KARACHI, Pakistan — Shafqat Hussain, the youngest of seven children, came to Karachi from Kashmir in search of work in 2003. Having struggled with a learning disability, Shafqat failed in school. He was 13 years old when he dropped out, barely able to read or write. He sought refuge in a metropolis that had no space to give and was quickly relegated to the city’s fringes. He never saw his parents again.
When he was 14, still four years underPakistan’s legal age of adulthood, Shafqat was detained illegally by the police and severely beaten. The boy was held in solitary confinement, his genitals were electrocuted and he was burned with cigarette butts. The policemen interrogating him removed three of his fingernails. Sadly, Shafqat’s case was not the exception. It was the rule. He was told that he would never escape police custody or his torturers until he confessed to a crime he did not commit, the murder of a 7-year-old boy.
Shafqat was then falsely convicted on charges of kidnapping and murder, and sentenced to death.
A relative holding a photo of Shafqat Hussain, earlier this month.Credit Sajjad Qayyum/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
His eldest brother, Manzoor, spoke to the BBC last December about Shafqat’s confession under torture. “When I asked him about torture in custody,” Manzoor said to the press, Shafqat “started shivering and wet his pants. He put both his hands on his head and starting crying, saying, ‘Don’t ask, I can’t tell you what they did.”’ The only evidence the courts had against him was a confession he made after nine days of being tortured in a police cell.
Shafqat was not tried as a juvenile. Nor was he given access to a lawyer when presented with the charges against him. His mother hasn’t seen her son in 10 years. She cannot afford to travel to Karachi to see Shafqat now, before he is to be killed.
After a seven-year moratorium, Pakistan recently reinstated the death penalty. After the most horrific terror attack the country has faced, the murder of over 100 children at the Army Public School in Peshawar on Dec. 16, the Pakistani government decided to counter violence with violence.
There was no moment of reflection, no introspection, only a knee-jerk call for vengeance. In Pakistan, blood will always have blood. The state lifted the moratorium on the death penalty and introduced military courts — neither of which are known to be great deterrents to crime.
The military courts, where presiding judges and prosecutors come from army ranks, are a controversial addition to Pakistan’s deeply flawed and ineffectual judicial system. Like Pakistan’s contentious Antiterrorism Courts, they have ostensibly been formed to try terrorism cases, though their jurisdiction is likely to expand over time.
There are currently more than 8,000 people on death row in Pakistan. Close to 1,000 convicts who have exhausted their appeals are set to face the gallows. Thirty-nine people have already been executed.
Shafqat is scheduled to be hanged on Thursday.
More than two months after Pakistan’s Interior Ministry stayed his execution and ordered an inquiry into why a juvenile was placed on death row, Pakistan’s Antiterrorism Courts have issued a fresh execution order.
These draconian courts were set up in 1997 under statutory, not constitutional law; they operate on the premise that the accused is guilty unless able to prove himself innocent. Defendants cannot be granted bail in these courts and as such they have commonly been used in politically motivated cases, rather than to curb crime.
Shafqat Hussain has now spent 11 years on death row on charges that have nothing to do with terrorism. He was not a militant; he worked, during his brief spell of freedom in Karachi, as a caretaker at an apartment building. He impacts national security in no way.
Reinstating the death penalty is a moral catastrophe for Pakistan. For those who argue the facile logic of an eye for an eye, it is worth noting that in Pakistan the charges of blasphemy, apostasy and adultery are also punishable by death.
In an era of unrepentant violence, intolerance and injustice, it is our duty to raise our voices for compassion. Pakistan cannot claim to be just or democratic when it provides security to officials from the banned Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat, a violent and extremist sectarian group, and puts to death innocent juveniles.
As Defense Secretary Ashton Carter settles into office, a formidable challenge awaits him: eradicating the menace of the Islamic State, or ISIS, in Syria and Iraq. In his Senate confirmation hearing, Carter reiterated that he and the Obama administration hope “with our air power and other kinds of assistance, [to] inflict defeat on ISIS, and then make it a lasting defeat.”
