Tom Watson

The Reality Agenda

Tonight, President Bush's face will flicker on millions of American television screens, as he addresses the country on the anniversary of the so-called transfer of power to an Iraqi civilian government one year ago. His neo-con backers will talk loudly in the coming days about how we can still win, the Iraqization of the war, and in a distant haze, about a time when American troops aren't dying every day in a country that matters naught to our national security.

It's pretend policy. Pretend leadership. Pretend vision. Pretend planning. Pretend diplomacy. Pretend values. Pretend government. [Update: and oh yeah baby, pretend applause.]

Personally, I favor pretend war.

And so with kids in tow, watching National Treasure on the DVD player in the back of the Explorer, we drove hundreds of miles upstate, stopping at the battlefield at Saratoga, at Fort William Henry at the base of Lake George, and finally - on a boiling summer Saturday - at Fort Ticonderoga.

Stuck on the tip of a neck of land protruding into Lake Champlain, Ticonderoga was a key defensive point in the long battle between the French to the north and the English to the south - and later, a crucial point of contention between the British invading army and the American defenders. It's a glorious place, spilling with thrilling views in all directions, meticulously restored and tucked into a green and laid-back corner of the Adirondacks.

And last weekend, it was teeming with hundreds of people who spend their leisure time in the 18th century. Two giant camps dominated the landscape, one for the French and the other for the English. Authenticity in the name of pretend war was the order of the day: customes, tents, firearms, medical implements, cooking utensils and food. Details had to be just right, for this was the Grand Encampment at Ticonderoga, commemorating the 250th anniversary of the French and Indian War.

Grand it was indeed, especially for my history-obsessed 10-year-old, who wears his tri-cornered hat the way other kids sport their Yankee camps. As a fake battle tableaux unfolded in black gun-powder smoke and red uniforms ont he field below the fort leading down to the lake, Kelsey and his young fellow travelers were enthralled with the pageant and with the perceived flow of history.

I enjoyed it myself. I dig this stuff, and the colonial period and its heroes has always had a strong hold on me. I don't think it's bad to teach kids about history or about war. It's only bad to send boys seven and eight years older than my son to war for nothing, for a reason tat has nothing to do with defending our country.

With the ghosts of Washington and the Founders in front of my mind, I'll watch the President tonight. Pretend government gets people killed, and destroys our national psyche. Pretend war? Well, that's a better brand of reality programming I can endorse.

UPDATE: Faux leadership indeed. After watching this "major speech" in replay mode (spending the evening with my Brilliant Artist on our anniversary, listening to Richard Thompson down on the Hudson waterfront), I find little the criticize. I found little, period. Just repetition, very tired repetition. Think Progress had the best review, strictly by the numbers:

References to “September 11″: 5 (I counted 6, actually)

References to “weapons of mass destruction”: 0

References to “freedom”: 21

References to “exit strategy”: 0

References to “Saddam Hussein”: 2

References to “Osama Bin Laden”: 2

References to “a mistake”: 1 (setting a timetable for withdrawal)

References to “mission”: 11

References to “mission accomplished”: 0

Gold Star Decision

One month ago, on Memorial Day, I wrote about two soldiers - one from the city where I live, and one from the city I grew up in. Both gave their lives overseas, one in Iraq and the other in Afghanistan. At the time, the Filipino mother of U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Anthony Lagman of Yonkers, who was 26 when he was killed clearing a village in Afghanistan, was denied membership in the Gold Star Mothers Association because she lacked U.S. citizenship.

Didn't seem right at the time, to bloggers left, right, and middle - and to many politicians as well.

Thankfully, the organization voted to change its policy this week during its 68th annual convention in Texas, according to the Associated Press and will now allow non-citizens to join its mournful ranks. This is a wise and eminently American decision.

