Pakistanis avenge mosque blast, attack Taliban

[cosmicone]

Source: yahoo/AP

ISLAMABAD – Hundreds of Pakistanis banded together and attacked Taliban strongholds in a troubled northwestern region, killing 11 militants, to avenge a deadly suicide bombing at a local mosque, officials said Sunday.

The incident Saturday underscored a swing in the national mood toward a more anti-Taliban stance — a shift that comes as suicide attacks have surged and the military wages an offensive in the Swat Valley.

Some 400 villagers from the neighboring Upper Dir district, where a suicide bomber killed 33 worshippers at a mosque in the Haya Gai area on Friday, formed a militia and attacked five villages in the nearby Dhok Darra area, said Atif-ur-Rehman, the district coordination officer.

The citizens' militia has occupied three of the villages since Saturday and is trying to push the Taliban out of the other two. Some 20 houses suspected of harboring Taliban were destroyed, he said.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090607/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan

---

Finally some sense and lots of Schadenfreude. Hope this would be enough and no more economic/military aid is given to Pakistan.

[ensho]

1. good news! more power to the Pakistani people

get those religiously insane men out of your society and have some harmony and joy.

[shadowknows69]

2. Any ideas how we can get the religiously insane out of our country too?

I think it would do the world a world of good.

[Wizard777]

4. Insterad of running them out. How about we put them back in?

We need to revamp the abadoned idea of state mental health care facilities. It could also cut down on the homeless problem. Many of the homeless in my area are former patients that miraculously recovered and were discharged to the street the second the checks were cut off and the facilities shut down. Some seem to be doing okay. But others are obviously still in need of care.

[pop goes the weasel]

5. please reconsider what you wrote

You do understand, I hope, that the prevalence of people with mental illness in the homeless population is due to the failure of communities to provide the locally based services that were supposed to replace institutionalization? And why is institutionalization bad, you may ask. In part, for the very reason that you make abundantly clear: institutionalization has historically been used to "disappear" people who those in power find inconvenient. If it is fundies in power, then pagans and atheists are suddenly the "crazy" ones. If it is a secular power structure, it is the fervently religious. I have known people whose parents have attempted, and sometimes succeeded, in institutionalizing them for religious difference, for homosexuality, for simple "rebellion". Bad enough it happens to minors. You are proposing that it be open season on adults, too. Then there are the abuses of inmates that happen once no thinks anyone is looking. The "fight club" at the Corpus Christi state "home" is just the latest example.

Seriously, how can any reasonable person of conscience, no matter their religious or political stance, even jokingly advance support for incarceration of dissidents on mental health grounds?

If you really care about the homeless mentally ill, you will work toward getting community-based services and laws that mandate full coverage of community-based mental health treatment.

[Wizard777]

7. Oh dear God.

This is the only site on the internet that I've been too that actually has a sarcasm smiley in their collection. I forget to use the damned thing every time. This time I actually did consider using it. But I thought no that is just too obviously a sarcastic reply to a sarcastic comment. Well now I know why they have a sarcasm smiley. A lot people here wouldn't know sarcasm if it bit them on the ass. Sorry, I'll not make that mistake again. I'll use it every time from now on. I would fix it just for you. But this site also has an editing period that has long expired.

Just a wee bit of :sarcasm: was used in this post.

[pop goes the weasel]

11. I'm glad you were being sarcastic

But, no, it wasn't obvious at all.

[Wizard777]

12. Again my fault. In Baltimore we speak Sarcasm fluently. It's like a second language.

We can conduct entire conversations in Sarcasm. We know Sarcasm when we hear it just as surely as we know Spanish when we hear it. New Yorkers are rude and Baltimoreans are sarcastic. I guess that's why we get along so well at the O's Yankees games.

[madeline_con]

8. We could destroy houses suspected of harboring them. n/t

[Wizard777]

3. WOO HOO! Pakistan finally got the big picture and is moving the right direction.

[rollin74]

6. Good!

people are fed up and finally taking action

[SpartanDem]

9. Long overdue for them to start fighting back

against these scumbags

[proteus_lives]

10. Good for them!

These are the people that need to be fighting the Taliban.

[Alamuti Lotus]

13. Lynch mobs are awesome!

:eyes:

[ClarkUSA]

14. Where does it say "lynch mobs" in the story? Do you feel sympathy for the Taliban?

[Coventina]

15. In answer to your second question, yes.

There's a history of posts showing that.

[ronnie624]

17. I've just finished reading every last one of Alamuti Lotus's messages relating to the Taliban,

and your claim that he is a Taliban sympathizer is utterly and demonstrably false. His sympathies are all reserved for the innocent victims of U.S. meddling in the Afghanistan and Pakistan. His posts, to me, indicate a healthy skepticism regarding the War On Terror™, which is really just cover for the strategic and economic aspirations of American elites in Central Asia and elsewhere. He seems to have a more vivid understanding of world events than those who allow their world view to be distorted by a sense of blind nationalism.

The War On Terror™ was bullshit when the Bushites initiated it, and it is bullshit now.

[Coventina]

19. This instance doesn't involve the US. This is the Pakistani

people fighting against the Taliban who bombed their mosque.

[ronnie624]

21. I don't believe so.

This "instance" involved you claiming that a particular poster had a history of posting sympathies for the Taliban. I decided to investigate that history myself, and found that your claim was incorrect. That was the point I addressed in my initial post. I thought I might set the record straight. I'm sure you wouldn't want to inadvertently slander another poster with false claims.

[Coventina]

23. I am confident that the evidence speaks for itself.

My point was that in this thread the post referred to is part of an overall pattern. I stand by that assertion.

You did your own investigation and came to a different conclusion - groovy.

[Alamuti Lotus]

24. And my solipsist-narcissism grants me the benefit of not caring

People I don't like say unkind things about me? That might bother me if they weren't hypocrites and state-terrorist cheerleaders. More on this later, prospects for entertainment are good.

[Coventina]

25. okay

:shrug:

[Hippo_Tron]

16. When there's no law and order you can't inherently call it a lynch mob

In the United States it would be a lynch mob because we have police that are capable of handling this sort of thing. In certain parts of Pakistan, they don't. Whether or not taking matters into your own hands is justified is heavily dependent on the context.

[JonQ]

18. If they only killed taliban radicals

and avoided civilians then I'm not going to shed too many tears over this.

[Alamuti Lotus]

20. Sure, that's the likely scenario

a dozen villages under attack (the major media claim 3-5, but the true figure is higher at this time) by government militias (not suddenly spontaneous "freedom fighters" as the snippets of real-time revisionist newspeak that the professional whirlitzers would like to present), and yes, most likely all discipline and Marquis de Queensbury rules in full effect. Or, not.

[JonQ]

22. They probably were more discriminating than the taliban

they killed. So who knows, it may have saved lives in the long run.

If the government wasn't doing anything about it with their army, and the taliban wasn't going to magically go away and stop killing villages on their own, what other options were there? Challenge them to a dance off? Because those taliban guys are remarkably good dancers. Like, ridiculously good.

[woo me with science]

26. Yes! Hooray for them!

Let's hope this is part of a sea change.