Critics inside and outside the Pentagon have repeatedly warned that our current limited use of air power makes that goal virtually impossible to achieve. But too little credit has been given to the success of America’s drone fleet against ISIS so far, and too little has been said about the kind of sustained drone mission that is needed going forward to secure U.S. gains against ISIS. Indeed, in five months of bombing by U.S. and allied air forces have run on average five to 10 sorties a day against ISIS targets. That’s barely a pinprick compared to the more than 1,100 sorties per day conducted during Desert Storm, or even the 87 per day U.S. Central Command ran during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. Yet here Carter will face a painful dilemma. On one hand, increasing the number of air strikes by F-16s and F-18s also increases the chances of a plane being shot down or experiencing mechanical failure. It also risks an American being captured and facing the same horrific fate as Jordanian pilot Maaz al-Kasasbeh. The other alternative—sending large numbers of American ground troops into a country where the United States already sacrificed more than 4,400 lives—is even more unpalatable. Fortunately, Carter will have at hand the perfect tool for delivering a series of mortal blows against ISIS without putting a single American soldier on the ground: America’s fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAV’s.
Of course, UAV’s now fly routinely over the ISIS battlefield conducting reconnaissance and combat. However, instead of launching occasional missile strikes as they do now, the key to defeating ISIS must be a systematic and sustained drone air campaign in support of Kurdish and Iraqi forces—in effecta high-tech upgrading of a proven battlefield strategy first employed by George Patton’s Third Army during World War II and by U.S. Marines in Korea.
This unmanned air campaign—the first in history—would use the deadly and precise firepower of our UAV fleet to find, fix and devastate ISIS troops, vehicles and buildings on a 24/7 basis, so that Kurdish Peshmerga and other troops can advance and retake cleared territory. Something similar happened more recently, almost by accident, in Kosovo in 1999, when persistent NATO air strikes so cleared away Serbian resistance that Kosovar militias were able to come down from surrounding hills and retake lost ground. In Iraq and Syria, the first step would be to increase to at least 10 the number of GPS-guided round-the-clock orbits used by UAV’s covering ISIS strongholds. This would enable UAV reconnaissance craft like the Global Hawk and Sentinel, and armed drones like the Predator and Reaper, to enter the battle space in numbers large enough (for example, 30 to 40 at a time) for systematic and unrelenting air strikes. Second, U.S. special operations teams with Global Hawks and Sentinels would then search out and identify suitable targets in those ISIS concentrated areas. Third, since ISIS lacks any sophisticated air defense system or any other way to challenge unmanned air supremacy, dozens of armed drones could enter the air space at 15-20,000 feet—above ground fire weaponry but low enough for precision target identification and strike— and in coordination with Kurdish and Iraqi security forces strike at those targets at will, without letting up, day and night. Finally, as ISIS is steadily degraded by the unrelenting unmanned air strikes, Iraqi security forces with American advisors will be able to move up and regain cleared ground. Then special operations forces would help the next echelon of reconnaissance UAV’s to identify brand-new enemy concentrations, even as the UAV strike fleet rearms for battle—and the cycle begins again. The UAV air campaign option is particularly attractive because it uses these aircraft’s most important virtues: their round-the-clock situational awareness, their persistent flight time (an armed Reaper can stay aloft 27 hours without refueling compared to a couple of hours for a typical F-16 sortie), their capacity for sudden precise strike and maneuver with 16 Hellfire missiles or four 500-lb. bombs for every Reaper. Perhaps just as importantly, they are entirely expendable if they crash or are shot down—while their operators are safe far from the battlefield. A systematic air campaign also can quickly clear the way for relief workers to move freely into liberated areas and offer help to refugees like the Izidis. Indeed, in a matter of weeks most would be able to return home as the dangers of an Islamist victory fade—and the destruction of ISIS forces becomes a reality. Far from being a Jules Verne fantasy, the technology for such a campaign is all but ready to deploy. By using it, Carter could guarantee the defeat of ISIS and save thousands of lives. By giving UAV’s the mission of defeating a conventional armed enemy on the battlefield for the first time in history, he will also change the face of modern war.
