A Society Split Asunder
We decry Pakistan's seeming unwillingness to face the demands of the Western countries to which President Pervez Musharraf has hitched his country's political and existential wagon. When Mr. Musharraf visited Canada, he scoffed at the untoward concern Canadians felt on the tragic loss of their Armed Forces servicemen and women stationed in Kandahar Province in Afghanistan. Pakistan, he scolded Canada, has lost far more many of its soldiery in battling Islamists.Canada is not Pakistan, nor Pakistan Canada. We are here, they are there. It is on their borders with Afghanistan that the Taliban, that al-Qaeda find a safe and secure base from which to encourage their followers, to badger the West, to train a steady stream of eager jihadists. Canada has, as a responsible member of the world community, answered the call to assist the government of Afghanistan in establishing peace and security in that troubled country.
It is the madrassas situated within Pakistan that help so immeasurably to feed the appetite of fanatical Islam through their production of eagerly impassioned and violently imprinted young men ready and willing to dedicate their lives to suicide-murder missions. It is the lawless, tribal areas on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and at the foothills of the Hindu Kush, that extracts from among its tribes fervent warriors for Islam.
General Musharraf made the final decision to attack the Red Mosque, thus consolidating his position as one considered now to be a traitor to Islam, a ready target more than ever before for assassination by the hand of God through the intermediary action of true believers. Tens of thousands of armed tribesmen have rallied to the Islamist cause, and they are wreaking havoc on the border areas, attacking and killing the country's police and armed force members.
A showdown is in the making with Pakistan's military placing a full army division amply armed with heavy artillery into the troubled area of the North West Frontier Province. Radicals are prepared to meet them, eager for the fray. Determined to make the country over into its long-awaited Islamist presence for the purported pleasure of Allah. A resurgent Taliban and refreshed, re-armed, re-grouped al-Qaeda await the results.
Here is Muslim battling Muslim. The vile contagion of fanatical Islamism has escaped its roiling cauldron, creeping through Muslim society by the passion of its violent conviction, appealing to the emotional war-embracing tribalism of Muslim society. On the other hand, affronting and troubling those who embrace and value moderation. Those who recognize a distinct threat in the instability of the Muslim world.
The resulting carnage may bring surcease; may on the other hand, only embolden the Islamists to ever more bloodily determined moves to bring them closer to their goal. They plan, recruit, finance and execute their vision of Islam reborn. Can there ever be sufficient deterrents to their end plan? Other than complete and utter extermination of this contagious disease?
Labels: Terrorism
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, July 19, 2007
<< Home