Malala Yusufzai: Victim of Barbaric Terror and Dirty Politics

[Peregrine]

I am reflecting the sentiments of my people. They have had enough of the drone strikes even though they are not subjected to them.

It doesn't matter where I am. I was born in Pakistan and my heart is with Pakistan. If you want to troll take your fiilth somewhere else.

Or you can do what American-Indians did it in Gujrat............. I can pelt presidency in Islamabad with rotten eggs for a Mac book pro.

 

[RazPaK]

Or you can do what American-Indians did it in Gujrat............. I can pelt presidency in Islamabad with rotten eggs for a Mac book pro.

Yaar, mac-book pro mera lun. I care about Pakistani children more than anything.

 

[prabhakar]

The only thing I can do living in the US is protest. I write to my congressman and support anti-drone rallies.

Have u thought of giving up your american nationality because most of you consider US as a terrorist state ?

 

[RazPaK]

Have u thought of giving up your american nationality because most of you consider US as a terrorist state ?

I consider US leadership as a terrorist entity. Never the US. US and her people are not bad people. I love living here, but at the same time there are certain foreign policies that I don't agree with.

 

[sms]

I am reflecting the sentiments of my people. They have had enough of the drone strikes even though they are not subjected to them.

It doesn't matter where I am. I was born in Pakistan and my heart is with Pakistan. If you want to troll take your fiilth somewhere else.

NO trolling intended on such serious topic. She is a true Patriot and trend setter. Many will emulate her in future.

I repeat "the drone attacks must stop and no civilian life must be sacrificed"

On side note, ..
- Aren't the drone attacks are part of a deal made between Pakistan Govt and USA?
- Isn't Pakistani Govt is run by elected person representing Pakistani awam and can be called voice of Pakistan?
- In short it's Pakistan's desire to get attacked by drones.

So attacking Govt (as you want to do) ..will be an attack on people of Pakistan (elected Pakistani people) and put you in the same category Pakistani people and PA fighting on daily basis?

Spare few minutes to thing. I's like to hear your thoughts from this prospective.

 

[Spring Onion]

why are you saying 'YOU' with a pak flag??

Because i am NOT YOU neither Pakistani flag is for guys like YOU.

this flag is for people like Malala

 

[Zarvan]

Islamabad: When the time came to choose medical treatment for Malala Yousafzai, the 14-year-old Pakistani schoolgirl who defied the Taliban and then was gunned down by them, her family and doctors faced a world of possibilities after a global outpouring of advice and offers of assistance.

Whatever they chose, a medical jet from the United Arab Emirates was waiting to take her to hospitals abroad. Pakistani and American officials had talked about arranging treatment for her at the giant American military hospital at Landstuhl, Germany.

A well-developed offer came from former Representative Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, Mark E. Kelly, who had gone through their own treatment ordeal after she was shot in the head last year. They had gone as far as to line up a noted neurosurgeon and had even arranged a transportation option of their own to the United States - with a television celebrity offering to quietly foot the fuel bill.

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Those were among dozens of offers from across the world. But when the time came to fly the wounded schoolgirl out of Pakistan, in the early hours of Monday, a deal from Britain to accept Malala at a specialized hospital in Birmingham proved hard to beat.

But first, to get her there.

Out of worry that the Taliban would fulfill their promise to take a second shot at the teenage activist, the dawn run from the military hospital in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, to the airport was shrouded in secrecy, said Rehman Malik, Pakistan's interior minister.

"I directed the airport staff to remain incognito, because there was an alert, threats from the Taliban that they would kill her," he said. "We were very careful."

When the Emirati jet carrying her and a team of doctors landed in Birmingham on Monday afternoon, most agreed that the decision made both medical and diplomatic sense.

Britain and Pakistan have a long history stretching back to British rule on the subcontinent; doctors at the hospital, the Queen Elizabeth II Memorial Center, have treated hundreds of British soldiers wounded in fighting against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan.

"We do, unfortunately, have a considerable expertise in treating that sort of bullet injury," Dr. David Rosser, the hospital's medical director, told reporters.

Pakistani, British and American officials took pains on Monday to emphasize that the final decision about Ms. Yousafzai's treatment had been based on medical grounds above all else.

"We never saw this in a political light," one senior American official said on the condition of anonymity. "This was a humanitarian story, not a political one."

Yet there was little doubt that each of the possibilities, especially given the diplomatic tensions between Pakistan and America, carried its own political risk.

Initially, Pakistani officials had approached the American Embassy for help, officials from both countries said.

Two options were discussed, Interior Minister Malik said: the possible use of an American military facility in Oman, and evacuation to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. "We scrambled like hell," one American official said. "We were standing by, ready to do anything."