MOD: OBSOLETE & ANTIQUE MINISTRY STAFFED WITH SICK MENTALITY -VASUNDHRA ARREARS OF PENSION TO BE PAID FROM 01 JAN 2006 TO 24 SEP 2012
Dear Veterans
This refers to arrears paid for increase in pension as per recommendations of 6 CPC to all employees of of central Government w.e.f. 24 Sep 2012.
Government has already paid the arrears to civil employees from 1 Jan 2006. However this was denied to Armed Forces personnel on most stupid ground that the arrears will not be paid to those who had not gone to court.
RDOA had gone to court for arrears to be paid to Armed Forces also. The case was won but the Government decided to file SLP against the SC judgment. The SLP came for hearing on 17 March 15, after many extensions. Honorable SC has declined admission of SLP and asked Government to release payment of arrears w.e.f. 1 Jan 2006 within four months. These arrears are for modified parity in pension paid w.e.f 24 Sep 2012.
Government counsel once again told Honorable SC that the arrears w.e.f 1 Jan 2006 will be paid to only litigants. On this plea Honorable SC had said that this will again increase your and our work load because within few days rest of personnel will soon approach SC for the arrears and Government will have to pay. Therefore it is better that the arrears are paid to all personnel of armed forces.
Government counsel appealed that Government does not have money for such large payment. On this plea again Honorable SC ruled thatif Government can loose thousands of crore in coal blocks this payment is chickenfeed infront of that.Hence the arrears will have to be paid within four months.
These were oral discussions in the court, we will have to wait for formal order by the Honorable SC and the reaction of Government on the judgment. IESM will go to court on behalf of all personnel of Armed Forces in case Government refuses to pay arrears to all affected Armed Forces Personnel.
Please wait for written judgment of Honorable Supreme Court.
Regards
Gp Capt VK Gandhi VSM Gen Sec IESM Flat no 801, Tower N5
Narmada Apartments
Pocket D6
Vasant Kunj
Nelson Mandela Marg New Delhi. 110070 Mobile 09810541222
OROP is our right. Dilution in OROP will NOT be accepted.
Three problems plague the debate over whether all combat units should finally be opened to women. (Actually, there are four problems: The fourth and most important being the likelihood that there will be no real debate, something that I hope this article will help to mitigate). Most career soldiers and officers I know believe the integration of women into Special Forces teams, and into SEAL, Ranger and Marine infantry platoons, is already a forgone conclusion. From their perspective, politicians in uniform (namely, top brass) don’t have the intestinal fortitude to brook the vocal minority in Congress – and the country, really – who think mainstreaming women into ground combat units is a good idea.
As for the other three problems, the first is that every sentient adult knows what happens when you mix healthy young men and women together in small groups for extended periods of time. Just look at any workplace. Couples form. At some point, how couples interact – sexually, emotionally, happily and/or unhappily – makes life uncomfortable for those around them. Factor in intense, intimate conditions and you can forget about adults being able to stay professional 24/7. Object lesson for anyone who disagrees: General Petraeus.
Problem number two:Those who favor lifting the combat exclusion ban engage in a clever sleight of hand whenever they equatewomen serving in combatwithwomen serving in combat units. Given women’s performance over the past decade in Afghanistan and Iraq, who but a misogynist would doubt their capacity for courage, aggressiveness or grace under fire at this point? But battles are like exclamation points. They punctuate long stretches when there are no firefights. Spend time around soldiers when they are coming down from adrenaline highs, or are depressed or upset; they are prone to all sorts of temptations. Alternatively, under Groundhog Day-like conditions, troops invariably grow bored and frustrated. How quickly we forget Charles Graner and Lynndie England, and the dynamic between them that helped fuel the sadism at Abu Ghraib. Problem number three involves a different elision. Proponents of lifting the ban love to invoke desegregation and the demise of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Their intent in doing so is to suggest that all three are of a piece: Blacks now serve in combat units, as do (at least in theory) openly homosexual soldiers, and there have been no untoward effects. It is therefore past time to let women be all that they can be as well. Except that attraction between the sexes is nothing like the denigration of another race or the disinterest (or disgust) heterosexual men feel when it comes to the idea of one man pursuing another. Indeed, racism and bigotry lie at the opposite end of the spectrum from attraction.
