Pakistan: New Government Fails to Support Minorities

by Kaswar Klasra • September 11, 2018 at 5:00 am

In a move that raised eyebrows both in Pakistan and abroad, the government succumbed to the pressure of Islamists by asking renowned economist Atif Mian to step down from membership of the prime minister's Economic Advisory Council, solely because he is a member of the persecuted minority Ahmadi community.
Mohammad Abdus Salam was the first Pakistani to receive a Nobel Prize in science, and the second person from an Islamic country, after Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, ever to have been awarded a Nobel Prize in any field.
Mohammad Safdar, a prominent legislator, launched a verbal attack on Ahmadis, calling them a "threat to this country, its Constitution and ideology... Because their's is a false religion, in which there is no concept of jihad for Allah."
Let us hope that the Pakistani leadership's abandonment of Mian is the last such incident.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan. (Image source: US State Department)

Radical Islamists took to the streets of Pakistan on September 1, to protest Prime Minister Imran Khan's appointment of former Princeton University scholar Atif Mian, a minority Muslim of the Ahmadiyya faith, to the Economic Advisory Council (EAC). Demanding that Mian be removed from the EAC, a key forum that advises the prime minister on economic issues, demonstrators threatened to lock down Pakistan's major cities, including Islamabad, its capital.

Mian's appointment was opposed by Pakistan's right wing political parties including "Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP)", which strongly objected to his Ahmadi faith.

In addition, a well-orchestrated social-media smear campaign is being waged against Mian -- the only Pakistani on the International Monetary Fund's 2014 list of the world's "25 brightest young economists" -- for the sole reason that he adheres to the Ahmadiyya faith.

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Are We Remembering 9/11 or Forgetting It?

by David C. Stolinsky • September 11, 2018 at 4:00 am

Instead of being angry at the perpetrators of 9/11, some people are angry at those who waterboarded three (only three) terrorists, including one of the chief planners of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. As a result of information he revealed, a plot to crash a plane into the Los Angeles Library Tower was broken up, saving thousands of lives.
The attack of 9/11 was not only an act of war. It was also a horribly costly lesson. Let's not waste it....This does not mean that we should involve ourselves in every conflict in the Middle East. But if it is, we should use not a "light footprint" but a size-14 boot stomp. Our object should be to encourage our friends and frighten our enemies, not the opposite....
Some argue that the terrorists are trying to goad us into getting involved more deeply, so we should do nothing. These people forget the long series of terrorist attacks that led up to 9/11....In fact, by doing nothing, we are goading the terrorists into escalating.
The purpose of remembering 9/11 is not merely a history lesson. Like remembering the Holocaust, the purpose is never again.

Freedom cannot be taken for granted. The Statue of Liberty on 9/11. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Does this photo mean anything to you?

Rick Rescorla, chief of security for Morgan Stanley, safely evacuated all 2,700 employees on 9/11, except for six. Four of the six were himself and his three deputies (two pictured above): Wesley Mercer, Jorge Velasquez, and Godwin Forde. That's true multiculturalism.

Rick was last seen going back into Tower 2 shortly before its collapse. When he was told he should get out, he replied, "As soon as I make sure everyone else is out." His body was never recovered, but U.S. troops at Fallujah remembered him well.

Then there is Mike Kehoe, the firefighter who was photographed going up the stairs when most people were going down. From the expression on his face, I would guess that he had doubts about his survival. But he did survive. He got out about 30 seconds before the tower collapsed. But 343 of his fellow firefighters were not so lucky.

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