Taliban Attack on Pakistani school

[Makarov]

Originally Posted by northcrunk

No Pakistan is not a military dictatorship, it is an islamic state the way Europe used to be a catholic state back in the day. Thats why they have a blasphemy law (exploited by many to get back at people).

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

Basically Pakistan is like Spain or France 500 years ago.

Pakistan is not an "Islamic state", whatever that might mean. Pakistan is a parliamentary democratic republic based on the Westminster system.

Visited Peshawar about 7 years ago. Its a beautiful, mysterious city. Can't imagine the devastating effect that these murders have had.

[northcrunk]

Originally Posted by Makarov

Pakistan is not an "Islamic state", whatever that might mean. Pakistan is a parliamentary democratic republic based on the Westminster system.

Visited Peshawar about 7 years ago. Its a beautiful, mysterious city. Can't imagine the devastating effect that these murders have had.

Islamic republic. My wife was born in Pakistan and her father is scottish/irish born in Peshawar. Islam is even referenced in their passport applications for muslims. There are definatly two sets of laws depending on your religeon. My wifes family left after their house was shot up with machine guns on Christmas Eve just because they were Catholic. Heck my uncles car has been set on fire twice this year just because they are Catholic and the police don't investigate.

[Doodlebug]

The Pakistan armed forces have been fighting the militants since June of this year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Zarb-e-Azb

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by Doodlebug

The Pakistan armed forces have been fighting the militants since June of this year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Zarb-e-Azb

The trouble as I understand it is that the armed forces are full of sympathizers all the way up the chain

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Makarov

Pakistan is not an "Islamic state", whatever that might mean. Pakistan is a parliamentary democratic republic based on the Westminster system.

Visited Peshawar about 7 years ago. Its a beautiful, mysterious city. Can't imagine the devastating effect that these murders have had.

According to The Economist, they are classified as an "authoritarian regime" in their democracy index, right between Iraq and Jordan:

http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/D...EX_2007_v3.pdf


This site has them ranked slightly better than Yemen, Syria and The Central African Republic, but worse than countries like China, Nigeria, Libya and Haiti.

http://democracyranking.org/wordpress/?page_id=738


Anyway, I didn't want to derail this into whether of not Pakistan is a dictatorship. It just seems like any time the military there doesn't like the government, they change it. I was just curious as to why they were calling it an army school. If it is a school simply for children of military personnel, I wish they would leave the "military" qualifier out of it when reporting. It makes it sound like they are trying to connect it to being a military target.

[WCW Nitro]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

The trouble as I understand it is that the armed forces are full of sympathizers all the way up the chain

Not accurate. I'm from Pakistan and can tell you that while there may be some low-level soldiers who have sympathy, the top brass of the army is fully committed to rooting out the Taliban (hence today's attacks).

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by WCW Nitro

Not accurate. I'm from Pakistan and can tell you that while there may be some low-level soldiers who have sympathy, the top brass of the army is fully committed to rooting out the Taliban (hence today's attacks).

I think the problem is that what people call "the Taliban" isn't really all that centralized or organized. Even while Pakistan was negotiating peace with the Tehrik-e-Taliban back in the spring, other groups calling themselves Taliban were staging attacks against the government. There are so many splinters that it seems almost impossible to get people on the same page.

[Swarez]

So I'll try to explain this in some way, because it deals quite a bit with culture on top of religion (because really that is how the Taliban really functions, by absorbing local cultures and intertwining it with Islam).

I'm of pakistani background but born in Montreal, raised in Toronto and have two uncles who were in the PK army and my grandfather was in the PK army as well. Whenever we go to Pakistan (namely to Karachi) we stay in army housing which is essentially a closed off community and you would think you are back in the first world. Keep in mind my grand father has passed and my uncles have both left some time ago, one works in telecom other as an engineer, both have graduate degrees which they completed while in Army. Uncles still live with Army personal as do many others who have left the Army And have some money, this is common. The front line soldiers who come from smaller towns, "non educated" or see army as way of steady income etc there you will find people who may sympathize with the Taliban, career Army people really don't , Infact they have less religion in there lives than most people and country and power really comes ahead of religion for day to day purposes. Now this is my perception of dealing with my family and there friends over there my entire life, I'm sure I picked up some of there Bias and influence.

