141 children slaughtered in attack on school. I bet you can guess who did it

[Reub]

141+ dead in a school attack in Pakistan, mostly children. One teacher was burned alive. There they go again!

[clacy]

Do you think that radical Islamists decided to butcher Muslim school children because the CIA made a terrorist linked to KSM stand for a really long time in Gitmo?  That's probably the reason these Muslim terrorists decided to attack muslim school children. 

If that's not the reason, then surely it's because these Pakistani terrorists are upset that the US has an air base in Kuwait?

http://www.latimes.com/world/afghanista ... story.html

[Pointedstick]

Nice folks. I suspect this attack will backfire, though, and will likely have the effect of only further steeling the Pakistanis' historically somewhat tepid resolve.


As for why the terrorists did this, they'll straight-up tell you. From the article:

A spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack and said it was retaliation for the Pakistani military’s months-long offensive in northeastern Pakistan’s tribal areas, an action that officials say has killed hundreds of militants.

[...]

A Taliban spokesman, Muhammad Khorsani, told Pakistan’s Express Tribune newspaper: “We will target every institution linked to the army unless they stop operations and the extrajudicial killing of our detainees."

[dualstow]

I bet you can guess who did it

Obama?

[clacy]

I bet you can guess who did it

Obama?

Hey I may be a lot of things, but I'm not Sean Hannity

[dualstow]

I bet you can guess who did it

Obama?

Hey I may be a lot of things, but I'm not Sean Hannity

It's a Reub-authored thread, so I had to offer that guess. 

[I Shrugged]

So why don't the Pakistanis take care of the problem? 

[moda0306]

126+ dead in a school attack in Pakistan, mostly children. One teacher was burned alive. There they go again!

Since those dead kids are just future militant Muslim scum, do they really count as victims?

[MachineGhost]

So why don't the Pakistanis take care of the problem?

They're fractured ethnicity-wise.  Hard to get a consensus.  In some ways Pakistan is a secularly-imposed state like Iraq was.

But wow, seriously, ignoring the Geneva Convention and targeting civilian women and children as retaliation for military deaths is seriously hitting below the belt.  No good will come out of extremist tactics like that but the Taliban's eventual termination.

[clacy]

I bet you can guess who did it

Obama?

Hey I may be a lot of things, but I'm not Sean Hannity

It's a Reub-authored thread, so I had to offer that guess. 

Actually I authored the thread and headline, and one of the mods must have merged Reub's comments into this thread. I think he posted similar comments into the Sidney thread a few seconds before I posted this..... but since his post was before mine sequentially, it went to the front of the line.

Hence the confusion...

[Reub]

I also made a comment that our beloved Prez is about to do to Afghanistan what he did to Iraq, namely abandon them and open the door wide for the next radical Islamic (redundant) caliphate. This might have gotten lost somewhere.

In Obama's condemnation of the attack he never named the Taliban directly. And his press secretary ironically named Josh Earnest was quick to make a distinction between the Pakistani Taliban and the Afghani Taliban, as if the Afghani Taliban would never do such a thing so it would still be alright to abandon Afghanistan as planned.

[Ad Orientem]

The politics aside, this is a monstrous crime that calls into question the basic humanity of the murderers.

[Jan Van]

... But wow, seriously, ignoring the Geneva Convention and targeting civilian women and children as retaliation for military deaths is seriously hitting below the belt.  ...

But it's an "Army Public School" so I'm sure that makes it all good in their minds. Two bad things, "Army" and "school"!

[dualstow]

@clacy Ah, a merge. I had checked the top post and couldn't figure out why you said that. Makes sense now.

[Reub]

My main problem with libertarians is that it seems that they just want to let these types run rampant over the rest of the world.

[WiseOne]

Changing tack slightly....

The Taliban have had a long vendetta against schools that educate girls, so I think there was an element of that here as well.

You know who I blame most here?  It's not necessarily the governments of Pakistan or Afghanistan, who one might argue should have tried harder to deal with these monsters but in reality have limited capacity to do so.  And no, it's not Obama either :-).

It's the Islamic religious leaders.  Apart from a very few tepid comments, their silence has been deafening, especially now in the wake of this school massacre.  Not only should multiple high-level Muslim clerics be repeatedly denouncing these attacks and repudiating any legitimate association with Islam, they should excommunicate the perpetrators or bar them from entering Mecca, or some such action.

