[MP-Ryan]

Another "Oh ****" moment in Pakistan, brought to you by fundamentalist religion:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/asia-pacific/governors-killing-sets-off-political-powder-keg-in-pakistan/article1857737/

The governor of Punjab province, Salman Taseer, ate lunch at an upscale market in the leafy heart of Islamabad and was returning to his vehicle when one of his elite bodyguards gunned him down, witnesses say. The big-bearded security officer surrendered to his colleagues and reportedly boasted about his crime while sitting tied with ropes awaiting interrogation.

[Nemesis6]

You beat me to it.

Pakistan seems to be a nice collection of all-around crazy people; we have insane terrorists, the general population that's indoctrinated and blinded by Islamic fanaticism, and then we have the rulers who just want to stay in power long enough to be able to steal sufficient amounts of money and possibly go into exile, having achieved that. Pakistan is a failed state, and I can't help but wonder how much potential they could have had if they had been untouched by Islam. Anyway, I wonder what is actually gonna happen to that country -- Are they gonna keep at this cycle of corruption, coup d'etats indefinitely, or are they gonna go the way of Somalia? -- You know, weak government supported by the rest of the world, holding on for as long as it can, and then toppled by Islamists. I really doubt Pakistan has a bright future ahead of it! :-/

[General Battuta]

Yeah this is clearly the fault of Islam because Islam makes societies horrible as evidenced by all the horrible Muslims we have on HLP like

oh

wait

Stop the unqualified religion bashing. Don't turn into a 1950s conservative with Muslim hotswapped in for Communism.

[Flipside]

It's a much bigger political picture involved anyway, the British occupation of India certainly played a large role in changing the social/political shape of the area.

[General Battuta]

Seriously, people seem unable to grasp that any form of fundamentalism would step up to wreck these societies given the socioeconomic realities.

[Flipside]

What surprises me is that this has been going on for decades and people are only just noticing.

[Titan]

What surprises me is that this has been going on for decades and people are only just noticing.

It's just now America cares because it's our asses paying for it now.

[Turambar]

I wonder what we'd have making the rural hicks stupid if we didn't have religion.

[peterv]

"Like many others with strong religious feelings in Pakistan, the bodyguard apparently disagreed with Mr. Taseer’s criticisms of the country’s blasphemy laws".

Yeah, sure.... it's that simple... 

[Scotty]

I wonder what we'd have making the rural hicks stupid if we didn't have religion.

Atheism?

Rural hicks being stupid isn't a symptom of religion, it's a symptom of social inequality.

[Kosh]

Yeah this is clearly the fault of Islam because Islam makes societies horrible as evidenced by all the horrible Muslims we have on HLP like

oh

wait

Stop the unqualified religion bashing. Don't turn into a 1950s conservative with Muslim hotswapped in for Communism.

Pakistan has spent the last several decades deliberately encouraging religious terrorism and has been a major recipient of Saudi jihad petro dollars. The main religion in Pakistan is Islam. Yeah, religious extremism isn't really the mainstream over there, it's just what most people seem to buy into.

[peterv]

Pakistan has spent the last several decades deliberately encouraging religious terrorism and has been a major recipient of Saudi jihad petro dollars. The main religion in Pakistan is Islam. Yeah, religious extremism isn't really the mainstream over there, it's just what most people seem to buy into.

Beware of propaganda

http://www.rense.com/general14/rise.htm

"The United States encouraged Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to support the Taliban, certainly right up to their advance on Kabul" on September 26, 1996, he said from his base in Lahore, Pakistan. "That seems very ironic now."
 
One key reason for US interest in the Taliban was a 4.5-billion-dollar oil and gas pipeline that a US-led oil consortium planned to build across war-ravaged Afghanistan.

[StarSlayer]

Well the Russo Afghan war was basically handled by Pakistani Intelligence, we simply bank rolled them.  The ISI went from some two bit army unit to the most powerful institutions in Pakistan over the course of the war.  The fact that we were hands off with little to nothing in the way of boots on the ground in Afghanistan was one of the major problems.  ISI invested in the groups in their interest to support rather than ours, which turned out to be the crazy fundamentalists rather than moderates like Massoud.  Course it seems like much of our foreign policy/intelligence services had an extreme case of tunnel vision on Big Red with little in the way of foresight on what happens after.


Anyway guess it would have been better to have foreign contractors as your security specialists in a place like that.

[Flipside]

The problem is the message it sends if a diplomat who is known for making comments against the fundamentalistic views that seem somewhat proliferate in Pakistan is surrounded by foreigners with guns, logically it makes sense, politically, it doesn't look good.

[Sarafan]

while sitting tied with ropes awaiting interrogation.

Ropes? *Ropes*? This is what caught my eye, I can even imagine: "By Allah, lets sink our precious money and time into learning and building weapons of mass destruction and to hell with EVERYTHING else!"

Fanatics are a sad, sad thing.

[NGTM-1R]

Wee, and Pakistan goes south even more.

[General Battuta]

Yeah this is clearly the fault of Islam because Islam makes societies horrible as evidenced by all the horrible Muslims we have on HLP like

oh

wait

Stop the unqualified religion bashing. Don't turn into a 1950s conservative with Muslim hotswapped in for Communism.

Pakistan has spent the last several decades deliberately encouraging religious terrorism and has been a major recipient of Saudi jihad petro dollars. The main religion in Pakistan is Islam. Yeah, religious extremism isn't really the mainstream over there, it's just what most people seem to buy into.

your cause and your effect are backwards

socioeconomic and political turmoil create this kind of fundamentalist ****; the convenient religion is just the opportunist parasite

i wonder why people insist on arguing about this without any apparent expertise on the topic; i had the pleasure to sit down with some ambassadors and senators at the US Institute of Peace and discuss why Pakistan is so ****ed up. radical islam is as much a symptom of deeper problems as Bible Belt Christianity is a symptom of poverty and undereducation in America

[StarSlayer]

Islam is a much easier concept to blame than socio-economic and political turmoil GB.  Rolls off the tongue easier.

[General Battuta]

Islam is a much easier concept to blame than socio-economic and political turmoil GB.  Rolls off the tongue easier.

this is unfortunately true 

i also got to take a class from an Israeli tank-driver-turned-political scientist, someone with considerable reason to bash Islam; but her research made it quite clear that nationalist, fundamentalist islam as we know it today only arose (indirectly) out of reaction to European colonialism

much like US funding of the Taliban, we've only got ourselves to blame

[Androgeos Exeunt]

A lot of Muslims do not support the acts of extremists. Don't blame the religion; blame the people who use it as a weapon.