The Greatest American

So who's the Greatest American? For my money, it's George Washington - and not Ronald Reagan. Find out why in an article I did over at Huffington Post, where I've been guest-blogging of late. (Apparently, they needed the traffic, so I wanted to help 'em out). Tip o' the hat to Lance for being the first to notice. I kind of slipped it under the radar. But don't worry compadres, this is still my home base, my blog of blogs, the main course in the feast of blogophilia. Ah, just click here.

Eminent Ptomaine

What is a good American liberal to do when he finds himself on the side of Justices Rehnquist, Thomas, and Scalia? When he thinks that local government can easily go careening out of control in an orgy of pay-offs, vote-buying, and massive planning in the benefit of the greater good ... and some brother-in-law's construction company? When he feels in his gut that the public sector has stepped a couple of bridges too far?

Lie low, take one of the team, and preserve a united front for our side, the right side on the long-term? I'm a few days late (having been researching the nation's early history in upstate New York over a long weekend) so I should let this one pass. No chinks in the armor, after all. United we stand.

Ah fuck it.

The U.S. Supreme Court sided with the City of New London, ruling that the local government could seize the house of Wilhelmina Dery, in which she was born in 1918, in which her family has lived for more than 100 years, in order to hand the property to a private, tax-exempt corporation committed to razing the house as part of a commercial development related to a new private drug research facility being built nearby by Pfizer.

That decision is obscene and anti-American, in my view. Chervokas, speaking for our side, said it best:

The tragic irony of yesterday's decision is that it put the Court's liberals on the side of a previously Unconstitutional alliance of government and private big, business, and the court's conservatives on the side of poor landowners trying desperately to cling to their rights in the face of the oligarchic control of the apparati of power.

Tough as eminent domain rulings usually are, this one goes too far. This is not a highway, or a water treatment plant, or a police academy; it's not a government installation. It's some corrupt official's sleazy private deal with a corporation - and eminent domain should not apply. I'm no ardent libertarian; I believe, for instance, that the stock exchanges in this country exist only because of regulation, not despite regulation. I believe, as did the Founding Fathers, in government by the people. But this is deal-making run afoul of common sense.

It smacks of elitism, besides.

The so-called "liberal wing" of the court should be ashamed. So says this card-carrying member of the ACLU.

UPDATE: I like Shakespeare's Sister's response to conservatives blaming the ruling in this case on their old lockstep "liberal judges" routine:

What I don’t find funny is their constant refrain that this crackpot ruling was because of liberals. I haven’t heard a liberal yet who agrees with that shit, so shut it with the “liberal activist judges” crap. Here’s finally an issue on which we can agree; stop ruining it.

On Consulate Row

In real estate and realpolitick, location is everything. Strange then that fate (or John Lindsay perhaps) placed the New York consulate of Pakistan on East 65th Street, nearly back-to-back with the (you guessed it) Indian consulate on East 64th Street. Their staffs can easily converse over the back garden fence. One just north of the other; both a half a block in from Fifth Avenue and the Central Park Children's Zoo, near which today a gaggle of earnest New Yorkers rallied to support Pakistani human rights icon Mukhtaran Bibi.

As buses and taxis whisked toward the Plaza, and nannies and strollers and tourists tried to claim a path down the sidewalk next to the park, a coalition of human rights organization sent a stern and strong message to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf: it is patriotic to be a Muslim, a Pakistani, and a woman in support of Ms. Mukhtaran.

"President Musharraf has talked about enlightened moderation," said Amna Buttar, president of the Asian-American Network Against Abuse of Woman, which organized the public press conference. "Well, we are a group of enlightened and moderate Pakistani-Americans."

The groups involved included ANAA, Amnesty International, Turning Point, Human Rights First, and Women in Islam. Two dozen woman held placards with Mukhtar Mai's picture on them up for passersby and the traffic along Fifth Avenue. All of the speakers called on the Pakistani government to allow Ms. Mukhtaran to travel to the U.S. on the tour originally organized by the ANAA.

