Taseer raises Hudaybia case spectre, Esposito exposes Friedman, Uri Avnery, Bird’s Eye View

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Taseer raises Hudaybia case spectre Although main leaders of the PPP are cautious not to open a front against the PML-N, Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer has attacked the Sharifs and demanded re-opening of the Hudaybia Paper Mills case and a probe into the $20 million money laundering scam. ‘There are evidences in Hudaybia Mills and the money laundering cases and the courts should hear them,’ Mr Taseer said while talking to reporters after distributing prizes among top scorers in Governor’s Cup Golf Tournament here on Sunday. ‘Mian Shahbaz Sharif’s qualification issue should also be taken up for simultaneously keeping both the provincial assembly seats he (Mr Shahbaz) had won,’ he said.

John L. Esposito: Tom Friedman on Muslims and Terrorism: Getting it Wrong Again Thomas Friedman, in his Dec. 15 column "www.jihad.com" repeats and reinforces the same tired, totally incorrect, but commonly-made generalization preached in his July 9, 2005 column, "If it's a Muslim Problem, It Needs a Muslim Solution," that "no major Muslim cleric or religious body has ever issued a fatwa condemning Osama bin Laden." In his most recent column, Friedman continues to assert, despite readily available information to the contrary, that " a "violent, jihadist minority seems to enjoy the most 'legitimacy' in the Muslim world today" and that "Few political and religious leaders dare to speak out against them in public"....."How many fatwas -- religious edicts -- have been issued by the leading bodies of Islam against Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda?" Friedman asks and then answers his own question with "Very few." For a more comprehensive list of statements made by individual leaders and organizations pre and post- 9/11, attacks in Europe and elsewhere, click here.

Uri Avnery: 'Oybama' THIS WEEK I enjoyed an hour of happiness. I was on my way home, after collecting William Polk's new book about Iran. I admire the wisdom of this former State Department official. I was walking on the seaside promenade, when I was seized by a desire to go down to the seashore. I sat down on a chair on the sand, sipped a coffee and smoked an Arab water-pipe, the only smoke I allow myself from time to time. A ray of the mild winter sun painted a golden path on the water, and a lone surfer rode on the white foam of the waves.

Bird’s Eye View Pakistan’s gift from Washington is the usual: food coupons wrapped in a set of demands. Rarely has a wartime alliance been as fraught with tension as the US-Pak war against terror. Roosevelt and Stalin were more compatible. This had nothing to do with personality. They had no confusion about the identity or nature of the enemy. When last reports came in, America was sending Drones to kill Jalaluddin and Sirajuddin Haqqani in their suspected hideouts in North Waziristan. The Pakistan establishment considers them past and future assets, and potential rulers of Afghanistan once American troops begin to depart in 18 months, leaving a crumbling Karzai regime in their wake. A second Drone target was Hafiz Gul Bahadur, who has a truce with the Pak army. The short-term Washington interest is now in open confrontation with the long-term Islamabad perspective. America is engaged in one battle from the air, Pakistan in a separate one on the ground.