Pakistan At The Crossroads

Pakistan's official and unofficial outrage over the manner in which the world now views its complicity in sheltering and shielding Osama bin Laden from detection by U.S. forces ill becomes it. But on the other hand, this is what Pakistan has become. It is a terror state, to begin with. It has continued to agitate toward war with India, since partition. It foments unease and unrest in the geography of which it is a part. It aspires to control its neighbour Afghanistan, and for that purpose groomed the Afghanistan Taliban.

Yet it portrays itself as a bridge between militant Islam and moderate Islam. It conceives of itself as a 'friend' and an ally to the West and particularly to the United States. The U.S. has expended billions upon billions of its treasury to buy the co-operation of Pakistan. And Pakistan has been pleased to grasp that funding, pledging itself to the common cause of extirpating from its midst jihadists, and assisting the West in battling religious extremists.

Extremism, however, is deeply entrenched in Pakistan, it has invaded its military and it pervades its secret service. The ISI has made itself extremely useful to the religious fanatics that have formed their own Taliban in the North West Frontier Provinces where tribal chiefs have the option of assisting the Taliban or dying prematurely. This is the country that continues to provoke and attack India.

This is the country that conspires to assassinate any of its political leaders who tend to grasp the fundamental issue that democracy is far more than a word. Ironically, another great good friend of the United States, the Kingdom of Saud, exported its brand of Wahabbist Islam through the funding of madrassas all over Pakistan, to imbue a people already in full embrace of conspiracies and tribalism, with the full impact of the expectations of militant Islamism.

A better home, a more fitting and purposeful venue for generating ever newer generations of dedicated jihadis could scarcely be found. Training camps were the natural successor to the madrassas that cramped the lives of Pakistani youth and gave their lives purpose and meaning. Pakistan is terror central, the crucible of modern terror, sending out its tentacles wherever opportunity arises.

Outside of Pakistan millions of expatriate Pakistanis live in other countries of the world, accepting a Western outlook and orientation, while practising a more moderate brand of Islam. Finding it, however, difficult-to-impossible to believe that their country of origin has become what it currently represents as; a threat to world order and peace.

Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, in generously enabling North Korea, Libya, Iran and Syria to achieve nuclear installations was simply being a good Muslim. The United States, in sending drones into Pakistan targeting the Taliban is deliberately slaughtering innocent Pakistanis. Osama bin Laden's whereabouts could not have been known and condoned by official Pakistan.

People of Pakistani origin have the same opportunity and free will as any others to open their minds and think creatively and clearly about what is occurring around them. Yet they steadfastly refuse the reality of psychopathic Muslims intent on overthrowing the current world order in favour of a universal, sharia-observing Islamist-controlled order for the Ummah and just incidentally for everyone else as well.

All that is ill with the world is the fault of the Zionist-controlled United States of America. Pakistan has no responsibility whatever for the chaos the Muslim world finds itself in. And when protests are planned, they are for insults to Islam and to the Prophet, never to disown and demand cessation of the violence that al-Qaeda and Islamist militias impose upon sectarian Muslims and Christians, for the prejudice against them has never abated.

Muslims see themselves embattled, blamed for the violence that has erupted in the world of violent jihad seeking to destroy the democratic Western world. They pounce upon the falsely-identified phenomenon of Islamophobia as a real threat to themselves, and as representing the source of the problems; the actions of violent jihad are simply pay-back, a response to insults against Islam.

Until and unless Muslims who see their faith as one of peace and conciliation toward others not of their faith, make an effort to retrieve the honour that resided in Islam and wrench their religion away from the grasp of the furious despisers committed to violence among themselves, they and the rest of the world will continue to reel under the vicious onslaught of brutal attacks.

It's long past time for decency and humanity to re-assert itself.