The speakers were passionate and eloquent, and time and again, they sought to counter the Musharraf argument that promoting the case of Mukhtar Mai is bad for Pakistan and for Islam. Pakistani-American social worker and activist Robina Niaz, founder of Turning Point, a New York-based organization offering services to Muslim women and families facing cultural, religious and other problems, put it best.

"Mukhtar Mai is a role model for all Pakistani women," she said. "Indeed, she is a role model for all women of the world."

No sign they got through, however. According to a new post on Kristof's blog, the Pakistani embassy handed out flyers saying that ANAA is actually an Indian-financed Hindu group of Pakistan-haters. Nice. But then again, location is everything.

Note: I was going to create a montage of the quickie camera pics I snapped with my Treo 650 today, but found that Technorati did it for me (left) by grabbing thumbnails via RSS from Flickr - and with captions. Neat.

Nothing Is Real

Let me take you down, cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real, and nothing to get hung about.

The sandy Ford Explorer sat catty-corner on the parkway verge, one wheel akimbo, spinning aimlessly in the suburban sun. Inside, the driver slumped pale and sweaty, hands gripping the wheel like cup hooks, a look of terror and uncertainty glued to his face like the parental warning sticker on a Beastie Boys CD.

Could he have heard that correctly? He fiddled with the radio dial a bit, scanning between stations. His brow was clammy with astonishment and a slowly creeping realization. Something was wrong. Very wrong. The traffic sped by, seemingly unaware. But the driver knew. Some kind of dimension had been crossed. In time and in space.

And in taste.

But there was no mistaking the sound of a dozen cheery, zippy voices, mincing about a midtown stage with smiles glued to mugs like cheap tourist NYC decals on plastic pimp cups. Yes, now it was all too loud and clear. The smarmy "I don't know how to love him" style of singing, now applied to Attica State and Woman is the Nigger of the World. That happy little tiptoe across the boards, the wry glance into the orchestra pit, and then - Music Man style - that up-tempo choral version of Mind Games. And there, the dippy little two-part harmony rendition of Cold Turkey.

Can't see no future
Can't see no sky! (Everybody now)

The driver forced himself to face it, to listen to what was certainly a sign of cultural doom (for middle-aged white guys, anyway), to open his ears the bile-raising strains of:

Lennon: The Musical.

Oh, wherefore art thou, Johnny Boy! What have they done to ye? Do they not recall the radical, the avant garde artist, the slightly crazed crooner? Have they forgotten the angry, Nixon-fighting exile? Do they not recall the sadistic brilliance of How Do You Sleep, when you slew the slack-kneed sagging of McCartney into follow-the-bouncing-ball pop hooey? Why do they foist on a dead man the very expression he reviled: Lennon's very own version of McCartney's Give My Regards to Broad Street?

Love him or hate him, anyone who heard Lennon's voice in its prime knows he doesn't deserve this cultural entombment.

I mean, isn't the Broadway version of Instant Karma - heck, I just feel like singin' and dancin'! - pretty much like a hip-hop version of Cab Calloway's Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby?

Or the orchestral send-up of Willie Dixon's Hoochie Coochie Man.

Or the classic Memphis rockabilly numbers by Elvis Presley amidst a schmaltzy Vegas revue.

Oh. Right. Got it.

Truth to Power

Apart from a test of wills with a military regime in an especially dangerous part of the world, what does the Mukhtaran Bibi story really mean? In his latest update today, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof makes that case that Mukhtar Mai's saga is emblematic of a larger struggle: to end ritual, sadistic, and nearly feudal sexual abuse of women.

And he adds a powerful kicker: the Bush Administration should take the lead in holding allies responsible for human rights abuses. Is this a Jimmy Carter-like call for human rights as American policy, doomed to draw snickers from the Georgetown-living, Cabernet-swilling realpolitickers?

