These sorts of meaningless political speak helps no one except islamists. On one hand they demand that government deliver on basic services, on the other hand they destroy infrastructure and burn schools. How is the goverenment, any governement supposed to deliver basic services?
Good governance and provision of basic services is 'meaningless political speak'? How absurd!
Infrastructure and services are not being destroyed in Peshawar and other large swathes of NWFP proper, they are not being destroyed in Lahore and large swathes of Punjab, nor in Karachi and large swathes of Sindh. Yet there has been abysmal investment in necessary services and continued poor governance. So what are the vast majority of Pakistanis that live in these areas to make of this?
The war is not merely one of winning hearts and minds in FATA and Swat, it is of the vast majority of all Pakistanis.
We must come out clearly, UNEQUIVOCALY and claim for ourselves the label "MUSLIMS" and equally important, place a lable on those whose values we do not share, we will be contributing to confusion among the populace.
Agreed and self evident.
I note that you refer to Islamists as "extremists" - I am persuaded that we must refer to them by their ideological motivation, by the justification they offer for their acts and behaviour.
In Pakistan it is not Marxist extrmists, not Republican extremists, who are engaged in terrorism, Terrorism in Pakistan, insurrection in Pakistan and Rebellion in Pakistan is being carried out by those claim to be guided by the ideology of Islamism, that is to say they use religion as a tool of politcal violence and the justification of political violence - thats why it is accurate to call them what they are, Islamist terrorists.
In this way we seperate Muslims from the behaviours of those who use, abuse and malign Islam - we send a clear message that the particular kind of behavior, the particular kind of belief, attitudes and values are not aceptable to Muslim Pakistanis and that they reject this attempt to abuse and malign the name and reputation of Islam.
I disagree with using the term Islamist, for a couple of reasons - first, to do so gives the terrorist a chance to legitimize their cause, to the less informed it gives pause - "Jihadist, islamist - it must have something to do with Jihad and Islam, can't all be wrong then can it?"
No, we should not give them even a hint of credibility or cause - they are criminals. Reduce them to the level of the murderer and dacoit gunned down without remorse, without question. Refuse to discuss their ideology or motivation, because then you have already legitimized their cause and ideology as one that needs to be distinguished from that of a criminal.
They are challenging the writ of the State, violating the constitution, breaking the law, whatever their justification, and the State has an obligation to stop them, and law abiding citizens have an obligation to support the state in this endeavor.
Second, the term Islamist is also used to describe political parties that use religion as a political tool, but are non-violent. To now apply that term so loosely to the Taliban would be to tar these entities with the same brush (which some do deserve).
I believe we can avoid a lot of tangles by not attaching ideological labels to the extremists - they are criminals and must be brought to task according to the law.
