Imran Khan on Pakistan
The Times today has a big interview with Imran Khan. This is a typical paragraph.
In Britain there is growing concern about the amount of aid money going to Pakistan. In Mr Khan’s view it is not helping his country. “I think it would be the greatest thing that could happen to Pakistan if we did not get any more aid. We have been living beyond our means. The aid has fostered corruption. If we do not have aid we will be forced to make reforms to taxation and governance and we might actually become a nation that can stand up on its own feet. Pakistan is heading into a storm right now.”
So should we cut all aid to Pakistan?
As it would appear that most seems to end up in places it wasn’t intended to go, I think that now is the time to use the aid in places where it can make a real difference.
What is the Truth about Pakistan’s Links with Bin Laden and the Taliban?
I have said before that Pakistan’s Intelligence Services should have known more, but I have now read this analysis from Andrew North of the BBC. Read it.
It is all very murky and if Pakistan doesn’t sort itself out soon, then I am afraid one of its neighbours may well do the job for it.
Pakistan’s Intelligence
The Pakistan Intelligence Service didn’t seem to know that Osama Bin Laden was living in their midst and they didn’t seem to know or detect the American raid.
But is this anything new?
They didn’t have any inkling of the attacks on Mumbai, that killed so many innocent people either.
And this is just the start.
Pakistan gets masses of aid from countries like the United States, but where does it all go? Certainly not to the Intelligence Service in any meaningful and constructive manner.
It is a very broken country, that really needs to get a grip on itself. Some like Imran Khan have tried but got nowhere. Others like Benazir Bhutto have been assassinated.
America’s Gleeful Vengeance
Osama Bin Laden was a truly evil man to many, or was he just someone who saw an opportunity to make a name for himself and just took it in a very evil way.
In some ways it is a pity he is dead, as he should be in a Court of Law on trial for his crimes. And when after due process, if the verdict was guilty, he should have not been given a death sentence.
We have had enough martyrs that have inspired evil movements in history. They’ve inspired some good ones too, but I can’t see this happening in Bin Laden’s case.
At least though Osama bin Laden is dead and we won’t get the sort of speculation that we did after the Second World War about whether the truly evil Hitler was really dead.
Incidentally, I have read somewhere that Hitler’s biggest fear was that he would be captured and exhibited in somewhere like a zoo. He would have been tried at Nuremburg and if found guilty would have been executed. Judging by the way we have dealt with the various African, Croatian and Serbian war criminals, who have been found guilty at The Hague, we have moved on in the last sixty or so years.
But has America, where the death penalty is still a major part of the punishment system, as it is in Iran, China and North Korea?
I am also rather worried about the almost gleeful celebrations in the United States. This is sending the wrong message around the world and in my view it is rather disrespectful to all of the good people killed in the attack on September 11th, 2001 and all the other attacks inspired by Bin Laden. I know we celebrated in a similar way after the Second World War, but that was only after the war against Germany and Japan had been brought to a conclusion. We have not completely defeated the terrorists.
It will be interesting to see how Muslim groups and people around the world react to Bin Laden’s death.
I will be holding my breath, but hoping that the good Muslims who just want to get on with their lives in a peaceful manner have more effect, than those who want to carry on Bin Laden’s evil ideology.
As Rachel Harvey has just put it on the BBC, “Bin Laden may be dead, but his ideas are not.”
The Problems With Pakistani Men
There has been a lot of problems reported in the papers and the media lately about Pakistani men.
I have never had any problems in my dealings with them in any way, but C and I stopped going to a restaurant because the owner’s son kept bragging to us about the things he got up to, despite having a wife, who couldn’t speak English as she was from Pakistan at home. C told him in no uncertain terms that she should learn English, especially as she was pregnant.
I think what wer’re seeing in the media is the tip of an iceberg caused by their culture and the way they keep their male kids on a very short lead and the girls completely hidden.
As an example, I’ve never been to an Indian restaurant, where the waiters were female except once and that was a superb place in Doncaster.
The ECB is not Commenting
And quite rightly so, given the latest allegations from the head of the Pakistani Cricket Board; Ijaz Butt. This is what MIke Selvey says The Guardian.
Actually, what he is suggesting, in his hamfisted, truculent way, is that if Pakistan players can get accused of malpractice whenever they underperform, then how about a taste of your own medicine when it is England, not Pakistan, who lose five wickets for 17 runs and with it the game. It is a pathetic yah-boo response, of course, and childish when there have been serious issues raised these past few weeks, but that is all it is. However spiteful it might seem, we should really take no notice of Mr Butt.
Nor should we just accept the latest fixing story at face value, for there are chancers out there, and not just those who would try to bend matches and incidents. There might be a fast buck to be made by someone who could pass off a tale: it has been tried before. This particular story, one in which it is said the outcome, or rather elements of the Pakistan innings on Friday, were known in advance, ought to be treated with a little more suspicion than appears to have been the case with those who simply interpret what they read as gospel without thinking it through.
I hope that we don’t invite the Pakistani cricketers again for several years, as they and their officials are really devaluing this so-called series of matches.
I might watch some of the match today and I hope that England win by a country mile.
Don’t They Ever Learn!
It is now being reported that there are more betting allegations in the cricket.
I was going to watch the last two matches next week! Perhaps, I won’t as it would appear the bookmakers have already decided who will win!
The ICC Does the Right Thing
The ICC has done the right thing in suspending the three Pakistani cricketers accused of being involved in a betting scandal.
The cricketers may or may not be involved, but you can imagine the atmosphere in say Cardiff, if they had been allowed to play. Sports fans in that city are noted for their humour.
But for the Pakistani High Commisioner to claim that the important video was made later is a disgrace.
I have a feeling that this incident will run and run. Let’s hope that the ICC and England continue to act in the fair-minded way they have up to now.
The Anonymous Widower 