I don't think so, and neither does Kristof. Indeed, if anything's apaprent in a post-9/11 world it is that our deals with the devil come back manifold, that we need to be active and aggressive in changing the world, and that human rights - in the long term - can have a foreign policy impact that will draw us closer to the Muslim world. There's nothing wrong with holding the Administration's feet to the fire, and with holding Mukhtar Mai out as a hero and a symbol, something Kristoff does very well today:

When Pakistan's prime minister visits next month, President Bush will presumably use the occasion to repeat his praise for President Pervez Musharraf as a bold leader "dedicated in the protection of his own people." Then they will sit down and discuss Mr. Bush's plan to sell Pakistan F-16 fighter jets capable of carrying nuclear weapons.

But here's a suggestion: How about the White House dropping word that before the prime minister arrives, he first return the passport of Mukhtaran Bibi, the rape victim turned human-rights campaigner, so that she can visit the United States?

Despite Mr. Bush's praise, General Musharraf shows more commitment to his F-16's than to his people. Now he's paying the price. Visiting New Zealand the last few days, he was battered by questions about why he persecuted a rape victim, forcing him to cancel interviews.

Pakistani newspapers savaged him for harming Pakistan's image. And the blogosphere has taken up Ms. Mukhtaran's case, with more than 100 blogs stirring netizens to send blizzards of e-mails to Pakistani consulates or to join protests planned for Wednesday and Thursday at Pakistani offices in New York and Washington.

Yet it's crucial to remember that Ms. Mukhtaran is only a window into a much larger problem - the neglect by General Musharraf's government of the plight of women and girls.

Did you note the "100 bloggers" reference? That's all of you, and many others whose posts and links I haven't had time to note. Call it a small, wired movement - only in today's world would the plight of a woman from Meerwala, Pakistan reach the eyes and ears of hundreds of thousands of concerned people around the world.

Now, let's put some feet on the pavement.

Tomorrow and the next day the group who planned Mukhtar Mai's trip to the United States - a trip General Musharraf doesn't want her to take - is holding protests against the Pakistani government in New York and Washington. Please turn out. Here's the latest press release:

PRESS CONFERENCE   
June 22, 2003

10:30 a.m – 12:30 p.m.

65th Street, Fifth Ave., New York

A press conference will be held on Wednesday June 22, 2005 at 10:30 a.m at 65th Street and Fifth Ave. in Manhattan.  The press conference is being sponsored by ANAA (Asian American Network Against Abuse of Women), Turning Point for Women and Families NY and Amnesty International, USA.
 
The press conference is being held to urge the Pakistani government to allow Mukhtaran Bibi to travel and speak freely within and outside Pakistan.  Representatives of ANAA, Turning Point, Amnesty International, Human Rights First will address the conference along with other well known rights advocates.         

As has been widely reported in the international media, Mukhtaran Bibi endured the harrowing tragedy of being sentenced to rape by a tribal jirga, maligned by her community and yet emerged courageous and committed to improving the society around her. Tragically, she is now refused the right to speak the truth about her ordeal while all the men who raped Mukhtaran Bibi are now free.

Mukhtaran Bibi was put under house arrest on June 9 only to be spirited away for a day and reproduced at a Press Conference organized by government officials. In the Press Conference she stated that she was foregoing her invitation to the United States to attend the ANAA Symposium on Violence against Women in South Asia.  In the mean time, while Pakistani government officials maintain she is "free to leave", police continue to surround her house and monitor all telephone conversations.  In addition, Mukhtaran Bibi's passport has been taken and is no longer in her possession. Victimized first at the hands of a tribal jirga and gang raped by twelve men, Mukhtaran Bibi has now been made to believe that telling her story and bringing attention to the plight of women like herself would make her "an enemy of Pakistan." 

ANAA is deeply disappointed at the Pakistan Government's efforts to thwart a public advocacy campaign that aims to draw attention to thousands of women in Pakistan who are regularly brutalized that result from a collusion between discriminatory laws, a patriarchal society and an establishment that fails to implement legislative and social reforms that would end the brutalization of women. We call on the Government of Pakistan to immediately ensure that those charged with the brutal crime will not endanger Mukhtaran Bibi or her family and will be brought to justice.

