Pakistan school Attack

[Mermaid]

Taliban, supported/protected by Pakistan in the past?

[IroningMan]

Mermaid said:

Taliban, supported/protected by Pakistan in the past?

I think there has been tacit support of some elements of the Taliban by some elements of the Pakistan military/intelligence agencies - whether by dint of sympathy or realpolitik necessity.

The Taliban are by no means a single united, organised entity - however it may just be that this particular atrocity will unite the people of Pakistan against them.

[cardigankid]

onyx39 said:

could this mark a turning point in the way Pakistan "assists" the Taliban, and maybe a shift towards the end for them?

I hope that it marks a turning point in whether we care if the Americans waterboarded a few of the bds or if we were somehow complicit in the process. Give me a few members of our local rugby club and 30 mins with them and I would show them what is meant by a gross breach of human rights. This could happen here.

[griffin dai]

oddball1973 said:

Evil bds, I wish there was an easy answer to fundamentalism but watching the news there isn't a weapon invented too barbaric if it eradicates them off the face of the earth

US & UKSF were doing a good job wiping them out one at a time until we got all soft.

[Amirhussain]

cardigankid said:

onyx39 said:

could this mark a turning point in the way Pakistan "assists" the Taliban, and maybe a shift towards the end for them?

Give me a few members of our local rugby club and 30 mins with them and I would show them what is meant by a gross breach of human rights. This could happen here.

[eharding]

cardigankid said:

Give me a few members of our local rugby club and 30 mins with them and I would show them what is meant by a gross breach of human rights.

Well, it has been more than a few years, but my experience of Full Wild International Rules drinking games - particularly if you get caught behind the drag curve (a likely event at a small provincial rugby club) - would lead me to opt for an evening's water-boarding vs. the tender mercies of Mister Chairman and the Assembled Company.

[FredClogs]

Remember this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_hostage...

It pretty much killed off the Chechnya independence debate, I don't know what it is that these Islamic extremists think they're achieving by killing children, maybe they think God will look on the kindly in the next life, but even in the most fked p parts of the real world it has to go against them and their cause.

The dicks.

[Jandywa]

132 children. They killed 132 children. And for what?

fking animals.

[CAPP0]

As I said to a friend earlier, religion aside, I simply cannot comprehend how a bunch of adults can run into a school and randomly shoot and kill children, regardless of provocation or ideology. The perpetrators have to be very sick people.

Oh that there were a world summit which abolished religion in every way, shape and form. Whilst I'm sure that someone will be able to tell me that Vicar Smith visited Widow Jones in her time of need and made her feel better, I cannot in any way comprehend how religion contributes anything positive to the world other than being a collection bowl for a few skirt-wearing nut jobs (and that includes most varieties). Don't even get me started, but how any human being with an IQ higher than that of your average slow-worm can sign on to a concept that there are a bunch of big fellas living up in the clouds (all of which are better than the adjacent cloud-dwelling lord, according to which flavour you were indoctrinated with) can be all-seeing. all-loving, all controlling,just fails me. What a load of utter bks. We will all die, and when we do we will cease to exist, just like we didn't exist before we were born. How many religious people can sit here and say "ah yes, I can remember what cloud I was sitting on 10 years before I was born"? None of you. Because you didn't, and weren't. It scares me that SO many apparently highly intelligent people (and by this I mean all religions, east, west, up, down, black, white or yellow) actually believe that this secret nether-world actually exists.

I fervently believe that religion should be banned until (at least) the age of majority, in the same way that sex, alcohol, marriage, etc are. Once you're an adult, make your own mind up, just the same as deciding whether to get pissed every night or not. Sure, there will always be people who fall through the cracks, but not at the level of controlling entire populations, which the current arrangements allow (encourage?). Ramming all this "God will get you if you're bad" st into the brains of small children who know no different and who lap it up in the same way as "don't touch boiling water, it will hurt you/don't run out in front of cars" is, in my considered opinion, simply child abuse, just on a different subject to other, more easily recognised, means.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

zuby84 said:

Before some people turn this into yet another "let's tar all Muslims with the same brush" thread; remember that the kids killed here were also Muslims as were their families who probably feel more upset than any of us towards the Taliban at this very moment.

Don't defend the faith of the victims. Defend the victims of faith.

[simohaya]

I may be wrong but hasn't the Pakistani Government been historically soft on these terrorist organisations? At least that is often a western accusation.

[onyx39]

simohaya said:

I may be wrong but hasn't the Pakistani Government been historically soft on these terrorist organisations? At least that is often a western accusation.

That was my point above. Will the horrible events of yesterday make them wake up and smell the coffee?

[TwigtheWonderkid]

CAPP0 said:

As I said to a friend earlier, religion aside, I simply cannot comprehend how a bunch of adults can run into a school and randomly shoot and kill children, regardless of provocation or ideology. The perpetrators have to be very sick people.

