Afghanistan’s Struggle for Democracy
By Geoffrey Cook, MMNS
Anaheim–June 30th–This article is a third of a trilogy extricated from a larger Forum on The (“Islamicâ€) Future of Democracy in South Asia†held in Milpitas on the 11th of June.
The “headlines†on the BBC June fifteenth blared Afghan President Karzai’s empty threats against Pakistan over the latter’s peace treaties with the volatile tribes on the countries’ mutual border-lands. Kabul’s Armed Services along with his NATO Allies, were prepared to cross the border in hot pursuit – including temporarily occupation of Peshawar’s sovereign territory if need be. (In fact eleven Pakistani border troops had been killed by an American air strike on the night of the tenth of June13th)
This current offensive marked the first major military action that Pakistan’s newly elected Civilian Government has taken against the militants operating in the tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan (the Durand Line). The non-military Administration has stated that it would prefer to defuse tension through negotiations, but with the threats by Islamic militants to the city of Peshawar itself growing in recent weeks, the Martial Services decided to take action, and, by doing so, it has met the Afghan, NATO and especially Washington’s demands. The Pakistan Frontier Corps has pushed the Taliban back from their positions since their first advance of June 28th within the Khyber Agency (that begins at the periphery of Peshawar city itself). In response the Taliban ended their dialog with the Pak jawans, pledging to bring the “War†to Pakistan’s major urban centers. The Regional Taliban leader responded, “Peace cannot be brought with force and aggression. This will be very unfortunate for the Pakistani nation…†The Frontier Constabulary has brought in reinforcements and heavy weapons to protect Peshawar and its more than one million residents from insurgents who might attempt a counterattack. (Even before the disengagement understanding, the Taliban had taken up positions in the suburbs of Peshawar! The Taliban were already squeezing the capital, and its hinterlands!) Further, the spokesman for the Vice and Virtue Movement, an organization allied with the local Taliban, declared, “If the Administration believes there is any issue to address, we are ready!â€
On the Contrary, Mahmood Shah, a former Security Chief in Pakistan’s tribal regions, said the Taliban controls the country’s entire tribal belt and “everyone now is waiting for some action from the Federal Government,†and it seems to have begun! “They are on our doorstep,†Shah said. “The situation is like water flowing onto a field…we are drowning!†The Pakistani offensive comes as the (American) Pentagon reports that Security is “fragile†in many parts of Afghanistan, too.
“The Taliban [has] regrouped after its fall from power, and have coalesced into a resilient insurgency.†Even though Coalition forces have had some success in their counterinsurgency against attacks and bombings are likely to continue and even escalate. (The Taliban Army have launched a series of attacks against district centers and the Afghan and Coalition forces in neighboring Paktika Province over the past week as part of an attempt to destabilize the eastern region, and overrun Afghan government centers.)
The February (Pakistani Parliamentary) elections brought a new Civilian authority to power, eclipsing the former army strongman-general Pervez Musharraf). Although the U.S. Neo-Con American administration has attempted to remake the Islamic World in the United States’ own image, this has created a grave conundrum for our “War on Terror†over South and Central Asia where these new democracies put more weight on their own interests than on those of Washington.
Mohammed Humayon Qayoumi spoke for Afghanistan in the earlier forum in Northern California. What gave Dr. Qayoumi the right to do so was that he served as the Senior Advisor to the Minister of Finance in the Hindu Kush’s Islamic Republic headquartered in Kabul, and sits currently upon several Corporate Boards of Directors including the Central Bank of Afghanistan. Curiously, Dr. Qayuomi’s B.S. is from the American University of Beirut. His M.B.A and Ph.D. are from the U.S. At the moment he is president of California State University, East Bay, a little south of the city of Oakland and across the Bay from the City and County of San Francisco.
Oayoumi brought up a pertinent point to the Pakistani-Afghani as well as the overall situation in South Asia, and that is “Many individual concerns don’t have boundaries!†Further, Democracy has to have [a] basis in the rule of law!†The Pushtun problem that straddles both these countries detract from order as well as the all-pervading anarchistic criminality in the rest of the Afghan land, but democracy cannot exist separate from good governance. This is, also, a problem within this new nation. “Democracy is [an] ongoing†process!†Yet, under the college president opinion, worldwide, about three to four billion citizens live under democratic rule. His estimate shows a political conservatism, and demonstrates that the civil servants who were chosen to work for the Americans in the failed reconstruction of Afghanistan after the 2001 blitzkrieg were endeavoring to build a conformist American style democracy and economy, and the resultant malfunction explains the re-emergence of the Taliban after their seeming defeat by 2002. Although the interim government was legitimate, Washington’s appointment of such lackluster bureaucrats as Professor Mohammed Qayoumi braced the toddler democracy for the resurgent Talibani.