The legal, physical and psychological intimidation Mukhtaran Bibi has faced in recent days as a result of her desire to come to the United States is an example of the extreme lack of value placed on women lives and well being in Pakistan.  It also illustrates the repressive silence imposed on all victims of sexual violence

Together with Amnesty International, Turning Point, community and religious leaders and a range of women's advocacy and human rights organizations, we urge every one to join us in our efforts to ensure the safety of Mukhtaran Bibi and exert pressure on the Government of Pakistan to desist from their pressure tactics on her and her family, including granting Mukhtaran Bibi the freedom to speak and travel.

Let's be there!

[Cross-posted on Huffington]

A Free Woman?

Nicholas Kristof today celebrates the return from government detention to her home of Mukhtaran Bibi, the international hero and human rights symbol from rural Pakistani. If anyone deserves a victory lap, it's Kristof of the Times - who has brilliantly galvanized support worldwide for Ms. Mukhtaran, the victim of a so-called honor rape who turned her terrible plight into a celebrated cause for education and modernity and human rights.

But I suspect it's way too early to exchange high-fives, American style - and reading between the lines of Kristof's NYT column today, looking at the tone, I think he agrees. It's the end of a small skirmish, the beginning of a longer war. Ms. Mukhtaran is back home, but she still cannot travel, her future is still not certain, and the President of her country refuses to answer questions. First, excerpts from Kristoff:

Pakistani officials had just freed Ms. Mukhtaran and returned her to her village. She was exhausted, scared, relieved, giddy and sometimes giggly - and also deeply thankful to all the Pakistanis and Americans who spoke up for her.

"I'm so thankful to everyone that they keep a woman like me in mind," she said fervently. Told that lots of people around the world think she's a hero, she laughed and responded: "God is great. If some people think I'm a hero, it's only because of all those people who give me support."

That is so well said. For those who don't know, Ms. Mukhtaran was herself illiterate. The very schools she opened with her settlement money from the criminal case - schools she also opened to the children of the perpetrators - are teaching Mukhtaran Bibi to read and to write.

Is there a better story of redemption, courage, and leadership in the world?

Kristof continues his criticism of Musharraf (more in a moment on his latest moves) and you can clearly read in his column the limits he is facing in reporting on Ms. Mukhtaran's situation; they are close, he is protecting her. There are things he will not say. Read the tone. The details are slim.

Ms. Mukhtaran says she can't talk about what happened after the government kidnapped her. But this is what seems to have unfolded: In Islamabad, government officials ferociously berated her for being unpatriotic and warned that they could punish her family and friends. In particular, they threatened to have the father of a friend fired from his job.

Fittingly, the government is facing its own pressures. Government officials have denounced Pakistani aid groups for helping Ms. Mukhtaran, and Mr. Musharraf added that they were "as bad as the Islamic extremists." So now the aid groups are threatening to pull out of their partnership with the government.

Mr. Musharraf has helped in the war on terrorism and has managed Pakistan's economy well. But in my last column, I reluctantly concluded that he is "nuts," prompting a debate in Pakistan about whether this diagnosis was insolent or accurate. After Mr. Musharraf's latest remarks, I rest my case.

On Friday, Ms. Mukhtaran told me that one of the prime minister's aides had just called to offer to take her to the United States. It seems Mr. Musharraf wants to defuse the crisis by allowing Ms. Mukhtaran a tightly chaperoned tour of the U.S., controlled every step of her way.

"I said, 'No,' " she said. "I only want to go of my own free will."

Hats off to this incredible woman. President Musharraf may have ousted rivals and overthrown a civilian government, but he has now met his match - a peasant woman with a heart of gold and a will of steel.

Hats off indeed. Meanwhile, President Musharraf has been on a world tour, trying to bring support to his regime. In New Zealand, with the Mukhtaran story sweeping the blogosphere and the UK press (still silent in the U.S., Kristof notwithstanding), Musharraf cancelled two interviews. He's afraid. He's defensive. The free press in the land of the Lord of the Rings was all over the dictator. This in the New Zealand Herald:

Privately, General Musharraf is enraged at how Ms Mai's case has brought infamy to Pakistan. The President even threatened to "slap" a reporter "in the face" for publishing details in an international magazine about Ms Mai's defiance. Officials are desperate to hush up the brutal justice of the tribal hinterlands in Punjab.

