In return for peace the Taleban can stop girls going to school
Not to worry – sharia is lovely once you get used to it.
“Swat is the start and it is a test of the religion and the system and the law. It is a step forward. Give it time and you will see this is what people want,” Muslim Khan, a charismatic English-speaking Taleban leader tells me.
Will you? How much time? And which people? Does he really mean people? Or just men.
In return for peace the Taleban can administer the region, run Sharia courts, ban women from marketplaces, outlaw music shops and stop girls older than 13 going to school.
And ‘people’ will like that as long as you give it enough time. Let’s say about five centuries; by then all memory of freedom and rights will be stone dead, and ‘like’ will mean the same thing as ‘know no alternative to’ and then the prediction will be true.
It is hard to gauge support for the movement in Swat. Dissent has been suppressed but a population disillusioned by years of fighting and ineffectual government can at least get on with their lives.
No, they can’t. Not if they’re girls over the age of 13 they can’t. Not if they’re women they can’t – unless you think it’s possible to get on with one’s life when one is not allowed to go to the market or much of anywhere else. They can (perhaps) get on with small impoverished parts of their lives, but they certainly can’t ‘get on with their lives’ in any sense we would recognize.
Ophelia, I wonder if you saw this heartbreaking video–
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/02/22/world/asia/1194838044017/class-dismissed-in-swat-valley.html?scp=2&sq=swat%20education%20for%20girls%20video&st=cse
About a girl trying to stand up to this stuff and pursue her dream of being a doctor. The father’s bravery and pride in his daughter is really touching.
Thanks, Jean, I hadn’t.
When those in power with their backs against the wall and facing an insurgency start giving concessions, they start sliding down a slope to oblivion. Vide Louis XVIII of France. Likewise, Pakistan is about to exit stage right.
Hichens’ piece on the Swat Valley at http://www.slate.com/id/2213246/ is very good. Some commenters at the Times Online piece linked to in the threadstarter make the point that the next stage is a nuclear Pakistan controlled by the Taliban with nuclear India next door to the East and ever-wanting-to-be-nuclear Iran next door to the West.
It will not help if a nuclear Pakistan is one day in the foreseeable future run by a bunch of suicide bombers. A preemptive first strike or two (hundred) will start looking very attractive to many of their opponents.
Well exactly. A Taliban Pakistan is the worst possible nightmare, and it looks all too likely.
What a touching video. And the courage of both father and daughter is awe inspiring. Thanks Jean. These people deserve our support, and it’s good to see the US making some demands of Pakistan in return for aid. This should have been done long ago.
Pakistan has been a failed state almost since its beginning in 1947, mainly due to the fact that it was founded, consciously, as an Islamic state. Now the Taliban are showing people what the implications of that decision are.
Since Pakistan is in the forefront of the movement to ban criticism of religion, it sounds as though we have a very dangerous future on our hands. A nuclear armed Taliban and a nuclear India where millions of Muslims dwell sounds a bit more unstable than a vial of nitrogylcerine.
From: Congressional Research Services (CRS) and Department of Defense (DOD) sources cited by Winslow T Wheeler at http://www.counterpunch.org/wheeler08292007.html
In 2007 around $37 billion was spent by the US alone on the Afghan War. That is going to increase dramatically for 2009 with the Obama surge. Let’s say to $50 billion per year.
According to the best information I can find on the Web, there are an estimated 15,000 Taliban (http://www.friends.org.pk/Beg/taliban%20and%20the%20global%20chess%20board.htm ) fighting in Afghanistan. That number is credible enough, as it is a quarter of NATO’s 60,000 troops, which is I think what one would expect for counterinsurgency war ratios.
Many Taliban recruits are young militant men from across the border in Pakistan, whose only education has been in fundamentalist Madrassas. That is, the US faces spending around 3 million dollars per Taliban opponent per year on the war.
It seems to me that it would be cheaper to offer each Talibanista say $1 million plus a wholly paid for education (in a field other than fundamentalist Islam); or an equivalent, and with a few preconditions, like capturing and handing over bin Laden and his close associates.
If I was bin Laden and knew that sort of offer was available to all of my loyal followers, I do not think I would sleep well at night.