It is most definitely the case that the vast majority of Muslims are as non-violent as, say, we are, but in light of the above, Reub and others are perfectly entitled to assume that these attacks are consistent with core Islamic values.

[Reub]

The problem with peaceful Muslim clerics speaking out is that they don't want to get their heads chopped off either. I believe that this can only be accomplished through brute government force, the kind that, sadly, leads to brutal dictatorships in some of the countries. People like the Shah of Iran and Egypt's Mubarak, both Western friendly dictators.

[MachineGhost]

In Pakistan, politicians have been killed for defending Asia. Her own five children and family are in hiding, fearing their lives. Her execution could happen soon, and her family and supporters continually targeted, unless the global community comes together to demand her release and her safety.

https://www.change.org/p/u-s-senate-hel ... cz4zy_PENM

[madbean]

The Taliban have had a long vendetta against schools that educate girls, so I think there was an element of that here as well.

Were there any girls in this school? I know there was at least one female teacher but so far I've only seen pictures of males and names of males (and I'm just assuming they don't name girls Mohammed as that would probably be blasphemy).

And I probably shouldn't bring this up for fear of being labeled an Islamist sympathizer but we've had plenty of school shootings here in the USA too, haven't we? I don't know where to find any statistics but I'm betting we're still way ahead on that score.

[MachineGhost]

And I probably shouldn't bring this up for fear of being labeled an Islamist sympathizer but we've had plenty of school shootings here in the USA too, haven't we? I don't know where to find any statistics but I'm betting we're still way ahead on that score.

Yeah, but school shootings here are from deranged teenagers on antidepressants or other powerful psychotics that frack up their brain chemistry.  What excuse do Radical Islamist Fundamentalists have?

[Reub]

Have you noticed how many of these Islamist murderers are being called deranged these days? As if they aren't a part of an international existential movement.

[WiseOne]

The problem with peaceful Muslim clerics speaking out is that they don't want to get their heads chopped off either. I believe that this can only be accomplished through brute government force, the kind that, sadly, leads to brutal dictatorships in some of the countries. People like the Shah of Iran and Egypt's Mubarak, both Western friendly dictators.

That may deter some, but still doesn't explain the universal silence.  There are plenty of examples of Catholic and Protestant clergy and laity speaking out and acting on their beliefs despite great personal risk.

"Deranged" is probably a good way to describe them, although it doesn't say why that might be the case.  Some of the acts by individuals could be attributed to mental illness; hyperreligiousity (and yes that's a medical term) is a prominent symptom of schizophrenia.  There are enough examples of this with just about any religion (like those two Mormon brothers in Utah who murdered a mother & baby and said that God had told them to do it) that you can't make too much of a few cases.

But you can't use that explanation for a group like the Taliban though.  This is where Muslim clerics could do a lot of good by speaking out against them.  They should hire some bodyguards like the Pope does, and get out there and speak up.

[Jan Van]

But you can't use that explanation for a group like the Taliban though.  This is where Muslim clerics could do a lot of good by speaking out against them.  They should hire some bodyguards like the Pope does, and get out there and speak up.

But that's probably where the deranged comes in. Or people like our president saying that "they are not real muslims". That way you can wash your hands of it.

Fallacy of the week: “They”? (ISIS) are not “True”? Muslims

[MachineGhost]

Have you noticed how many of these Islamist murderers are being called deranged these days? As if they aren't a part of an international existential movement.

Maybe that's secularism at play and the increasing recognization of how religious mysticism makes human beings deranged.

[clacy]

But you can't use that explanation for a group like the Taliban though.  This is where Muslim clerics could do a lot of good by speaking out against them.  They should hire some bodyguards like the Pope does, and get out there and speak up.

But that's probably where the deranged comes in. Or people like our president saying that "they are not real muslims". That way you can wash your hands of it.

Fallacy of the week: “They”? (ISIS) are not “True”? Muslims

Could not agree more.  Unfortunately, it's simply not true. The stats don't back up the claim that it's a very small percentage of Muslims who have extremist views.  Obviously most are not terrorist, but there is a significant portion of Muslim people that either condone the use of terrorism, or turn a blind eye because they're sympathetic to the cause, even if they are otherwise normal people in much of their lives.