Quote Of The Day
Our beloved President, on BB's assassination:
Guess they don't really teach sensitivity at St. Pat's. I mean, even if what he's saying is technically true, does he really need to be saying it?
For standing up outside the car, I think it was she to blame alone. Nobody else. Responsibility is hers.
Guess they don't really teach sensitivity at St. Pat's. I mean, even if what he's saying is technically true, does he really need to be saying it?
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Pakistan
10 comments:
So if any of us leave our homes, it is our fault if we get mugged or murdered, and NOT the government's for not providing adequate security.
Busharraf sure knows how to swing things his way.........
@Anonymous
Ultimatley the government is responsible for ensuring the security of its citizens. However, its a responsibility to make every reasonable effort, rather than to succeed in all the circumstances.
That is to precisely to say that the Govt is not automatically liable for a mugging or a murder. For example, if I left my valuables unattended out on the street in a rough neighborhood, and the valuables get stolen, my dad would be pissed at ME and not the government! Particularly if the government had warned me advance that despite their efforts, it was a crappy neighborhood.
Bombs go off all over the world and while on some occasions, the governments could have done more, on others they couldnt. Blame is only apportioned to them if they 'could' have done something more which they didnt. So in this case it seems that while the government Could have done more, even if it had protected her in the manner she had requested (jammers etc) it couldn't have prevented a gunman with open line of sight from shooting her. And the reason for that is because she chose to expose herself. They have some responsibility for not mitigating the risks to her, but from what is known to us at this point there is no ommission on their part that resulted in her death.
@Ahsan-
I disagree bro. Many people have said exactly the same thing, including Makhdoom Amin Fahim.
Besides, given that he's been accused of the murder, he shouldn't have to avoid defending against the charge for the sake of politeness.
And personally i think he does need to be saying it.
A) because its a valid question as to why she exposed herself despite the october blast and despite continued warnings,
B) none of the people demanding inquiries seem to be asking it
C) the people demanding inquiries are actually in a position to be answering it.
While the government could have provided more security, Benazir did make her own mistakes too. For one thing, the intelligence had repeatedly warned her that suicide bombers had infiltrated Rawalpindi but she took the warnings as nothing more than an attempt to silence her voice.
Not to mention, the American left has tried repeatedly to have it both ways. They've condemned Bush for supporting a "dictator" in Pakistan, then condemn him for supporting the pro-democracy forces and not minding our own business.
The fact is, what is happening in Pakistan today is everybody's business and we all should be working together to try and stop it.
C.H.
www.unitedworldforpeace.blogspot.com
I agree with both C.H. and nb
What is happening in Pakistan today has become everybody's problem because as much as I hate genralization I am very inclined to say that everyone in Pakistan has reach that level of intolerence that can only but doom a nation. Sindh and Balouchistan can nto tolerate Punjab. Punjab so to say has been thriving on money that is rightly N.W.F.P's or Sindh's or Punjab's. More over we can not even tolerate each other as muslims and as brothers. Everybody's business is everybody elses. Instead of building our nation and encouraging positive attitude towards life we love to debate about issues as harmless as music and art being halal or haram.
Moreover, most fo us do not even know how to react to the decades of bad luck we have had with our leaders. Its really sad to see how there are pockets of people who have picked voilence as the only solution. How does destroying our own infrastructue, our schools, roads, hospitals help in advacing towards a better future in any way?
And no matter what happens in the world Karachi is going to get punished for it.
Sad, sad and plainly sad. Even sadder is the fact that Pakistan has soo much talent. So many of our educated middle class is capable of positivity and change. No matter what is happening I still belive we have the capibility to over come this crisis and turn around from being a failed nation to a progressive one.
I watched the interview on last night's "60 Minutes." There were *two* real howlers:
1. the discussion of Benazir in which he did all but directly say, "The bitch got what she deserved," and
2. the part where he said he's not doing "anything in particular" to look for Bin Laden!
One would expect he has people that prep him for such appearances, and that the first thing they would tell him to be sure to convey when addressing any U.S. audience would be that he's Doing Everything Possible to Catch Bin Laden, and that the first thing they would tell him to be sure to convey when addressing any audience *period* would be his deep sadness at Benazir Bhutto's assassination, regardless of his personal feelings for/against her.
How flip he was about both Bin Laden's continuing at-large-ness and Benazir Bhutto's assassination was pretty incredible.
his "people", negeen, are quite dumb (there's no other word for them, really). they're the ones who told him the emergency was a good idea in the first place. can't expect much from them, not least when it comes to playing the western media game.
Yaar, I am from St. Patrick's and no they don't teach sensitivity there. Its literally the school of hard knocks. If the bullies don't get you the bullies in Uniform (White robes, in this case) will.
afrasiyab:
a friend of mine told me that when his dad went to st.pats back in the day (60s), him and his friends used to carry knives in their socks. apparently everyone did it.
us grammarians, on the other hand, are extreme phattoos.
Not sure about knives in socks but it was a rough school. Bravado, machismo or whatever other translation we may have for it, the environment in the school was full of it. Even the teachers were mostly bullies who had little to offer in ways other than intimidation, to extract the "best" from their students. I attended the school during the Zia-Junejo era. It is possible that the school was even more rough in the 60s. That said, I did learn a lot from there and have met many successful businessmen and professionals from St. Pats here in Silicon Valley who praise the school and the teachers. My late father was a big fan of this guy, Father Todd, and myself and my two brothers ended up going to St. Pats instead of any other school because of that. I hated this Priest's guts. He had such a thing for discipline apparently that there was student who actually shot him once (circa 1975) well before I joined school. He survided though and came back tougher than he was. I am sure there are others you will hear stories from about the school. I don't exactly have too many pleasant memories. There were a handful of teachers I would go back to and offer my salaams to, ofcoarse but they are a minority.
i don't believe that priest got shot at. that's crazy.
i miss many things about my adolescence and late teenage years, but one thing i definitely don't miss is school. i think administrations at all the big name schools in khi (and perhaps pakistan) such as convent, kgs, st.pats etc all have a way of sucking the life (and fun) out of one's youth. almost everything our school did was aimed at making life more dreary, less rewarding and certainly less educational. the only things school was good for was that it (a) gave me a chance to make friends (important, because a few of them remain my closest friends to this day), (b) gave me a chance to phasao girls if they struck my fancy (important, because i'm now engaged to one of the ones that did) and (c) gave me a chance to play organized sports regularly and seriously (important, because it was fun as hell). everything else (classes, teachers, exams) was a complete and utter waste of time.
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