Andrew Brietbart has a fascinating OpEd about a film opening the precise moment India’s 9/11 was being unleashed –
On the evening of Nov. 26, the biggest names in Bollywood walked the red carpet at the Bombay premiere of “The President Is Coming,” a comedy about six 20-somethings vying to win the right to shake hands with President Bush.
Among those in attendance at the star-studded premiere Wednesday evening was Bollywood’s “new heartthrob” Imran Khan, who proudly posed for paparazzi donning a T-shirt with Mr. Bush’s face sandwiched between the words “International Terrorist.”
…At the precise moment Mr. Khan and hundreds of others making their fortunes in the multibillion-dollar Indian movie business were watching “The President Is Coming,” only a few blocks away, 10 20-something Muslim extremists began a horrific three-day terror spree.
In the ironic, postmodern world, you earn accolades by tarring a disagreeable politician with the epithet “terrorist.” By contrast, had Mr. Khan worn a t-shirt critical of Bin Laden & his supporters, and stepped out of his comfy limo at the wrong time just a few blocks away, the word “terrorist” would have taken on a considerably more literal meaning.
Given the account, below, of Iman the terrorist, it should appear there are thousands of potential suicide terrorists. Unless the sponsors of this violent cult (LeT in this case) are eliminated/neutered, things will only get much worse before they get worse.
MUMBAI: It is improbable that Mohammad Ajmal Amir Iman’s family has seen the photograph that has made his face known across the world. Hours before he began firing at commuters waiting at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) last week, Iman, one of ten Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists, was caught on closed-circuit camera.
After he and his partner, Mohammad Ismail, had killed 55 commuters at CST and three senior police officers, including Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Chief Hemant Karkare, Iman was injured and captured — and the story he has since been telling Mumbai police investigators casts new light on how the feared terror group preys on the most vulnerable in Pakistani society to further its agenda of hate.
The man in the photo was born on July 13, 1987 at Faridkot village in Dipalpur tehsil of Okara district in Pakistan’s Punjab province. His family belongs to the underprivileged Qasai caste. His father, Mohammad Amir Iman, runs a dahi-puri snack cart. His mother, Noori Tai, is a homemaker.
Iman is the third of the family’s five children. His 25-year-old brother, Afzal, lives near the Yadgar Minar in Lahore. His sister, Rukaiyya Husain, 22, is married locally. Iman’s younger siblings, 14-year-old Suraiyya and 11-year-old Munir, live at home.
Iman’s desperately poor family could not afford to keep their second son, an indifferent student, at the Government Primary School in Faridkot past the fourth grade. He was pulled out of school in 2000, at the age of 13, and went to live with his older brother in Lahore. Afzal, who lives in a tenement near the Yadgar Minar in Lahore, eked out a living on a labourer’s wages, and could barely afford to look after his brother. For the next several years, Iman shuttled between the homes of his brother and parents. Adrift
After a row with his parents in 2005, Iman left home, determined never to return. No longer welcome in Afzal’s home, he stayed at the shrine of the saint Syed Ali Hajveri until he could pick up some work. He began working as a labourer and by 2007 his work brought in Rs. 200 a day. Iman, however, found the work degrading. He soon began spending time with small-time criminals in Lahore. Along with a friend, a one-time Attock resident named Muzaffar Lal Khan, Iman decided to launch a new career in armed robbery.
On Bakr Eid day in 2007, Iman has told the Mumbai Police, the two men made their way to the Raja bazaar in Rawalpindi, hoping to purchase weapons. In the market, they saw activists for the Jamaat-ud-Dawa — the parent political organisation of the Lashkar-e-Taiba — handing out pamphlets and posters about the organisation and its activities. After a discussion lasting a few minutes, Iman claims, both men decided to join — not because of their Islamist convictions but in the hope that the jihad training they would receive would further their future life in crime. A life in Lashkar
But at the Lashkar’s base camp, Markaz Taiba, Iman’s world view began to change. Films on India’s purported atrocities in Kashmir, and fiery lectures by preachers, including Lashkar chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, led him to believe that the Lashkar’s cause — the greater glory of Islam, as the organisation presented it — was worth giving his life to. It is possible, an official involved in the interrogation suggested, that the atmosphere of the camp gave him the sense of family he had lacked for much of his life.