And this insanity from Stuff, the online NZ magazine:

General Musharraf said he had done much to improve women's rights, probably more than New Zealand's two women prime ministers, but changes needed to evolve rather than be imposed.

Finally, there was this statement, widely reported, from opposition Green party leadership  in New Zealand (you know, the kind of statement people can make in free, democratic countries):

"Musharraf is all but a dictator, and the Prime Minister will be betraying the Pakistani people if she doesn't speak out strongly against his shocking human rights record during his visit here," Green Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Keith Locke said.

"It is good for New Zealand to have closer relations with Pakistan, but they must be accompanied by plain speaking on human rights.

"The routine torture of political dissidents in Musharraf's prisons has been condemned around the world, including in US State Department reports. Pakistan's Human Rights Commission estimates 5000 cases of police torture a year, including beating, whipping the soles of feet, and administering electric shocks.

"Miss Clark says she will be discussing counter-terrorism with Mr Musharraf. We ask her not to accept excuses from the President that the 'war on terror' justifies the use of force against prisoners and their detention without trial. The truth is that many ordinary Pakistanis have been terrorised by the country's security forces."

Mr Musharraf had also failed to protect women's rights, and our Prime Minister should relay our disquiet, Mr Locke said.

"At least 1500 women are killed in Pakistan each year for 'dishonouring' their families. Rape victims are discouraged from laying a complaint. Women can even be charged for the crimes of family members."

The kicker today is this: nothing on the Sunday morning television shows, nothing on the nightly news, nothing on the big mainstream media sites (except for Kristof). We've moved a nice-sized corner of the blogosphere this week folks, but when does the American media wake up from the Michael Jackson case, the Terry Schiavo case, and the Runaway Bride - and stand up for human rights and women around the world?

And where is President Bush?

Rape and Public Relations

As the BCC's Karachi bureau chief Aamer Ahmed Khan noted in a tough, incisive article yesterday, the Pakistani goverment of General Musharraf faces a public relations nightmare over its detention and intimidation of international human rights hero Mukhtaran Bibi.

He is right. Musharraf's government, established by military coup over a democratically elected administration, has spent five long years attempting to achieve legitimacy on the international scene. Ironically, the attacks of 9/11 helped, because President Bush needed an ally with some muscle next-door to the al Quaeda camps in Afghanistan. Musharraf was at the right place at the right time, and has been embraced as an ally by the U.S. Administration. (For Americans who know little of the region's politics, this is essentially the dominant view of Pakistan). The firestorm over Mukhtar Mai's treatment by Pakistan - led by Nick Kristof at the Times, the British media, and a determined cadre of bloggers - is a real and present threat to Musharraf's prestige in the liberal, western world.

The trouble for Pakistan is this: Musharraf agrees.

That is to say, his government views Mukhtaran Bibi as a public relations problem - her speaking tour of the United States, organized by the ANAA, could only spell trouble for Musharraf. And Musharraf needs support in the State Department, at the White House, and on Capitol Hill. The simple solution was to take Mukhtar Mai into detention, intimidate her into retracting her visa request, and hold her passport indefinately.

But it was also the simpleton's solution in a freely-wired world that can easily route around Musharraf's uniforms and tell Mukhtar Mai's story to anyone with a connection.