There were also private American offers - from Ms. Giffords and Mr. Kelly, plus at least three other "serious" parties, the American official added. One came from an American businessman with ties to senior figures in the Pakistan government; another came from a constituent of Senator John Kerry, who has longstanding political ties to the country.

Meanwhile Ms. Giffords's doctor, Dr. Dong Kim, the head of neurosurgery at the Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, got ready to travel to Pakistan. Mr. Kelly, a former astronaut, said he had recruited an American celebrity, whom he declined to name, to finance the fuel costs of an emergency plane trip from Peshawar to Houston.

"We were just trying to offer the best help available, as we understand it from being down this road," Mr. Kelly said.

Mr. Kelly also pressed political contacts in the White House, State Department and Pakistan to help push the offer through. He said that Johns Hopkins University made a similar offer.

But over the weekend, Mr. Kelly was told by a senior State Department official that "Pakistan has decided to solve this domestically."

The British connection, however, had already been well established at that point through two doctors, both experts in trauma injuries and one of whom was of Pakistani descent, who happened to be visiting Pakistan at the time of the shooting last week.

The medics were quickly drafted into the effort to save Ms. Yousafzai's life. They were flown to Peshawar to help with the initial diagnosis and then on to the hospital in Rawalpindi. They shared in decisions about how long to keep the patient in Pakistan, officials from Britain and Pakistan said, declining to name the two.

Early Monday morning, the medics accompanied a Pakistani brigadier in watching over Ms. Yousafzai during the flight to Britain. The air ambulance that ferried them had been offered by the United Arab Emirates, a country with close political ties to President Asif Ali Zardari.

By several accounts there were sound medical reasons why the American offers of help to Ms. Yousafzai were not accepted, including the lengthier flight to the United States.

But Britain may also have held other attractions. While the United States and Pakistan have engaged in diplomatic warfare in recent years - over the Osama bin Laden raid, drone strikes and the controversy surrounding the Central Intelligence Agency contractor Raymond Davis - Britain has carefully cultivated a less adversarial relationship.

Britain has been a major aid donor to Pakistan for decades, and many high-ranking Pakistanis, in political life and in the country's armed forces, have been educated or trained in Britain.

"If we had an offer of British help and American help, all things being equal we would go with the British," one senior Pakistani official said. "It makes more sense."

Exact details of Ms. Yousafzai's condition remain hazy. Doctors say she requires treatment for a serious skull fracture, caused by a bullet that passed through her head. Later, she may require long-term neurological rehabilitation.

Dr. Rosser, the hospital director, said his doctors would make a full assessment after carrying out a series of diagnostic tests, including neurosurgical imaging to determine the extent of the injury to her brain.

Ms. Yousafzai's schoolmaster father, Ziauddin, who inspired her to start her high-profile campaign for girls' education and women's rights in 2009, did not travel with her to Birmingham yesterday, Pakistani officials said.

His passport had expired, and had to be renewed on an emergency basis. He and his wife are to arrive at their daughter's bedside over the coming days.

Adam B. Ellick contributed reporting from Cambridge, Mass., and John F. Burns from London.


© 2012, The New York Times News Service

 

[S_O_C_O_M]

I consider US leadership as a terrorist entity. Never the US. US and her people are not bad people. I love living here, but at the same time there are certain foreign policies that I don't agree with.

don't feed the trolls

 

[Peregrine]

I care about Pakistani children more than anything.

Ok. Allow me to present things in the simplest way possible.

Razpak: If drone attacks are not stopped, people in Pak will rebel against government.
Indians: oh u r in usa u cant do squat.
Peregrine: did u forget how american hindus caused hindu muslim riots in Gujrat only by financing extreme hindus?

So bottom line is: Even while sitting in USA you can do a lot.

 

[Leader]

Latest update:


the doctors say some of the damaged pieces of her skull may require replacement.


your prayers are required for the kid !!

 

[S_O_C_O_M]

 

[Peregrine]

So she will have metal plates? I hope they are not required.

 

[Zarvan]

So she will have metal plates? I hope they are not required.

No they will use bones to repair her head and give her the correct shape or the original shape which she had

 

[mjnaushad]

Pakistanis I met today didn't talk Malala but cricket. Yet another example that Talibs aren't the only Pakistanis with their minds messed up, yes?

you got that right...

 

[TalibanSwatter]

Feisal Naqvi

Two days after Malala Yousufzai was attacked by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Imran Khan went to the hospital in which she was being treated to show his concern regarding her condition. And yet, when asked a day earlier why he didn’t directly condemn the TTP, Mr Khan had responded as follows:

‘We have local affiliates and supporters. Sure I can give big statements against the Taliban but that would make them [supporters] Taliban targets.”