When he returned home for a two-month break after his indoctrination at the Lashkar base camp, he found a respectability within his community and family that had eluded him most of his life. Where Iman had earlier been seen as a burden, he was now self-sufficient — and bore the halo of religious piety.
Later that year, Iman was chosen for the Lashkar’s basic combat course, the Daura Aam. He performed well and was among a small group of 32 men selected to undergo advanced training at a camp near Manshera, a course the organisation calls the Daura Khaas. Finally, he was among an even smaller group selected for specialised marine commando and navigation training given to the fidayeen unit selected to target Mumbai.
According to Iman, Lashkar military commander Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi promised that his family would be rewarded with Rs. 1.5 lakh for his sacrifice.
Wow, Iman is just a year older than my sister… had he lived a different life in the U.S. he would be a senior in college. So weird.
Come on – for all of Bush’s stupidity, most of those killed were by Sunni and Shia Zealots – how come no one walks around with their pictures on T shirts?
As an Obamaniac, I’m no fan of Bush, but it high time someone held the islamic clergy equally accountable for all these deaths.
99 · Harbeer said
Harbeer,
Wearing a polo shirt is NOT a political statement. I purchase the cheapest and most versatile clothing possible…sometimes it is the ‘status quo’ (or whatever the store’s purchaser has been buying for the past few years)brand and sometimes it is not (but always made in Sri-Lanka). How exactly does enjoying the fruits of my frugal consumption habits constitute a political act endorsing everything associated with the production and distribution of this Polo or the politics of other people who purchase that brand?
Harbeer wears clothes he knits from his own backhair to ensure no corporations exploit proles on his behalf.
It all comes down to how you want to view the civilizational goals of the neocons & the terrorists. I prefer a world where everyone drinks coke instead of limca over one where public stonings are the only entertainment.
Because those are the only options.
False dichotomy much?
104 · Nayagan said
The logo, plain and simple. You cannot wish away its associations and implications, however benign.
For the record, I am defining politics as “the division of power among people,” not which party you vote for.
common sense wins on the interwebs. pity it’s not that way IRL. thanks pavan.
So if you take the logo off, or conceal it, double-bonus good? I cover up a swazzie tat and it becomes not threatening to the Orthodox guy shopping next to me at the supermarket?
107 · Pavan said
It’s not a dichotomy that I set up, but yes very false indeed. A. Roy stated that she would rather have the Taliban win & hang her for her feminism than deal with American hegemony. It is the Left that sees the Neocons as evil incarnate and this terrorism as the result of thwarted idealism. I can actually see shades of grey
If the shirt he was wearing was purchased for $5K, and bore no logo or image (having been purchased from a delightful little boutique tucked away on Rue des Rosiers in Le Marais–tres chic!)it would somehow be less an expression of solidarity with the forces of evil than if he was wearing a shirt bearing the infamous swoosh ($8 at the big-box!)?
105 · louiecypher said
Touche, but I never once said my own booty don’t stank. I just try to be aware of the choices I make and try not to obfuscate or dilute my complicity.
What is it with people on this thread seeing what they want to see instead of what is there? Khan made no comparison to Hitler. Khan made no comparison to bin Laden. I made no statement that my hands are clean. You guys need to sharpen your observational and deductive skills, because you’re making some wacky conclusions.
Khan applied a term, “international terrorist,” to an individual, George W. Bush. You can argue whether that label applies or not, but please leave bin Laden, Hitler, etc. out of your analysis because it’s not there.
