Commentaries are thoughts on current issues  – including "letters to the editor" that instead of being sent are posted here.  They are reflections on topics that are covered in more details in other publications on this site. 

Comments are eventually incorporated in the other publications on this site or its sister sites.  The following are recent comments and the orphans.  They are posted in reverse chronological order – the latest first.

                                                                                   Anoush Khoshkish

Reflections on :  "Bhutto Assassination Sparks Disarray," by Salman Masood and Crlotta Gall, New York Times, December 28, 2007.

Writing the piece below about chances for democracy in Pakistan and the alternative of a benevolent authoritarian regime, I had in mind the emergence, in that country, of a figure like Mustafa Kamal Ata Turk (1880-1938)  in Turkey or Reza Shah Pahlavi (1878-1944)  in Iran.  It is doubtfull that Musharraf can cut the mustard.

We should hope for, and if appearing on the horizon, help energetic young officers not encrusted in the rank and file of army that are in cahoots with the Muslim fundamentalists.  If in Algeria in 1991 the Algerian army had not intervened and stopped the "democratic" process after the first round of elections, we would have ended up with an Algerian Islamic Republic.

Comments on: "Rebuffing U.S., Musharraf Calls Crackdown Crucial to Fair Vote,"
by Carlotta Gall, David Rohde and Jane Perlez, New York Times, November 14, 2007,

George W. Bush's administration confuses "electocracy" with democracy.  That is how it managed to have Hamas gain legitimacy in Palestine.  A nuclear Pakistan dominated by Muslim fundamentalists would be a more ominous nightmare than Iran gaining nuclear know-how.

Rather than insisting on having elections in Pakistan, we should prod its authoritarian regime to create conditions for democracy – by providing massive public education to replace Islamic madresa as the formative institution for the young, by respecting checks and balances already existing in their constitution such as the autonomy of its judiciary and by instituting separation of church (mosque) and state.

 

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Comments on Charlie Rose interview with David Kilcullen, PBS, Oct 5, 2007:

I was dismayed by David Kilcullen's take on the suicide bombers' psyche.  Speaking of the motivation of the recruits and the hierarchy within Al Qaeda, he was using Western values by assuming that the suicide bombers would aspire to leadership rather than being blown up in a few seconds.

  Surely, ambitious people using time-tested methods of control fill Al Qaeda rank and file.  And for that they do not need to use Western competition methods.  Hassan Sabbah organized the Hashishin – the Assassins – back in the eleventh century that spread terror across the Middle East for two centuries.

  The suicide bomber has haste to below himself up with as many infidels as he can in order to go to paradise as a Shahid for the eternal company of the houris and cherubim pouring him delectable wine that "does not give headaches." (Qor’an, Suras 47 and 56.)

  The suicide bomber is not motivated or trained to climb the social ladder.  As long as madresas remain the venue for education in Islamic lands instead of secular public schools, you will have suicide bombers.  And whenever a door is kicked in by a GI bursting into a home, and the young man witnesses, in humiliation, the exposure of his family to the brute infidels, his blood boils – fear, for course; but also the rage to become a Shahid. 

  If our insurgency experts cannot fathom that we are in big trouble.  

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