Islamabad’s Government intelligence agencies have allowed the extremist groups to thrive, and even nurtured them for over the twenty years as part of their strategy for southern Afghanistan. Successive governments have argued since 1989 (the fall of the former Soviet Union in Afghanistan) that Pakistan needed its own jihadist movements to hold onto the tribal areas against claims on that territory by Afghanistan.
(Curiously, Kandahar and Karachi have a border dispute between themselves. In the 19th Century the “Great Game†was being played out between the Empires of Russia and Britain over what is now Afghanistan. It was not then a nation-state in the modern sense, but instead a conglomeration of large tribal groups. The British decided to demark their boundaries in the Hindu Kush because of the constant raids into the Northwest Provinces and on top of their fear of a substantial Russian incursion. A Colonel Durand was the commander of the expedition that created the border (the Durand Line.) Unfortunately, to this day the Pakistanis accept this as their border, but the Afghanis do not, and this has created some tensions in recently. Also, some conservative elements within the Pakistani elite saw Islamists as soldiers to fight their battles in Kashmir.
Further, on the Pakistani side there are no new plans to reform the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA.) U.S. President Bush has invited Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani to Washington on July 28th. The Bush administration has been frustrated by the cooperation between the Pakistani Taliban and a reinvigorated Al Qaeda in parts of the tribal areas, it has complained to Pakistan that the Taliban were sending increased numbers of fighters over the border into Afghanistan to confront NATO forces. Further, they have been hijacking trucks with supplies for NATO and American soldiers in Afghanistan that travel from the port of Karachi through the Khyber Agency.
To complicate matters, neighbors–such as India–began to interfere in Kabul’s political life. Development, financed primarily by the G8, proved to be insignificant. Help from their International donors has equaled $750 per capita–an extremely low amount when one considers the possible threat. Administering the funds required 20% of the total subsidy. The rest was consumed largely by the Security Forces, or was siphoned to corruption.
President Bush has invited Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani to Washington on July 28th, because the Bush administration has been frustrated by the cooperation between the Pakistani Taliban and a reinvigorated Al Qaeda in parts of the tribal areas.
President Bush has complained to Pakistan that the Taliban were sending increased numbers of fighters over the border into Afghanistan to confront NATO forces. They have also been hijacking trucks with supplies bound for NATO and American soldiers that travel from the port of Karachi along a road through Khyber Agency with supplies bound for NATO and American soldiers in Afghanistan.
Qayoumi concluded in his (earlier) speech that the U.S. has not done too well in our “War on Terror†although forty to seventy other nations States have. Mohammed Humayon Qayoumi simplistically alleged “Iraq and Pakistan are net importers of terror.†The Doctor of Philosophy failed to mention that most of these fearsome warriors came to the battle via Afghanistan! I think this shows that above all in South Asia (especially in the Islamic Republics of Afghanistan and Pakistan) are region-wide problems, and must be treated with the district in mind.
10-28
Turkey Widens Coup Probe
By Paul de Bendern and Selcuk Gokoluk
ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish authorities detained at least 24 ultra-nationalists, including two prominent retired generals, on Tuesday in a widening police investigation into a suspected coup plot against the government.
Police swooped shortly before the Constitutional Court began hearing a legal case in which the governing AK Party is charged with trying to establish an Islamic state and could be closed, a move that might lead to an early parliamentary election.
Turkish stocks fell six percent and the lira currency almost two percent on concerns of prolonged political uncertainty which political analysts say could damage Ankara’s hopes of joining the European Union.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said the detentions were linked to a long-running investigation into Ergenekon, a shadowy, ultra-nationalist and hardline secularist group suspected of planning bombings and assassinations calculated to trigger an army takeover.
“It is not the AK Party which they cannot tolerate. What they can’t tolerate is democracy, the national will, the people’s feelings and thoughts,†Erdogan said.
State news agency Anatolian said at least 25 people, including two prominent retired generals and the Ankara head of the secularist daily Cumhuriyet, were among those detained. Media said another former general was being sought by police.
“These are prominent people and their common point is their loyalty to secularism. The (government) wants to turn society into an empire of fear,†Mustafa Ozyurek, a senior lawmaker in the main opposition party CHP, told broadcaster NTV.
Anatolian named the retired generals who were detained as Hursit Tolon and Sener Eruygur, the former head of the paramilitary gendarmerie forces and head of a powerful secularist association. Ankara Chamber of Commerce chairman Sinan Aygun was also detained.
Turkey, while predominantly Muslim, has a secular constitution, and the military considers itself the ultimate guardian of the republic founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. It remains at odds with the AK Party over the role of religion in public life.