Shame on you, Mr Khan.

Since you have chosen to present yourself as a potential leader of this country, let me make something clear to you: leaders can’t be cowards. And for you to make that statement while also purporting to sympathise with a girl injured precisely because she stood up for principles that you don’t have the courage to defend is not just cowardice but hypocrisy of the highest order.

Let me break down my last statement. Malala Yousufzai was attacked by the TTP because she stood up for things like the right of girls to a fair education. You have condemned that attack. That means you think Malala was right and her attackers were wrong. At the same time, you refuse to display the same bravery as Malala by openly condemning her attackers.

What does it say about you, Mr Khan, that a 14-year-old girl has more guts than you do? Had she been awake, what would you have said to her? Would you have told her not to be so stupid next time? Would you have told her to just accept the TTP’s belief that women are inferior? Would you have told her that Pakistan needs more cowards, not people like her?

Shame on you, Mr Khan.


Since Mr Khan dropped his clanger, the sentient part of the PTI has attempted to cloak his cowardice with a lot of doubletalk about drones, the war in Afghanistan and the root causes of evil. None of that suffices to excuse Mr Khan’s cowardice.

Let’s begin with drones. So far as I understand it, his argument is that the root cause of the evil is the US war in Afghanistan and that militants like the TTP are driven into acts of hatred by the violence unleashed by the US and now perpetuated through drone attacks.

This is bullshit of a high order.

The fundamental fact that Mr Khan and his cohorts either fail or deliberately refuse to appreciate is that the TTP and the Afghan Talibs are two very different groups.

The Afghan Talibs consist of groups indigenous to Afghanistan whose primary aim is to overthrow the US’s supported government of Afghanistan and to take over power in Afghanistan. Afghan Talibs have a beef with the state of Pakistan only to the extent that the state of Pakistan helps the US in fighting those Talibs. Many of the leaders of the Afghan Talibs have taken up residence in Fata and Balochistan, just across the Pak-Afghan border. It is these leaders in Fata who have been targeted by the US through drone attacks. If the US was to leave Afghanistan tomorrow and if the Afghan Talibs were to retake power in Afghanistan, the Afghan Talibs would have no fundamental dispute with Pakistan.


The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan consists of groups indigenous to Pakistan whose primary aim is to overthrow the elected government of Pakistan and to take over power in Pakistan. The TTP does not accept the legitimacy of the Pakistani state. The TTP attacks the citizens of Pakistan through suicide bombs and kills Pakistani soldiers. Even if the US leaves Afghanistan tomorrow and even if the Afghan Talibs take over Kabul, the TTP will continue to fight in Pakistan, continue to kill Pakistani soldiers and continue to attack people like Malala Yousufzai. Conflating the TTP with the Afghan Talibs into one giant amorphous mass is not just stupid, it’s criminally stupid. It is at the same order of analysis as “two legs good, four legs bad.”


The distinction between the two groups is in fact made more evident by drone attacks. The state of Pakistan does not have drones and therefore does not use drones to fight the TTP. The US does have drones and it does use them to attack the Afghan Talibs but with a few very limited exceptions such as Baitullah Mehsud, there have been no drone attacks against the TTP. Trying to justify the TTP’s actions with reference to drones is therefore idiotic. One may as well justify the TTP with reference to poverty in Swaziland or Pakistan’s failure to win a World Cup match against India.

Please note that distinguishing between the TTP and the Afghan Talibs is not the same as saying that drone attacks are justified: that is an entirely different debate. It probably does not behove the sovereign state of Pakistan to meekly accept the invasion of its airspace by the US. But even if Pakistan should be aggressively acting against drones, that has nothing to do with the challenge to Pakistan’s sovereignty by the TTP. And if you, Mr Khan, cannot understand that logic, then you are unfit to lead this country.


Let me make another thing clear: Mr Khan says that it is a tragedy for Pakistan to be bombing its own people. Actually, no.

States use violence against their own citizens all the time. A citizen who steals is jailed for theft. A citizen who kills another person is executed for murder. And citizens who take up arms against their own country are guilty of treason and thereby liable to be shot.The same goes for the “root cause” argument. Frankly, I couldn’t care less what inspires or motivates the TTP. I know that the TTP doesn’t accept the legitimacy of my country or my elected government. I know that they kill my fellow citizens. I know that they kill the soldiers who fight for my security. I don’t need to know the “root cause” of the TTP’s beliefs any more than I need to know about the childhood traumas of a psychopath threatening my family.


Pakistan doesn’t need cowards, Mr Khan. Shame on you for adding to their number.