Noblesse Oblige

If lives were not at stake, this article from Malaysia Sun would be seriously funny:

Peshawar, July 14 : Militants in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in North Waziristan have threatened to scrap a peace accord signed with the Pakistan Government in September last year, if the army is not removed from roadside checkpoints by July 15.

“If the government does not order a withdrawal of soldiers from checkpoints on roads linking Miramshah to Bannu, Razmak, Dattakhel and Gulam Khan by July 15, then we would declare the peace accord void and resume guerilla attacks,” Abdullah Farhad, spokesman of militants, said.

“Apart from staging guerrilla attacks, we would ask tribal elders and ulema to stop meeting government functionaries, and anyone violating this decision would be considered as part of the government camp and dealt with accordingly,” he threatened.

The truth is that the Taliban never started honoring the peace accords. If you go here you will find a long series of updates that go back to the beginning of the accords that detail all of the Taliban’s breaks with the accords.

The breaks with the accords range from rocket attacks on FC and Army posts, to suicide bombings, to assassinations, to threats against shops, to crossing the border into Afghanistan to fight. Seriously, if the Taliban break with the accords what would change? Since they never started honoring them, not much.

Here’s the last thirty days of clustrmap, and my stats. As folks can see I have a diverse audience from across the world,  either I am getting things terribly wrong and everyone comes here to laugh at me, or people come here because I am generally getting things right. If I do get things materially or factually wrong please do let me know in comments. Some of you probably think my opinion is wrong, but sorry I am bone-headed and that’s not something that can be corrected. There is a right, there is a wrong and it’s usually not hard to see which is which in any situation.

An incident in NWFP looks to be backlash from the freeing of Lal Masjid — in an unusual step the Taliban quickly disavowed all knowledge or involvement. This is unusual — the Taliban are quick to claim strikes that are theirs, but they rarely disavow. Think they know that the army and Musharraf are on the hunt? Methinks so.

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The bodies (all male) in the mosque total 73, [Editor: final official tally is now 102, which includes Pakistan SSG and Miltitary deaths.]and according to authorities there are no female bodies. The troops are clearing the booby-traps and mines, and will allow the press in for the tour and retelling of the battle soon. [editor update on casualties– there are also 12-24 “unidentifiable bodies” from two rooms, blown to pieces from suicide vests.] Continue reading →

Little Green Footballs has an update on Lal Masjid here.

The political fallout will continue for a while as everyone will seek to politicize this to their gain, however the source of the evil is what I will continue to track here.

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The earlier articles detailed the Lal Masjid wrap-up so I will avoid that tonight, other than to point you to this lucid editorial. The editorial details the immediate concerns, and the politics, however it does miss an angle. Is it not Saudi cultural imperialism in the form of easy-to-gain and hard-to-tame Deobandi madrassas and mosques that is driving at least some of this?

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