Turkey has had four military coups in the last 50 years, only two involving armed force. The most recent was a 1997 ‘soft coup’, when the generals edged from power a government it considered Islamist using a combination of public and behind-the-scenes pressure.
Political analysts say Ergenekon is part of the shadowy “deep state,†code for hardline nationalists in Turkey’s security forces and state bureaucracy who are ready to take the law into their own hands for the sake of their own agenda.
More than 40 people, including former army officers, lawyers and journalists have been arrested over the past year for suspected links to Ergenekon. The military, which has repeatedly criticized the government and considers itself the guardian of Turkey’s secular system, has denied any links to the group.
No formal charges have been brought against them but Anatolian news agency reported judicial sources as saying an indictment should be ready by the end of the week.
Half of those detained on Tuesday were members of the powerful Kemalist Thought Association (ADD), a group promoting the principles of modern Turkey’s founder, Hurriyet daily said. ADD helped push millions of Turks onto the streets to protest against the election of former foreign minister Abdullah Gul as president last year, sparking an early parliamentary election.
“We have nothing to do with illegal activities,†ADD deputy chairman Ali Ercan told Reuters.
The secularist establishment, including army generals and judges, suspects the AK Party of harboring a hidden Islamist agenda. The party, which embraces nationalists, market liberals and centre-right politicians as well as religious conservatives, denies the accusations.
Shortly after the detentions, Turkey’s chief prosecutor outlined his case in the Constitutional Court to close the AK Party, which was re-elected only last year.
The prosecutor also wants to ban 71 political figures, including Erdogan, from party politics for five years for seeking to turn officially secular, but predominantly Muslim, Turkey into an Islamic state.
The AK Party denies the charges and says they are politically motivated. A ruling could come as early as August.
Turkish courts have banned more than 20 parties for alleged Islamist or Kurdish separatist activities. A predecessor to the AK Party was banned in 2001.
If the AK Party is closed and Erdogan removed from power, analysts expect an early parliamentary election will follow.
Political analysts say the likelihood of the AK Party being closed down has increased since the Constitutional Court last month overturned a government-led move to allow students to wear the Islamic headscarf at university.
“Is this a coincidence that the (police) operation on our offices comes at the same time as the oral statement by the chief prosecutor?†asked Cumhuriyet columnist Cuneyt Arcayurek.
The court case reflects a power struggle between two rival elites as much as a decades-old differences in opinion over whether restrictions on practicing Islam should be eased.
10-28
Geometry
Geometry is a part of mathematics about size, shape, and relative position of figures and with properties of space.
Geometry is one of the oldest sciences. Initially a body of practical knowledge concerning lengths, areas, and volumes, in the third century B.C., geometry was put into an axiomatic form by Euclid, whose treatment – Euclidean geometry – set a standard for many centuries to follow. The field of astronomy, especially mapping the positions of the stars and planets on the celestial sphere, served as an important source of geometric problems during the next 1500 years.
The introduction of coordinates by René Descartes and the concurrent development of algebra marked a new stage for geometry, since geometric figures, such as plane curves, could now be represented analytically, i.e., with functions and equations. This played a key role in the emergence of calculus in the seventeenth century. Furthermore, the theory of perspective showed that there is more to geometry than just the metric properties of figures. The subject of geometry was further enriched by the study of intrinsic structure of geometric objects that originated with Euler and Gauss and led to the creation of topology and differential geometry.
Since the discovery in the 1800’s of non-Euclidean geometry, the concept of space has undergone a radical transformation.
The visual nature of geometry makes it initially more accessible than other parts of mathematics, such as algebra or number theory. However, the geometric language is also used in contexts that are far removed from its traditional, Euclidean provenance, for example, in fractal geometry, and especially in algebraic geometry.
The earliest recorded beginnings of geometry can be traced to ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Indus Valley from around 3000 BC. Early geometry was a collection of empirically discovered principles concerning lengths, angles, areas, and volumes, which were developed to meet some practical need in surveying, construction, astronomy, and various crafts. The earliest known texts on geometry are the Egyptian Rhind Papyrus and Moscow Papyrus, the Babylonian clay tablets, and the Indian Shulba Sutras, while the Chinese had the work of Mozi, Zhang Heng, and the Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art, edited by Liu Hui.
In the Middle Ages, Muslim mathematicians contributed to the development of geometry, especially algebraic geometry and geometric algebra. Al-Mahani (b. 853) conceived the idea of reducing geometrical problems such as duplicating the cube to problems in algebra. Tha-bit ibn Qurra (known as Thebit in Latin) (836-901) dealt with arithmetical operations applied to ratios of geometrical quantities, and contributed to the development of analytic geometry. Omar Khayyám (1048-1131) found geometric solutions to cubic equations, and his extensive studies of the parallel postulate contributed to the development of Non-Euclidian geometry.
10-28