Yet the apologists continue their braying about patriotism and PR. Their work in the pro-Musharraf Pakistani media is obvious and really not worth quoting; generally it goes like this: Musharraf is "on Mukhtar Mai's side, this is a Pakistani problem, we are handling it." More troubling are the views of the prominent social critic Dr. Aslam Abdullah, a naturalized U.S. citizen who is editor of the Muslim Observer and director of the Islamic Society of Nevada, Las Vegas, as well as the director of the Muslim Electorates Council of America. Dr. Adbullah's work appears on sites like alt.muslim and Islamicity - sites that are inherently progressive because they allow many differing viewpoints of the modern Islamic world. In a nutshell, this is Dr. Abdullah's view of the case (from Islamicity):

This case exposes an aspect of Pakistan's social reality and must be condemned, but when such cases are selectively exploited by government officials and special interest groups for political purposes, it also exposes a hypocrisy that must also be taken to task.

Ah yes, I can see it now: from his perch in Vegas, Dr. Abdullah is going the "special interest group" route or the well-worn "outside agitators" route used for so long in the old segregationist South. Here's more:

It is not their concern for the victims of rape as their commitment to their own agenda that has brought them in the forefront. If they were serious about her case, they would have allowed the judicial process to take its full course before deciding any action specially in a situation when the highest executive authority of the country himself stood by her and assured the nation that justice shall be done.

By bringing her to the US or to the UN, they were not helping Mukhtaran but promoting their own agendas. What was done to her was inhumane and Un-Islamic? The feudal and tribal system that promotes this kind of action must be challenged because who knows how many Mukhtarans have been living in the agony of harm done to them. By exposing her to a society where there is a growing anti-Islamic environment the activists are primarily serving their agenda to humiliate those who stand for Islam or Pakistan.

What a load of dung. Sure, my agenda is to "humiliate those who stand for Islam or Pakistan." That's clearly Nick Kristof's agenda. And it's the agenda of the 100 bloggers who have sounded the call in Mukhtaran Bibi's defense. Throw in the Guardian, the Independent, and the BBC - all of which have been all over the story. It's the ANAA's agenda, alright. And that of MercyCorps and Amnesty International. And it's surely a goal of the U.S. State Department, which lodged a needed but too-mild (in my view) protest of Ms. Mai's treatment by Pakistan.

Read this well Dr. Abdullah, and you agents of President Musharraf, and everyone else who would see Mukhtaran Bibi and her supporters as just another public relations problem in the cause of power and regional hegemony - as somehow disloyal to state and religion:

It is Mukhtaran Bibi who stands for Pakistan and for Islam. She is clearly a patriot and a Muslim.

UPDATE: The ANAA, which had sponsored Mukhtar Mai's trip, has organized two protest meetings this coming week in New York and in Washington, DC. I will try to attend the New York conference. Please turn out and pass this along. Here is the info:

1. NY PRESS CONFERENCE:

Date: Wednesday, 22nd June 2005
Time: 10:30-12:30 PM
Location: 65th Street, Fifth Ave
New York, NY 10021
Directions by subway: Take the N/R train to Fifth Ave.
Open to Public. Please bring your friends.

2. WASHINGTON DC Protest Rally:

Date: Thursday, 23rd June 2005
Time:12:00-2:00PM
Location: Outside the EMBASSY OF PAKISTAN-WASHINGTON DC
3517 International Court, NW
Washington DC, 20008
Open to Public. Please bring your friends.

Mukhtaran Bibi Speaks

While President Musharraf continues his globe-hopping within the nominal "war on terror" alliance of nations, reviewing the troops of New Zealand yesterday, a real Pakistani hero is back in her Punjab home, still unable to travel on a planned goodwill tour of the United States.

But even as Musharraf travels in his Presidential jet, the word is spreading. Even as he defends his abyssmal record, the word is spreading. Like wildfire, the immoral detention of Mukhtaran Bibi has taken on a media-based life of its own. Musharraf's thugs can take her passport, threaten her lawyers, and place her under house arrest - but in a wired world, ever more connected and free to write, to post, to speak, word is spreading. We're routing around President Musharraf and the military of Pakistan. And Mukhtar Mai's words are spreading.

