[Dawn] WAKE-UP calls are rare in a country as violent as Pakistain. But as desensitised to bloodshed as we have become, a single day in which well over 100 people die in several incidents of terrorism and assassination across the country is impossible to get through without thinking about where we are headed as a nation. Thursday laid out, in gory detail, the realities that we collectively face today: the range of communities under threat, including Shias, security forces and the police, journalists, religious organizations, Fata's rustics, and those simply caught in the crossfire. How widespread the threat is, from Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... to Quetta to Swat ...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat... in a single day. How many causes are being fought for with violence, from sectarian hatred and religious differences to separatism and ethnic or tribal feuds. And, most importantly, how underprepared we remain despite many unfortunate incidents to learn from.
Thursday's events pointed both to how much we know and to how much we don't. The motive and actors behind the Swat attack on the Tableeghi Jamaat and the shooting to death in Bloody Karachi of a number of labourers from the tribal areas remain unclear, demonstrating how varied the threats are. But the kabooms against Hazara Shias in Quetta were simply the deadliest of a string of attacks on the community in and around the city over the past year. And consecutive kabooms have taken place before, with those rushing to the scene, including media persons, having been caught in previous incidents of second kabooms closely following a first at the same place. Swat still contains a heavy military and police presence that has been there since the 2009 operation. Baloch grievances have been lingering for years and attacks by Baloch nationalists on the Frontier Corps are old news. So while some threats are new and unexplained, others have by now developed a pattern, stem from a known problem or take place in areas that are heavily guarded.
Thursday's events were enabled, then, by massive failures on the part a range of institutions, from the government and the media to the military, the police and intelligence agencies. No bold political solutions for Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... have been worked out. No decisive military action has been launched in North Wazoo. Intelligence gathering is inadequate and poor coordination between intelligence agencies and the police means attacks are rarely prevented. No sustained national consensus has been built against terrorism and violent extremism, for which the media is also to blame. How long can Pakistain survive in the face of such a complete failure to fend off internal threats?
Posted by: Fred ||
01/12/2013 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Pakistan
#1
They;re Killing each other?
More powe to them, soon they'll be extinct.
And Islam as well.
Goodbye, don't let the door hit you in the Quran on the way out.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
01/12/2013 1:41 Comments ||
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#1
Westerners tend to lose sight* of the fact that Islam is the most militaristic and controlling of all the major religions. Unlike the other faiths, Islam established itself in war and initially spread largely by military conquest.
Never forget that fact. The last major attempt of conquest against Christian Europe was turned back at the gates of Vienna in 1683.
* We don't lose sight. It's buried by the Left that won't talk in truth. They'll play the guilt card about slavery, but won't mention all the centuries before the New World was known by Europe, the Muslim Arabs were running slaving expeditions to Sub-Shara Africa to support the slave trade through Cairo to Damascus and Baghdad.
Here is a grab from the video below of Charles Krauthammer holding forth on a complete irrelevancy in the gun-control pushes being made by the Democrats.
The normally-astute Charles thinks that the administration's goals in in radical gun-control measures are about reducing gun crimes and killings. Of course it's not (see the update to this post). The objective is to increase government control over the lives of Americans in any way they can.
...I have explained before that the fundamental error the Right in general has made for more than a half century is that the main contentions with the Left are about policy. They are not.
...when the Democrats start work on a policy initiative, it is not about the policy, it is about changing the way ordinary Americans think of themselves in relation to government.
The reason the Right is going to lose the upcoming gun-control fight is because they think the issue is about facts
#1
The reason the Right is going to lose the upcoming gun-control fight is because they think the issue is about facts
The Right is going to lose the gun-control fight? The House members are aware that elections are coming up in less than two years. The gun-control issue is a toxic issue if you are in favor of gun-control and want to get elected. I sense people are digging in on this issue and it is the line in the sand. They are aware that all the gun-control legislation is aimed at honest, law-abiding citizens--not criminals or crazy people.
#2
it is about changing the way ordinary Americans think of themselves in relation to government
A narrow majority of ordinary Americans are willing to consider themselves 'subjects' of their government and passively support forcing this view on the remaining minority, as was proven in the last election. This is the crux of the matter.
#3
The objective is to increase government control over the lives of Americans in any way they can.
By ascribing ulterior intentions the author is attempting to assign blanket motivations to everyone that opposes his opinion. Ironically, (Perhaps intentionally) he employs the exact same persuasion scheme as those that promote greater restrictions. The problem is his base assertion is factually incorrect. Believe it or not there are some politicians favoring greater gun control that may be misguided but have some altruistic intentions. And there are plenty of craven politicians not looking for any grander government control but just want to make it look like they're doing something.
There seems to be an awful lot of commentators lately advising that the best way to refute the reactionary left is to use their own tactics against them. Perhaps sticking to logic, facts, and reason and leaving the Alinsky-Style methods to them might be a better course.
#4
"Perhaps sticking to logic, facts, and reason and leaving the Alinsky-Style methods to them might be a better course."
That hasn't worked so far, DG. :-(
Posted by: Barbara ||
01/12/2013 13:54 Comments ||
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#5
Double team'em. Those with a knack do Alinsky, those with mastery of facts and logic stick to the high road. And whenever possible apply Ben Shapiro's response to that dreadful Piers fellow on CNN, about the fact that President Reagan supported a semiautomatic weapons ban: "So?"
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat...