112 · Nayagan said
The swoosh is a celebration of Greek idolatry favored by the German romanticists who proceeded you know who. Izod celebrates the persecution of the venutians by the lizard people. Hilfiger clothes both street corner pharmacologists and their I-banker clients, one group ends up in jail while the other embezzles from the american taxpayer and evades justice. I wear an empty sack with holes cut out for the arms that used to contain jasmine rice, which I fear may be harvested by poor Lao & Cambodian migrants in thai paddy fields
112 · Nayagan said
It would be more implicit and less explicit, but I wouldn’t use hyperbolic language like “forces of evil.” Your use of such language is disingenuous.
What if he wore a kurta pajama? A dhoti? A lungi? A sari? With or without a logo, they all have political implications. I’m not supporting any one or another of these, I’m just saying that yes, the t-shirt he wore has political implications but so do most choices we make, whether they’re conscious and explicit (Imran Khan’s case) or unconscious and implicit. We vote with our “dollars” every day, much more than do at the ballot box.
Are Bollywood (maybe they are inspired by the Hollywood types) this dumb? Or do they want to be seen as way too cool? What about the paparazzi who take these snaps? Atleast some Bollywood types had the decency to attend the condolence meetings in Mumbai without creating the media blitz that the Indian politicians (another crazy bunch) caused. Hopefully the public outrage will cause some sense to creep in……
111 · louiecypher said
I think you meant: I label those who see the Neocons as evil incarnate and this terrorism as the result of thwarted idealism as the Left.
114 · louiecypher said
Wow, that’s fascinating, thanks for sharing! Here I always thought those logos stood for mindless automatons with no sense of personal style who are yearning for a way to fit in and boost their low self-esteem. Learn something new every day!
118 · Harbeer said
And what would you suggest we mindless automatons wear otherwise in order to emerge most-nearly-unscathed on your little scale? Or is there a spectrum at all? Does wearing a shirt with a world leader labeled as an international terrorist absolutely equal wearing a shirt with a swoosh on it?
119 · RSR said
Go back and read my comments before you ask me dumb questions like that. Stop projecting. Stop inserting things that are not there into the text. I have made no equivalences or value judgments, I have merely stated that wearing any image has political implications, whether explicit or implicit.
Come on – for all of Bush’s stupidity, most of those killed were by Sunni and Shia Zealots – how come no one walks around with their pictures on T shirts? As an Obamaniac, I’m no fan of Bush, but it high time someone held the islamic clergy equally accountable for all these deaths.
But it so much easier to blame Bush, then deal with the truth.
103 · mercury3000 said
Go right ahead, who’s stopping you?
What’s with all the image-bearing elitism on this thread? My imageless t-shirts and jeans and socks and underpants are all from the discount bin at Walmart, and they all bleed patriotism in a way you swiss-cheese-on-your-Philly-cheesesteak liberal elites in your Izods and Nikes and Hilfigers and Kleins can never understand.
You didn’t address his point, harbeer, which is most people think they are brave when they sport shirts like that, but it’s not bravery. Everyone in arty-farty world thinks like that – ever read stuffwhitepeople like? It’s not exactly taking a brave stand, but a popular one. Which doesn’t negate the point, he just doesn’t get bonus points for bravery.
(If a person did wear the other kind of t-shirt, dollars to donuts the t-shirt wearer would be accused of being a bigot, especially on a college campus).
In characteristically Vinodian fashion, the first post after the terrorist strikes was a t-shirt a random actor wore to a nameless film. Of course this kind of intellectual curiosity, research and brilliance into combatting terrorism and it’s causes has never been done before
124 · MD said
“Most people think?” “Would be accused?” This is conjecture and hypothetical navel-gazing. Did Imran Khan say, “I am brave for wearing this shirt?” He didn’t.
You people would fail remedial critical thinking. You are bringing a lot of your own baggage to the text you’re interpreting (i.e. the photograph of Imran Khan wearing a shirt bearing an image of GWB and the words “international terrorist.”) Stick to the text, holmes.
