>
> The Obama administration is enforcing its arrangements in the way it seems to 
> prefer, by killing people:
>
> http://news.antiwar.com/2010/09/23/cia-expanded-us-ground-war-into-pakistan/
>
> (with links).
> _______________________________________________
> Peace-discuss mailing list
> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss