We are fiddling while "Rome" burns. While Bush and his minions are pretending that the surge is working in Iraq and blowing smoke rings around Iran, the Taliban is growing by leaps and bounds, and the hatred toward the US is growing exponentially.
David Montero, in his excellent report from Pakistan for PBS’s Frontline, gave a frightening prospect of the new extremist leader, Maulana Fazlullah, who has vowed "to wipe out the darkness of Western ideas and influence," and who has gained an alarming following and, joining with other insurgents, has terrorized and overrun over 60 small towns in the Swat Valley.
While we were otherwise occupied, this terrorist has been training thousands of young men who have become angered at the US aggression in Iraq and at Prime Minister Musharraf’s (pseudo) friendship with the US. He has been allowed to gain strength because the government refused to go after him while his organization was small enough to rout.
According to Montero, Fazlullah has made a battleground near the Afghanistan border. In Swat, what was once a booming tourist attraction, he illegally occupied land and began a madrassah and a pirate radio station. This was grounds for government intervention; however, instead of combining forces with the federal government, the small provincial government waited two years before going after him. By that time, thanks to his radio addresses, he had amassed many followers, who, of course, are willing to die for him and the glory of Allah. Those provincial leaders who have tried to organize resistance to Fazlullah have paid a heavy price.
Musharraf, for many years, has tried to play both sides, trying to please Washington, and, at the same time, placating the extremists, alternately going after them, then buying them off. Despite pleas from the residents of these areas, Musharraf became distracted by his own attempt to hold onto power and by his inaction permitted these insurgents to join with the Taliban, whose leaders escaped from Afghanistan into Pakistan, thanks to Bush’s insincere effort to respond to 9/11.
The day following Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, the prince of Swat, an intelligent and seemingly honest man and candidate for the national parliament was also assassinated, by a remote control bomb. The jury is still out as to just who engineered both assassinations. It’s likely to stay out for some time.
I am so angered to learn of situations like this that are allowed to continue to fester while we fritter away $5000 a second on this obscene occupation of Iraq. The smoking gun from Pakistan may very well be a mushroom cloud since it is a fact that Pakistan does have nuclear weapons.