In the cross-hairs

The Daily Times, Pakistan ^ | 21 JUly | Kamran Shafi

[ttsmi]

Consider: How many times has the General held out the promise that he will take firm steps against the bigoted obscurantist? How many times has he proclaimed that “Enlightened Moderation” is the way forward? How many times has he indicated a roll-back of the awful laws brought in by the quite awful Zia ul Haq? And how many times has he made his much practised u-turns on all of the above? How many times has he taken the side of the backward mullah rather than that of the moderate? Each and every time strengthening the extremists and the obscurantists even further, to the detriment of most of us? Really, it is so infuriating!

Let me leave you with this short story sent to me by an old and treasured friend: “My niece’s brother-in-law (20) has joined AL-DAWA. He disappeared recently. Her father-in-law requested X to accompany him to MANSEHRA where the boy was supposedly ‘under training’. He wanted his son to return home. They managed to reach the camp but after a dreadful experience returned post haste to Islamabad without even setting eyes on the boy. Weeks later he returned and told his parents that they should accept his decision or he will never return home. He is to be paid a stipend of rupees 1500/-month. The “worker” (they have an Arabic name for recruiters which translates into ‘a worker’) who recruited him lives with his two wives in a plush apartment in F-11, and will reportedly get Rupees 0.7 million when they feel that the recruit is a confirmed Jihadi. Not a bad bargain for luring and brainwashing someone else’s child. But the question is: how can this be going on in a country like Pakistan where nothing moves without the consent of Rawalpindi (GHQ)?”

[mmercier]

So what, America and Britannia move their force in on one side, and we unleash the youthful exuberance of India on the other side...?

I have no problem with that, but there are a bunch of rats in the US senate, not to mention countless communists in Britannia, that will surely turn such an eventuality into another Bay of pigs.

We need to get hit a lot harder than we have to date, otherwise our rat politicians will sacrifice whole armies to achieve short term partisan gains. And they will do so with the approval of scared voters; they are counting on this fact.

We are divided from within, and must sustain vastly larger numbers of civilian casualties before we can become politically effective as far as expanding this war. The enemy is well aware of this fact, and will deliver us these casualties, but only when they are confident that they can deal the west a death blow.

We will wait and die; those who are making us wait will retire, in luxury, hopefully in Europa somewhere.