Suki, as usual you are misinformed. The Lancet study authoritatively proved that over 40% of the murders in Iraq are directly attributatble to the USA, mercenaries and their Iraq army allies, a further 30% to the Sunni-shia death squads, many of which are supported by the USA, and 30% the cause of death was undeterminable, meaning more then likely that it was American action. Deal with it Suki, Bush is one of the great mass murderers in the world.
Wait – you’re a libertarian who doesn’t understand state terrorism? Awesome.
Anyway, here’s the right way to point out what m@#therfuckers people are who kill other people for moronic and morally indefensible reasons, regardless of who they are. Excerpts: “You have pinpointed the almost imperceptible flaw in the logic of these industrial strength douchebags. ‘We hate and kill everything you stand for…join us.'”
I fail remedial reading? Yeah, Harbeer, sure, your posts have been the very definition of clarity. Didn’t you write: Ok, you’ve got a point, but you missed my point that wearing a Polo also makes a political statement (even if it was bought at an outlet mall) which is that the wearer supports the status quo and everything that means. Yeah, there’s no reading into intentions or interpretation there…..
The dude wore a t-shirt that with a picture of Bush and International terrorist on it. Gee, I wonder what he was trying to say? Could it be…wait for it….wait for it….he thinks Bush is an international terrorist? I think that’s completely idiotic and proceeded to make fun of him for it. I stand by my remedially-challenged reading.
Muhammed – link please? There have been a lot of dodgy Lancet studies out there, speaking of failing remedial reading….
I’m sorry, I had to read what you wrote again in #99 and laugh Harbeer. You are complaining about me brining my own baggage to it when you claim wearing a polo shirt means that the wearer supports the status quo? Seriously, that is one of the funniest things I have read in a long time.
I hope you get the point I’m making.
129 · MD said
And it is fair for people to think you are completely idiotic for thinking that it is inconceivable that Bush could be construed as one. There is a separate point to be made that most celebrities tend to do fashionable things without introspection, but sometimes just because something is cool doesn’t mean it is automatically stupid.
128 · Dr Amonymous said
Hilarious!
Uh, I actually made that same point above, dialectics.
Fine if people think I’m idiotic. Lol, why should I care? It’s only SM, after all.
Okay, this is the last one although I am having serious fun with this thread, I forgot how reflexively lefty SM comments boards were…..
Intentionally killing civilians is the exact same as civilians dying in bombings in Iraq? Because a whole lot of people dying in Iraq are dying because of what was essentially a civil war, I think. We opened up that can of worms, so, yeah, the blame belongs both to both those who started the war and those who continued it with the civil war. But how can they be the exact same thing? That’s the part that seems vapid to me – you can be angry about one and angry about the other all while not equating them. That’s the difference to me between a responsible critic of war and someone who is just mouthing fashionable slogans!
Wait, you mean the truth about the U.S. destabilizing the society, executing the invasion militarily incompetently, having no plan for governance, and tacitly and at points explicitly allowing ethnic cleansing to happen in Iraq? Or do you mean the truth about how there weren’t two wars in Iraq, but one long continuous one from about 1990 onwards, and the last several years represented a needless, violent, and potentially criminal and murderous escalation of it?
I mean, all of you people who are defending Bush, you do realize that being moronic AND incompentent AND causing a tremendous amnount of harm to almost everyone in the world is not really the side you want to be on, right? Even his former staff figured that out, if only for self-serving reasons, so it’s the least you could do to repudiate the policies he pursued and the violent and disastrous effects they’ve had. I’ll be happy to join you in dissing Clinton as well once we get on the same page about what an utter disasster and how disgusting the last seven years (at least) of American policy towards Iraq and almost everywhere including the U.S. have been.
As someone who disagrees with you, this is actually really helpful because it actually forces one to think, at least a little, so thank you (sincerely).