Lumping all three together is a canard.
There is no clearer way to put it than this: Heterosexual men like women. They also compete for their attention. This is best captured by the Darwinist aphorism: male-male competition and female choice. Or, try: no female has to leave a bar alone if she doesn’t want to, whereas at ‘last call’ lots of men do.
Cast back through history or just look cross-culturally: Men’s abiding interest in women (and women’s interest in having men be interested) creates limitless potential for friction. Is this really what we want to inflict on combat units?
More than a decade ago, I described the critical ethos on teams, and in squads or platoons, as ‘one for all and all for one.’ Introduce something over which members are bound to compete, that the winner won’t share, and you inject a dangerous dynamic. Worse, introduce the possibility of exclusivity between two individuals and you will have automatically killed cohesion. Interestingly – tellingly – proponents of lifting the combat exclusion ban routinely dismiss the significance of cohesion. Take the recent story about the Marine Corps’ new experimental mixed gender combat unit that appeared on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. In it, correspondent Michael Phillips writes: “The debate over women in combat – similar to arguments about gays in the military – used to focus on so-called unit cohesion…”
That value-laden qualifier, “so-called,” made me sit bolt upright. Its use signals just how successful military sociologists and others have been at dismissing the idea that social cohesion might (still) matter. Their preferred cohesion is something they call ‘task cohesion,’ which refers to soldiers’ ability to do a job regardless of whatever inter-personal differences might exist among them. This, according to these academics, is the only kind of cohesion military units need. Forget shared interests, past-times or proclivities. Remaining effective over the long-haul in combat no longer requires that individuals have anything more than the mission in common. Except – dig beneath the political correctness that those in uniform know they better parrot, and it quickly becomes apparent that academics have split an impossible hair. For instance, U.S. Army Special Forces Command has been waging a quiet dissuasion campaign against Special Forces soldiers joining motorcycle ‘clubs.’ And though some wonder why any special operator would feel the need to join a bunch of wannabe outlaws when SF teams already constitute the ‘baddest’ gangs around, operators enamored with biker subculture are clearly seeking something SF does not provide. For many that something is camaraderie. No question, stateside camaraderie is not what it is OCONUS (outside the continental U.S.). Family life looms large, wives have careers etc. There are a host of reasons why cohesion frays whenever teams return from deployments (to include how strained families are thanks to the sheer number of deployments). However, this fraying has consequences. Individuals go on benders and get into trouble; combat veterans commit suicide; PTSD festers. Old timers’ assessment is that team members no longer have each other’s backs except in combat. Ironically, their observation fits exactly what focusing only on ‘task cohesion’ prescribes. Talk to team leaders and they will describe how much effort it takes to get team members and their families to want to socialize once everyone is home. But they will also describe how rewarding it is once they do – all of which should be an indicator that social cohesion still does matter. It matters to those who join Special Forces in order to belong to something other than just a job. It also matters to those responsible for leading them, who recognize what a difference it makes downrange when a team ‘hangs together.’ Consequently, one question that should be posed to those who fixate on ‘task cohesion’ as the only glue the military needs is: Don’t social scientists owe it to those who already serve in special operations (and infantry) units to pay attention to what they say (and do), rather than rely on what members of mixed gender non-combat units self-report regarding ‘task cohesion’? Of course, the idea that there can be any social ‘science’ answer to whether the U.S. military should integrate women into ground combat forces is silly. Proponents might like to think that objective metrics can be devised. But metrics that measure what? Whether a unit can gel? Whether it will stay solid? Whether it will be able to recover from disaster effectively? Granted, there are some critical performance criteria – such as the ability to meet physical standards – that can be gauged in advance. But it is essential to remember that just because an individual meets these does not mean he or she will fit well into any group. Nonetheless, physical standards now amount to the Rubicon in the combat exclusion debate. Opponents of lifting the ban believe that so long as standards remain high – and do not get gender-normed – few women will either want to serve in the combat arms or be able to make it through selection. Thus, certain Military Occupational Specialties (MOSs) – they hope – will remain protected. For their part, proponents question the relevancy of the physical standards that special operations units and the Marine Corps infantry do still use. Their position is that