Now back to the attack today, much of this stems from the army launching attacks on Taliban strong holds for 5-6-7 months, and killing many Taliban people, there family, and these attacks being supported by the US. These particular Taliban people fall into a certain ethnicity (which this is kinda bad, I can't remember the ethnicity name - I'm different ethnicity). Revenge is very important, it's a way of life so in there eyes the children of people who attacked them should feel impact of all of this. These Taliban groups have also had children killed in past few months, so again goes back to revenge thing - eye for an eye which is very common with many fundamentalism Islamic Thinking. This attack is different for, other mosque and public attacks, this to the attackers will be seen as part of a retaliation of war, the others (like against the Ahmadi dr) will be seen as being done for religious purification (lack of better word).


- now not trying to rationalize the Taliban, they are crazy people trying to take over and push there way of life on you. The black flags are all over the cities, couple of my cousins don't let me go to some areas anymore even with them. I'm not an expert on this by any means, but probably have more background knowledge than most and way more than the news will give you IMO.

I'll try to find out more from family over next few days, BTW it's too hard for me to edit here so flow and grammar may be off I did this on my iPhone over 3G as I didn't want this on my companies computer haha.

[T@T]

Until countries separate religion from politics and law these things sadly will happen.

[combustiblefuel]

Originally Posted by Flabbibulin

Not sure how one would drum up the support for this given that religious people in our society and across the globe aren't just a pesky minority that the rest want to get rid of. Not sure I see that changing for a long time either.

While I personally have no place for religion in my life at the moment, I am not too PC to admit that this is clearly a problem with one specific religion. While all religions have been involved in evil acts through out history, Islam is the one that is currently at the center of the overwhelming majority of religious themed atrocities. And while the number of followers of Islam willing to commit these acts may be a minority, the number of supporters and enablers they have within the religion is large.

This is simply not true. Christianity in a lot of African countries play a HUGE role in violent acts. They are not reported at all or 1 a year. I know for a fact through friends in these countries that it is just as bad as Islam.

[fulham]

Originally Posted by combustiblefuel

This is simply not true. Christianity in a lot of African countries play a HUGE role in violent acts. They are not reported at all or 1 a year. I know for a fact through friends in these countries that it is just as bad as Islam.

He said below in his text "overwhelming majority" which would be accurate.

Pakistan's ISI has a history of supporting terrorism in India(Mumbai bombings), and has been accused of providing other extremist groups safe havens, This recent offensive against the Taliban is a welcome change from the status quo there, but sadly a event like this might of been what was needed to really turn the population against extremism.

[combustiblefuel]

Originally Posted by fulham

He said below in his text "overwhelming majority" which would be accurate.

Pakistan's ISI has a history of supporting terrorism in India(Mumbai bombings), and has been accused of providing other extremist groups safe havens, This recent offensive against the Taliban is a welcome change from the status quo there, but sadly a event like this might of been what was needed to really turn the population against extremism.

Islam has 1.6 billion followers. To say a large majority believe or approve is a stretch. I'm not buying it at all. It is any religious fundamentalist that are the problem which is the vast minority.

[afc wimbledon]

Pakistan is only democratic in so much as who ever gets elected has to tow the army line or risk being deposed tried and hung by an army tribunal. As such it isn't really democratic in any meaningful sense.

The Pakistani intelligence branch has always supported various branches of al Quada and the Taliban and still does, this attack might strain the relationship but I doubt it, the two need each other and life is cheap, even kids lives.

[fulham]

Originally Posted by combustiblefuel

Islam has 1.6 billion followers. To say a large majority believe or approve is a stretch. I'm not buying it at all. It is any religious fundamentalist that are the problem which is the vast minority.

thats not what anyone is saying, obviously any educated person understands that the extreme vast majority of muslims live peacefully, But the overwhelming majority of religiously motivated(which isn't completely the case in this horrible incident) violence is perpetrated by Muslims. This incident was politically motivated but religiously justified(in their extremist view)

But back on topic, hopefully this event can bring the rural population, with the Urban Pakistani's together to combat the Taliban, and other extremist groups.

Again the ISI is the problem in Pakistan, political stability and security is against their best interests.