Today, I listened to an interview via telephone and translator, conducted by reporter Lisa Mullins for The World audio service. Mukhtar Mai refused to discuss her current situation, and was clearly nervous about pushing the government too far. She does, after all, have to live in her country; she is committed to her schools and her province, and to the children who will embrace the modern world. But Mullins was good, and pressed softly; here are some exerpts (some paraphrasing on the questions) - it was very moving:

Your village thought you would kill yourself?

They believe that a woman who has been dishonored like this would be better off dead.

Did you ever consider sucide?

In the beginning, I thought about it, how other girls who go through this kill themselves, but then I thought that the one who gives us life demands life.

What do you think of all the attention you've gotten from people outside of Pakistan who have taken up your cause?

I am very thankful to them. One person alone cannot do this. I am only able to stand up if the whole world is behind me.

Do you feel safe now? Does the international attention make you safer?

The little hope that I've got for justice is because of the support I'm getting from the rest of the world. I think maybe if I get more support from outside of Pakistan, I may get justice.

Nick Kristof's column on Sunday may well shed more light on the situation - he has a longstanding relationship with Mukhtar Mai and has really led the charge in telling her story - but more and more people are getting involved. I think we're up over 70 bloggers signed onto this effort now (I will attempt to keep the list as much as possible). The good folks over at Huffington Post invited me to write something for them and I did (it's here - nothing new, except for the wider audience). The Columbia Journalism Review's Samantha Henig did a very nice story on the blogging effort on Mukhtar Mai's behalf yesterday - please take a look, some of you are mentioned. And last night, this whole thing got a nice pop from CNN on Inside Politics; the transcript is here.

Meanwhile, the Asian-American Network Against Abuse of Women, the organization which was sponsoring Mukhtar Mai's speaking tour, has decided to protest the Pakistani government. It will hold two press conferences - on in DC and one in New York - next week. New York will be June 22 from 10:30 to 12:30,and Washington will be the next day from noon to 2 pm. They are requesting people to sign up in advance via these email addresses: [email protected] or [email protected] - let's get plenty of bloggers and friends away from the keyboards and face to face for a while!

UPDATE: This in from Kristof's forum late this afternoon. The guy has terrific sources and a knack for pointing out official hypocrisy of the highest order:

Today a Pakistani government official I know called me and we had a long talk about Mukhtaran – and about Today a Pakistani government official I know called me and we had a long talk about Mukhtaran – and about Pakistan’s refusal to give me a visa to visit her. This official emphasized that while Pakistan had made mistakes in handling the case, they were by lower officials and that President Musharraf himself was on Mukhtaran’s side.

Half an hour later, I found this wire story from Auckland, New Zealand:

Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said Friday that he ordered a travel ban on the victim of a village council-ordered gang rape to protect Pakistan's image abroad.

Musharraf said Mukhtar Mai, whose rape was ordered to punish her family for her brother's alleged affair with a woman from another family, was being taken to the United States by foreign nongovernment organizations "to bad-mouth Pakistan" over the "terrible state" of the nation's women.

"She was told not to go" to the United States to appear on media there to tell her story, Musharraf told the Auckland Foreign Correspondents' Club.

He said NGOs are "Westernized fringe elements" which "are as bad as the Islamic extremists."

Musharraf acknowledged placing the 36-year-old on the list of people banned from leaving Pakistan while responding to media questions during a three-day visit to New Zealand….

Musharraf said atrocities are perpetrated daily against women in developing nations round the world -- "in Kashmir and many other places."

"I don't want to project the bad image of Pakistan," he told the journalists' club.

"I am a realist. Public relations is the most important thing in the world," he said, adding that media misperceptions would discourage tourists from traveling to Pakistan.

"Pakistan is the victim of poor perceptions. The reality is very different," Musharraf said.

He defended his regime's treatment of women, saying it was working for their emancipation. Rape was not "a rampant malaise Pakistan suffers from every day," he said.

Well, where to start? NGOs as "Westernized fringe elements" as bad as extremists? Rape as a "rampant malaise." Public relations as more importan than human life. And "poor perceptions." A disgrace.