Top Extremist Cleric killed in Pakistan

Good!, the more of these folks DEAD that contribute to the ideology/mindset of terror the better...That is exactly what should be done. Cut the head off the hate-filled snake.

 

I hate hated filled haters who hate not hating.

 

On the downside though this incident might make the war on terror harder to fight. Many of the tribes that are sheltering Al Qaeda in Western Pakistan are less likely to cooperate with the Pakistan army or us and this may rally many of the Islamists opponents to Musharraf in Pakistan.

Its too early to tell if this is the Oklahoma City for Pakistan, an event that undercuts support of the opposition movement, or the Alamo, an event that empowers them.

 

DD, no one wants to hear of any radicals getting killed

 

Surely peace is just around the corner because of this action.

 

yup and people are just sitting back and letting it happen.

 

This circumstance is somewhat different but reminds me of Al-Sadr in Iraq. If the U.S. had taken him out early, I strongly believe we would be much better off in Iraq. It's too late to kill him now because Iraq would explode. Sparing him was an incredibly bad decision.

I'm not sure if Musharaf did the right thing here. It was probably a "no win" situation. I'll say this: At some point you have to enforce law and order.

 

true, i think al-sadr was handled with kid gloves. I think thats a general problem with america's military, however. I think that overly PC policies have hurt their ability to do certain things that have to be done in combat situations...but i suppose thats another debate.

But you are right when you say

. it may not always be the nice or prettiest answer but you still have to do it.

 

absolutely but this wasn't sadr. they could have waited him out. and frankly this guy wasn't going around killing people. also how do you tell your soldiers to go and kill 50 of your own people and die in the process?

some 50 plus people died. islamabad was made a war scene. this could have been negotiated if given enough time. all that was stopping the negotiations in the final hour was the question of foreigners supposedly who were there and free passage. that surely could have been worked out with a couple days more.

frankly it was a horrible situation and musharaf loses big time either way.

 

reading more i might have been wrong about him not killing people. and he certainly may have held hostages during the last few days. interesting bio at the bbc.

washington post

 

yeah blame the troops and not the admin

 

Possibly not. Shiite allegiance to new Iraqi government and subsequently the US coalition has always been a very fragile thing. If the US had taken Al Sadr out in 2004 things might've exploded then.

I agree Musharaf was in pretty much a no-win situation. He could've left the cleric in place as a continued defiance to his power or taken him out. Either path has problems. As I said previously its too early to tell how this will play out.

 

When Al-Sadr was wanted in connection for the deaths of Shia clergy who supported the U.S, he didn't have nearly the broad base of power he has now. At the time he was just a very loud mouthed (relatively young) clergyman who got attention because of his family name. His sphere of influence has grown dramatically to the point of being the biggest threat to Iraq having any future at all.

There would have been a lot of flak and anger back in 2004 but it would have been managable. Since then, Al-Sadr has marginalized much of the moderate Shia clergy. The damage of his growing influence has been incalcuble and I doubt taking him out 3 years ago would have resulted in a worse situation now. Sometimes not taking a surgical action (out of caution) is actually riskier than no action at all.

This thing in Pakistan sounds really bad. Probably just another nail in Musharaf's coffin.

 

sniffing glue today? i have no idea where or how you think i said that.

 

That's the point. Killing them will just breed more or at least another one to take their place. It won't bring about peace just to kill these people. The only way a real peace can be brought about is to offer something better with more hope than what the nutjobs are preaching.

 

This philosophy presumes that there are an unlimited number of people that are willing and able to fill the void left when these guys are killed. Eventually the spot won't be filled because there is no one left to fill it. It may not necessarily be the best solution, but it is a possible solution.

 

Valid point to make but the thing is we are talking about Pakistan. There really are an indefinite number of kooks willing to fill extremist's voids after they are killed. Unless their government is willing to kill enough people to be labeled genocidal, your solution is not possible in that country IMO.

 

That may be true if you were killing them at an incredibly high rate - but if we could do that, we wouldn't be having this problem anyway. We kill 1 top person every few months. During that time, you probably have at least a few hundred new recruits worldwide.