Oh that there were a world summit which abolished religion in every way, shape and form. Whilst I'm sure that someone will be able to tell me that Vicar Smith visited Widow Jones in her time of need and made her feel better, I cannot in any way comprehend how religion contributes anything positive to the world other than being a collection bowl for a few skirt-wearing nut jobs (and that includes most varieties). Don't even get me started, but how any human being with an IQ higher than that of your average slow-worm can sign on to a concept that there are a bunch of big fellas living up in the clouds (all of which are better than the adjacent cloud-dwelling lord, according to which flavour you were indoctrinated with) can be all-seeing. all-loving, all controlling,just fails me. What a load of utter bks. We will all die, and when we do we will cease to exist, just like we didn't exist before we were born. How many religious people can sit here and say "ah yes, I can remember what cloud I was sitting on 10 years before I was born"? None of you. Because you didn't, and weren't. It scares me that SO many apparently highly intelligent people (and by this I mean all religions, east, west, up, down, black, white or yellow) actually believe that this secret nether-world actually exists.

I fervently believe that religion should be banned until (at least) the age of majority, in the same way that sex, alcohol, marriage, etc are. Once you're an adult, make your own mind up, just the same as deciding whether to get pissed every night or not. Sure, there will always be people who fall through the cracks, but not at the level of controlling entire populations, which the current arrangements allow (encourage?). Ramming all this "God will get you if you're bad" st into the brains of small children who know no different and who lap it up in the same way as "don't touch boiling water, it will hurt you/don't run out in front of cars" is, in my considered opinion, simply child abuse, just on a different subject to other, more easily recognised, means.

Top rant....and pretty much spot on.

[The Don of Croy]

Derek Smith said:

The Taliban fear education. They fear the influence of women. They also fear science.

Odd, really, as the muslim world was the leader in science up to around 1200 or so...

Derek, I don't think you've got it quite right - the muslim world inherited much of the knowledge that was developed by the preceding civilisations (Greek being the most notable in science and technology)and maintained it through the translation of the classic works, but without actually using much of it. That might be where they could have left everyone else behind.

The fall of Alexandria and the burning of the library lost the World unknown treasures - reckoned to be more than a million texts at the time.

I'm getting a little bit more of a picture of just how complicated the general situation in Pakistan/Afghanistan is becoming. It doesn't look good. However, I still think the best hope for the future is education, and somehow that has to be implemented throughout. Carpet bomb the region with tablets giving free web access?

[drivin_me_nuts]

It's not just the Taliban that fear education. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, any and all who elect the path of oppression do the same.

Keep a nation uneducated and keep them hungry enough... and they will follow you slavishly until their blood stains their land but not their leader's conscience.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

The Don of Croy said:

Derek, I don't think you've got it quite right - the muslim world inherited much of the knowledge that was developed by the preceding civilisations (Greek being the most notable in science and technology)and maintained it through the translation of the classic works, but without actually using much of it.

Islamic scholars pretty much dominated the world of advance thinking from about 1000-1200. The Hindu scholars invented the zero but Islamic mathematicians refined its use, as well as inventing algebra and Arabic numerals to take the place of roman numerals.

This information was passed to the Europeans and the main trade point (Cordoba). The Catholic church banned the use of zero for 200 years, as they didn't want normal people to be able to do maths, and wise up to how they were being ripped off by the church and landowners.

But Islamic civilisation went into steep decline with the rise of wahabbi-ism, exacerbated by the discovery of oil which allowed the whole region to, in effect, retire early and import goods and buy in labour. The whole region is now an academic backwater, who produce nothing and contribute little to the modern world.

In the whole of the middle east they have only one university ranked in the world's top 500....and that's Tel Aviv!!!!!

[HewManHeMan]

Amirhussain said:

This should be PH new logo.

[FredClogs]

drivin_me_nuts said:

It's not just the Taliban that fear education. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, any and all who elect the path of oppression do the same.

Keep a nation uneducated and keep them hungry enough... and they will follow you slavishly until their blood stains their land but not their leader's conscience.

Indeed, humans are fatally flawed, we're not really up to the job. In the Jonestown massacre over 900 people (modern people like you and I) were murdered (commited suicide) on the instruction of a man who had little physical power, charisma or a coherent rational world vision, he was essentially a cross between a very bad TV evangelist and David Icke. This isn't much to do with one type of religion or another, of one force of extremism or another - it's just that humans are a bit st, in general, we'll do what other people tell us.

[The Don of Croy]

FredClogs said:

... we'll do what other people tell us.

...as in keep drinking the Kool Aid...except it wasn't, it was 'Flavor Aid' but no-one likes to hear that.

People are the problem. And the solution. Conun. Drum.

[Digga]

onyx39 said:

simohaya said:

I may be wrong but hasn't the Pakistani Government been historically soft on these terrorist organisations? At least that is often a western accusation.

That was my point above. Will the horrible events of yesterday make them wake up and smell the coffee?

Yes, they are going to have to decide what sort of country they want but, we can already see, there will be grave difficulty establishing a consensus. The divides in education, knowledge and social aspirations (or lack of them) are huge.

I think the radicals had a point to prove as soon as Malala Yousafzai was granted the Noble Prize.

IMHO, sadly even Malala is too close to the issue to see it clearly; that contemporary Islam is, at best, barely compatible with contemporary, enlightened culture and civilisation.