if you look at any unit, tasks are rarely undertaken by individuals alone. Instead, members shift and share burdens, and help each other out. Invariably the group finds creative ways to get the job done regardless of individuals’ weaknesses. Ergo the Marine Corps’ new experimental unit, the Ground Combat Element Integrated Task Force (the subject of Phillips’ article). What the Marine Corps tests will find as they train up both male and female volunteers for combat should be interesting, to say the least. Forget just the gender dimension. Each service should ensure that today’s standards reflect real world requirements, and not some arbitrary, holdover notions of what combat pre-9/11 entailed. After all, it could be that numerous physical standards will need to be raised, not lowered – something that is all too imaginable given the sheer weight of today’s combat loads. If so, it will be interesting to then see what tack proponents take, since thus far they have shown zero interest in acknowledging why we even have combat units. Their impetus all along has been equity instead. Equity is a quintessentially progressive and thus classically American goal. It is also a goal that increasingly attracts uniformed fathers who want to see their uniformed daughters excel. This reflects a remarkable societal shift. Proponency by men who have served in the combat arms is powerful and persuasive. It can also be extraordinarily moving. However, no decision about the future makeup of ground combat units should be influenced by what opening such units will do for anyone’s offspring, or sibling or spouse. Instead, the only thing that should matter is whether the presence of women will contribute positively to the combat effectiveness of combat units. No question, women are a boon for certain types of missions, especially certain special operations missions. No one I know disagrees with that, and in fact most special operators are anxious for more qualified women to be able to work with them. But..... ......there is a world of difference between women participating on certain missions and women serving alongside men as permanent members of ground combat units. This difference has everything to do with why combat units exist – they exist to be sent into harm’s way. Maybe they won’t take casualties. But the military can never count on that. The prospect of attrition requires that the military treat individuals not as individuals, but as interchangeable pieces of a complex system. Not only does every combat soldier need to be capable of accomplishing the same essential tasks as every other combat soldier (according to rank, MOS etc.), but every potential replacement has to be able to easily fit into an already-stressed group. This introduces the equivalent of a Goldilocks challenge : Groups must be flexible enough to quickly absorb new members, while new members need to be sufficiently similar to both old members and surviving members that they readily fit. Unfortunately, proponents of lifting the combat exclusion ban don’t seem to get this. So, while it might make academic sense to assume squads, platoons and teams will simply be able to work out their own division of labor (read: task cohesion) under duress, what invariably happens when new members of the opposite sex arrive on the scene? In any setting, group chemistry changes – in predictably unpredictable ways. Unfortunately, the services aren’t likely to use their sexual assault data to make the case that injecting women into hard-charging, all-male units isn’t a sound idea. But surely other statistics exist. For instance, how much time do command staffs already spend on boy-girl troubles? Anecdotally, fraternization and related issues eat up way too much time. Is this really what Washington should now saddle combat units and commanders with as they fight ISIS or whomever else in the future? Or what about combat soldiers’ spouses, who already have more than enough worries? Why don’t their concerns count? This is a question that leads to a cascade of others for anyone who truly cares about equity. Whose equity should most matter? And who should get to determine this? The irony is that combat units are ‘it’ when it comes to protecting all the other equities we Americans value. That is inconvenient truth number one.We have no other front-line/behind-the-lines first responders. Why would we want to do anything that jeopardizes their cohesiveness and integrity? Inconvenient truth number two is that men and women have been each other’s most consistent distraction since the beginning of time. To pretend that we don’t know what will happen when men and women are thrown together for prolonged periods in emotionally intense situations defies common sense. Being overly academic and insufficiently adult about adult behavior isn’t just irresponsible but imperiling, and belies the deadly seriousness with which we should want combat units to perform. Anna Simons is a Professor of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School. She is the author of Networks of Dissolution: Somalia Undoneand The Company They Keep: Life Inside the U.S. Army Special Forces, and is most recently the co-author of The Sovereignty Solution: A Commonsense Approach to Global Security. The views expressed are the author’s and do not reflect those of the Department of Defense, the U.S. Navy, or the Naval Postgraduate School.
