We Don't Like It: But the Taliban are Popular in Pakistan

With the Taliban creeping up on Islamabad, the world is becoming concerned that Pakistan will be taken over by Islamic extremists. I wrote a few days ago that nobody in the main stream media reports as to whether the Taliban are popular or not. It seems that with everything I read, the angle of the story is like a zombie movie scenario where the Taliban are multiplying by contagion to the unwitting, and unwilling populace.

Google makes things easy and I came upon this article from the Guardian. The Taliban and Islamic Law are popular in the "tribal" areas.

Though there is strong support for better female access to health and education, there was profound reluctance among the largely male survey respondents to empower women more generally, with 67% supporting "honour killings". Over 50% of those polled believed Islamic law brought peace to the region and only 3.6%considered the Taliban to be terrorists.

This is appalling, but not surprising. The western, liberal lifestyle is rejected over there. Let's stop acting disingenuous.

Impossible Pakistan Coming to Light

This time last year I didn't realize how bad the situation in Pakistan was. I had a vague idea that they were harboring terrorists like bin Laden, but didn't know it was a complete trainwreck. I came to realize that they are headquarters for Al Qaeda. They are headquarters for the Taliban. They fund and supply troops and arms against US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. They harass, destroy and steal NATO supplies travelling through the country. Despite the US sending $2+ billion a year of military aid to Pakistan to help fight the insurgency, the Pakistani army does nothing at best, and openly aids the insurgency at worst.

So when I see "shocking" headlines like this in the New York Post, the pulse does not quicken too much. ISLAMIC LAW TO BE IMPOSED IN PARTS OF PAKISTAN

Officials gave no timetable as to when the new laws -- which will force women to cover their faces when they go out in public and allow for Muslim clerics to advise judges when hearing cases -- would go into effect.

The Taliban said they would observe a 10-day cease-fire in support of the peace process and welcomed the new move.

"Our whole struggle is for the enforcement of Shariah [Islamic] law," said Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan. "If this really brings us the implementation of Shariah, we will fully cooperate with it."

If anything, this is good because it brings the issue out in the open. This has been brewing since the Afghan intervention began in 2001. The Bush administration tried to gloss it over and not acknowledge real problems.

Funny enough, Little Green Footballs blogger Charles Johnson writes: This didn’t happen during the Bush administration. Like this is some new thing that started less than a month ago when Obama took office. Some people are still in denial. Bush should have never made a deal with Pakistan in the first place.

UPDATE: Here's a naive - or disingenuous - report from Yahoo News

NATO warned Tuesday that Pakistan risked creating a safe haven for Islamist extremists after it struck a deal to impose Islamic law and suspend a military offensive in the former tourist haven of Swat.

Like this would be something new. Ever heard of a guy named Osama bin Laden? If alive, he's in Pakistan. So is the core of Al Qaeda. You would think they would mention that, but not a peep in the whole report.