My favorite news media person, Rachel Maddow, covered a story on the region of Swat, Pakistan being taken over by the Taliban recently.Yeah, that Taliban have now, essentially, in-so-many-words, expanded and govern a section of Pakistan, nevermind their still-threatening presence in Afghanistan. More information from the Washington Post here.
And what was the reaction of the Obama administration's Secretary of State, Hilary My Love? Well, she said it was a problem but the whole region was a problem.
33,000 additional troops were brought to Afghanistan recently, but that's Afghanistan. The strategy will take a turn with the new administration, apparently. Exactly what has not yet been laid out for the public, mostly because domestic issues are overshadowing.
All of this made me remember the Buddha statues, for some reason. Six months before the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Taliban destroyed two gigantic, ancient Buddha statues in the Bamiyan Province of Afghanistan. While there was an international outcry for this action, there wasn't any substantial action-against, and despite furied calls from other Islamic leaders, from international governemtns, both allies and foes alike, to leave the archaelogical gems alone, Mullah Mohammed Omar, the then leader of the Taliban and thus leader of Afghanistan, followed through with his threats and had the statues destroyed - dynamited, to be more exact. These Buddhas were 175 and 120 feet high and dated from the 3rd to 5th century.
Why did these statues enter my head today? Well, in addition to the Swat region issue, I was just thinking about people's apathy or ignorance and how it leads to much worse situations.
A parallel experience in domestic issues is last year, when people began losing their homes because of the housing crisis and everyone uneffected said, "Meh, doesn't have an effect on me..." and now we're all screwed...
Like that Reverend Niemoller quote about the Nazis going after Catholics and Social Democrats and Jews and him never saying anything & when they went after him, there was no one left to speak up.We've got to pay better attention. We've got to fix the leak before it becomes so damaging is makes the whole dam crumble. So, I think that the shiria law coming into power in Swat is a major RED FLAG about Taliban resurgence and we, as in America, better nip that in the bud ASAP before the dynamited 175 foot Buddha statues turn into practice for the skyscrapers, metaphorically speaking. That is, before the Taliban insert themselves into the power in Pakistan as well as Afghanistan because, as Rachel Maddow pointed out today on her show during the segment linked above, the Pakistan government in is possession of muclear weapons.
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