Response to Yvonne Ridley's 'Truth about US justice'

Zahir Ebrahim | Project Humanbeingsfirst.org

Thursday, February 11, 2010



Yvonne Ridley's anguished opinion 'Truth about US justice' appeared in Wednesday's edition of Pakistan's prominent English Daily, The News, on February 10, 2010.

In my view, the prima facie “Truth about US justice” is that “truth” is in the service of empire! The madam Ambassador of the United States to Pakistan has only executed the core purpose of her post rather faithfully in the service of her empire. “Truth” in these times, like everything else, including science, politics, history, literature, cinema, and of course political-science, is continually put in the diabolical service of empire.

It's not like the Pakistanis don't know it – we even have the East India Company's achievements to guide us – but apparently, we, the 'untermensch', never quite seem to learn its lessons. And that's really the only diabolical secret of the enduring hidden strength of the golem behind all its guns and butter offerings to its victims before slaughtering them. The veritable strength of its 'Samson locks': our own price!

The former Director of the ISI, Brig. Tirmazi, narrated the following about us Pakistanis in his 1996 book Profiles of Intelligence:

' ... It would be fair to ask what we [the ISI] did to counter the US machinations? Well we did not, and could not do any thing beyond reporting to the highest authority in the country. There are reasons for our inaction:

One, neither the ISI nor the IB is designed or equipped to counter the machinations of a Super Power.

Two, an important factor is our own price. A lot has been said and written by some of our American friends about the price of a Pakistani. Dr. Andrew V. Corry, US Counsel General at Lahore, once said, “Price of a Pakistani oscillates between a free trip to the US and a bottle of whisky.” He may not be too far wrong. We did observe some highly placed Pakistanis selling their conscience, prestige, dignity and self-respect for a small price.' (page 45, emphasis added)

The point of this unsubtle resignation request by the courageous Ms. Ridley to show some moral backbone among the errand boys and girls of empire, even as it is merely being rhetorical, is entirely meaningless even in its rhetoric for two reasons: 1) it is a moral request in a global governance system which is beyond good and evil, one which brazenly asserts “hegemony is as old as mankind”, and which puts morality itself directly in the service of empire; and 2) given that the highest-order-bit of the systemic disease among the 'untermensch' has apparently already been apportioned as our national destiny!

Crises are defining moments for nations, and for a people. Some rise to it. Others fall before it. Pakistan as a nation has evidently decided the latter course of action – and this is palpably apparent from the statements of Pakistan's own Ambassador to Washington:

'“Foreign relations are not discussed in poetry, ... Saddam Husain’s last speech was also full of poetry but it could not save him or his nation”', and that 'relationships between nations are based on ground realities'.

Read its full deconstruction here:  http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2009/11/bringing-back-thelost-zen-to-pakistan.html

While it is true that most in Pakistan are very upset by what has befallen Dr. Aafia Siddiqui as yet another victim of “imperial mobilization” – only one among the millions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Pakistan's Tribal-Belt, all along the 'arc of crisis' in the “global zone of percolating violence”, etc. – the handful who did publicly protest this latest visitation of empire's justice upon a frail tortured woman in a nation of almost 200 million, did so only symbolically. And this show of moral bravado despite the fact that Dr. Aafia has become the inextricable symbol of the summation of all the abhorrent injustices purveyed upon women in wars – from rape to rape – and no mere words can ever capture her indescribable agony! Yet, most Pakistanis have only expressed our moral outrage and displayed our fine moral tenor from the comforts of our living room. Just as we did when Iraqi women were being raped, tortured, and disappeared in the service of empire not too long ago. Then we returned back to our daily grind.

Symbols of morality, like talismans, are no match for hard orchestrated events of “imperial mobilization”. And especially when arsonists are running all the fire brigades in a nation where its masses are more closely tied to their daily bread than to matters of state or national survival. The apathetic public well understands that many more arsonists eagerly await in the wings to take the place of their predecessors. The masses are well aware that the Pakistani elite, the ever patriotic praetorian guards, and their coterie of miserable sycophants have already learnt that while one's abject service to empire can sometimes be hazardous to one's existential wellness, it also routinely calls for new faces in many a chief's seat and presents the fabulous opportunity to loot and plunder anew in the name of patriotism.

Therefore, Ms. Yvonne Ridley's impassioned moral hint to the distinguished American Ambassador to Pakistan:

'She should then pick up the phone to the US president and tell him to release Aafia and return Pakistan’s most loved, respected and famous daughter and reunite her with the two children who are still missing. Then she should re-read her letter of August 16, 2008 and write another ... one of resignation.',

will only deprive madam Ambassador of a well-earned livelihood and comfortable retirement for no fault of her own. She merely faithfully discharged her service contract to her own empire. And it will do nothing for Pakistan either, for we, as a nation, are serving exactly the same interests. When these aren't even our own!

I humbly recommend instead that madam American Ambassador be the next in line to be awarded the glorious Freedom Medal by the White House. President Obama has already received his Nobel Peace Prize.



Zahir Ebrahim

Project Humanbeingsfirst.org

Un-apologetically a plebe Pakistani,

Author of: The Pakistan Decapitation Papers

 http://humanbeingsfirst.wordpress.com/files/2009/11/pakistan-decapitation-papers-2nd-edition-nov042009.pdf



Source URL:  http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2010/02/resp-yvonneridley-truth-abt-us-justice.html

Source PDF:  http://humanbeingsfirst.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/resp-yvonneridley-truth-abt-us-justice-february112010.pdf



Response to Yvonne Ridley's 'Truth about US justice' By Zahir Ebrahim