I think the history of the Iraq war is too early to right because it is too classified, but the characterization of it as a civil war while it has been occupied formally and informally in various fashions for at least five years is inapt. Obviosuly there are many different forces in Iraq, but you can’t simply say that the U.S. government started the war and then simply stopped participating and characterize it as a civil war. There are many many mercenaries and U.S. military reps in Iraq currently killing a lot of people, in addition to the people who are coming from outside. If the U.S. government could have done nothing about this aside from leaving, it is to be blamed for incompetence, poor judgement, and the equivalent of manslaughter; if, on the other hand, there was active participation, which it is hard for me to believe there is not given the nature of the war, the people running it, and how politicized and deprofessionalized the whole thing has been, it can be blamed for outright murder or worse. We have already seen evidence of torture, so I imagine a little research would turn up some interesting things about ethnic cleansing and whatnot.
But, as you can see, I haven’t done that research, so I could be wrong. But this is how I lean right now.
129 · MD said
Clearly, because what I wrote is that you fail at remedial critical thinking.
Pwned!
120 · Harbeer said
Give me a break. And this is not a value judgment:
To MD in #130: +1.
137 · RSR said
That’s what you call a cheeky comment in response to a cheeky comment. Show me where I made a value judgment or stated any absolutes on this thread before that.
VV is pretty right and I’m pleased that he’s saying it. Getting rid of evil – torturous, mass-murdering – dictators and spreading Democracy in the Arab World are good things and Bush did attempt to do those things.
Bush’s crime is not in his policy preferences but in the fact that he used his inherited wealth and family connections to propel himself into a position for which he was catastrophically ill-suited.
Bush has indeed turned out to be a man with the innocent bloods of tens of thousands of senseless-murder victims on his hands – not on account of any sadistic bloodlust but on account of egotistical power-lust.And at the end of the day, when the chips are down, it’s only the results that matter.
George Bush is indeed a(n accidental) terrorist.
mnuez
117 · Pomoniac said
Hi Pomoniac (are you MFA?), you should have gone to Harvey Mudd. Pomona is an albatross around the neck of the Claremont system
I wish SM Intern would ban Harbeer. His insulting of other commenters just because they don’t agree with him (because they can never be as cool and liberal and holier-than-thou as he is) is annoying. I can’t stand such pretentious people.
Found the Versace picture. Are his eye open or shut? If open, he looks crazed to me.
That’s not Versace it’s Versa.
From Versa’s website: We see versa as a reverse and change in the status quo, resulting in an evolution of art and design, and its connections to clothing and apparal. Getting weary of irony, otherwise it would be funny. bzuh said:
Please, are you tattling? Harbeer has added some valuable viewpoints to this thread and to SM over the years.
Teacher said to just ignore him ; )
no such luck. i rarely comment on sepia these days. someone else wants to git you all riled up by punning on pomo and pomoniac 🙂 incidentally, i don’t really have an MFA, i only enjoy getting a rise out of you. you’re a witty guy.
145 · MFA said
not that there’s anything wrong with that
141 · bzuh said
:-p
Not tattling. I don’t expect it to happen of course. Just expressing my distaste at the downturn this thread took after the self-righteous posturing about how everything you wear is a political statement, how every reader but Harbeer can’t think critically because they make too many assumptions and are thinking of unrelated things (like Osama bin Laden and terrorism, or this t-shirt and this image).
MD, the wikipedia entry at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_surveys_of_casualties_of_the_Iraq_War shows the breakdown of the casualties. My bad memory sad there was a 40-30-30 split, when in actuality it was 31-24-45. I apologize for the mistake.
If the U.S. government could have done nothing about this aside from leaving, it is to be blamed for incompetence, poor judgement, and the equivalent of manslaughter; if, on the other hand, there was active participation, which it is hard for me to believe there is not given the nature of the war, the people running it, and how politicized and deprofessionalized the whole thing has been, it can be blamed for outright murder or worse.
That would also mean the International Court of Justice ought to prosecute the UN peacekeeping forces of “manslaughter through negligence”.