In Rural India, Hoping for Jobs and Education in a Growing Economy By CAROL GIACOMO
campaign: nyt2015_sharetools_mkt_opinion_47K78 -- 271975, creative: nyt2014_sharetools_mktg_opinion_47K78 -- 375123, page: www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/opinion/in-rural-india-hoping-for-jobs-and-education-in-a-growing-economy.html, targetedPage: www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/opinion, poBHESDA KHURD, India — To begin to understand the hurdles Prime Minister Narendra Modi faces in building India into an economic powerhouse and reducing extreme poverty, the rural village of Bhesda Khurd, about 45 minutes from the western city of Udaipur, is a good place to start.
It is here where Rohit Nagda, a 29-year-old computer software engineer, lives with his wife, a would-be teacher studying for a master’s degree, and his family. Though he has a degree in computer science from a local university and spent a two-year stint as a commercial web developer that ended last year, Mr. Nagda is losing hope. He has been applying online for web jobs at companies in distant Mumbai, India’s financial center, but has yet to find work.
Two-thirds of India’s more than 1.2 billion people are under the age of 35. Nowhere is the demand for jobs more acute, and the obstacles more formidable, than in rural areas that are home to more than 70 percent of India’s population, including the 450 households in this village. In many ways, Mr. Nagda and his friends, who also went to college or technical school, are better off than those who live on the poorer side of the village, a 10-minute drive away. Mr. Nagda’s father helps run the water department at Hindustan Zinc, a local mining company. Most of their neighbors are farmers, and some own cows and goats. Others pick up itinerant work as migrants in Udaipur, or even Gujarat, an eight-hour bus ride away. In their neighborhood, there is a portion of a paved road and minimal drainage and electricity, and some houses are made of concrete. A few have toilets.
In the poorer section where lower-caste families live, there is no water piped to houses, which are mostly made of mud, less electricity and no paved road. The fondest wish of Sarjan Bai Jogi, mother of six children and grandmother of eight, is a house where “you don’t get wet when it rains,” she said through an interpreter.
We met on the shore of a small lake where her family has lived and worked for 60 years. They survive, barely, on fishing and jobs as laborers, stone crushers and cement mixers. Her youngest son is the most educated; he finished seventh grade.
Photo
Sarjan Bai JogiCredit Carol A. Giacomo/The New York Times
Among several dozen other women I met in this hamlet, only one went as high as eighth grade; only one young man had a college degree. He was earning money as a part-time wedding photographer because he couldn’t find work in his field. In recent years, the village public school expanded from eight grades to 10. For now, students who want to finish 11th and 12th grades must travel to Udaipur, a hardship for many families who can’t afford the expense and fear for their daughters’ safety.
The expansion of education has made a difference in nationwide literacy rates. While very few villagers over age 60 have any formal education, more than 90 percent of the younger generation are attending primary school, according to Anirudh Krishna, a Duke University professor who has been doing research in this region for a decade and traveled with me to this village.
But going on to high school and college remains rare. Fewer than 7 percent of Indians (only 4.4 percent of young adults in rural areas) have a college education, and, as Mr. Nagda discovered, even that is no guarantee of success.
For all of India’s advancement — it has one of the world’s fastest-growing economies — fewer than 10 percent of workers have regular jobs with legal protections and social security benefits and as much as 5 percent of the population falls into poverty every year, Mr. Krishna said. Mr. Modi’s plans for economic growth rest largely on wooing foreign investment, making India a global manufacturing hub and developing a defense industry. And he has set ambitious goals, including building 40 million rural homes with toilets by 2022.
Economic expansion will mean millions of people moving from the countryside to the cities, as it has been in most countries, including China. But India is a nation of villages, with a population that has survived for decades on government handouts, without real opportunities for jobs or a way out of grinding poverty.
I asked the women of Bhesda Khurd if they thought a future Indian prime minister could come from their village. Mr. Modi, after all, rose to power from the lowly rung of a tea seller. “Yes,”one woman replied, “if there is education and hard work.”
