Pakistan — VOICES for REASONVOICES for REASON

If there were an award for the skill of delivering massive understatements with a straight face, William Daley, Obama’s chief of staff, should be on the shortlist of contenders. Speaking about Pakistan, he stated:

Pakistani officials “have taken some steps that have given us reason to pause on some of the aid which we were giving to their military,” Daley said on ABC’s “This Week.”

Was it the redirection of U.S. military aid for the use, not of combatting Islamists (as promised), but arming Pakistani troops heading for Kashmir? Or was it the fact that the Pakistani regime (likely) allowed bin Laden safe haven within its borders? Or was it the nearly decade long charade in which the regime professes to be on our side, accepts billions of dollars in U.S. aid–yet arms, supports and shields Taliban and Islamist fighters in Afghanistan? Long indeed is the list of Pakistan’s deceitful actions. Possibly now our leaders will face up to the reality that for so many years they have been pushing out of mind.

image: wikipedia/CC

“Every day I see armed Taliban move around freely. At the time of prayer, if they see anyone in his shop or walking about, they whip him with a stick,” said a resident of the Swat Valley in Pakistan. Yet those who are whipped can count themselves lucky by comparison with a man and woman who were executed for the alleged crime of adultery. This is the grisly reality of Islamist rule now swallowing up chunks of Pakistan.

The brazenness of the Islamists is astounding; the other day the Taliban stopped a Pakistani Army convoy heading into Swat and forced it to turn back. In large measure this confidence stems from the so-called peace deal that allows them to enforce sharia law in Swat Valley.

But the Pakistani government’s surrender has had another, little noted, effect: it has understandably demoralized many Pakistani citizens. This poignant story in the NYT sheds light on the experience of people in the area of Buner. There are also reports that people elsewhere are contemplating an exodus, for fear of what will become of their lives under Islamist rule.

I’m not sure which has a greater demoralizing effect on the innocents in Pakistan–the growing strength of the Islamists, or their national government’s capitulation (and perfunctory military responses). My sense is that it’s the latter, because it enables the gains of so vile a movement as the Taliban.