Conceded to sharia? Conceded has connotations of negativity. …

The province is part of Pakistan. Pakistan can do as it likes with its provinces. If they want sharia, they should have it.

SL uses the word “conceded” because it’s an accurate description of what occurred. The central Pakistan government did not want to allow sharia in Swat. To do so is to admit that their own laws and controls do not operate in the area (and essentially, to concede control of the area). However, in order to broker a ceasefire with Fazlullah they agreed to the imposition of sharia.

The central question to my mind is whether the people of Swat (and the rest of Pakistan) really want this area to be taken over by the Taliban. Apparently Fazlullah’s grip over the region is enforced in large part by fear, and anyone who disagrees with him is killed.

I’d agree that if Pakistani people voluntarily wanted to adopt sharia, that would be their choice. I’ve got no right to say anything against that. But if people are being beheaded because they won’t accede to the Taliban’s rules, then I think I’m entitled to think that is pretty appalling.

The province is part of Pakistan. Pakistan can do as it likes with its provinces. If they want sharia, they should have it. Why should this be “shitful”…

Perhaps it’s just ‘typical’ western colonial assumption, but after several hundred years bloodshed in Europe seperating church and state from law and all the social and economic positives that made possible, reverting from the inherited (and reasonably functional) constitutional justice model to religious law in Swat does seem a step backwards.

Personally if someone’s faith tells them to paint themselves blue and bark at the moon that’s fine by me, and there are many Muslim countries who successfully integrate Sharia law alongside a functioning consitutional model (Malaysia springs to mind). But what I’m assuming will happen in Swat is that we’ll get the Taleban-style of sharia they had in Afghanistan pre-invasion where women were excluded from public life at gunpoint and treated as property (which is NOT supported by Islam, ironically). It doesn’t have to be of course, but it will…

Conceded has connotations of negativity. Why do you care if they’ve “conceded” the region to sharia.

The province is part of Pakistan. Pakistan can do as it likes with its provinces. If they want sharia, they should have it.

Why should this be “shitful”

I suppose that’s why the Taliban don’t like sport – it detracts from “proper” thoughts.

If you attack sport, it is a very potent statement – really what they are saying is, “We are powerful, God is on our side, and we have control.”

Besides, sport and politics have always been enmeshed. This was one of my earliest political lessons. How could I forget! I was a young ‘un demonstrating with my mother outside the Tower Mill Hotel in Brisbane during the South African Springbok Rugby Union tour. It split my family. My father was a RU football player (and teacher) and she was an undergraduate student radicalised around the issue of apartheid.

The tour was used by South Africa to defend and legitimise the indefensible. And in Australia and New Zealand, thousands of young people protested, ran onto the field, were arrested and physically beaten by cops.

It was a plank in the defeat of a system.

The problem is that the Pakistani government isn’t really capable of handling the extremists. It is essentially in a position of damned if it does deal with them, damned if it doesn’t.

I don’t think foreign intervention is the answer (it hasn’t worked in Afghanistan and Iraq very well). That said, I don’t know what the answer is.

1. Pakistan has tolerated Islamic extremists in its midst for a very long time.

2. They have now attacked a cricket team, despite assurances that as nutty as extremist Islam gets, it wouldn’t get to this stage (I do think Imran Khan can be expected to know something about his fellow countrymen on that point).

3. Cricket is an important source of revenue and provides considerable social cohesion across all classes in Pakistan.

4. Refer (1); ergo shitting in your own nest.

5. The country has nukes. Decommissioning its nukes may become necessary.

I’m not going to speak for Paul, who may wish to make further comments of his own, but like him I think the Iraq war was based on lies, and thus unsupportable. I am also quite radically opposed to foreign intervention in order to ‘remake’ societies into liberal democracies, in part because I don’t think it’s possible in most cases and where it has been possible historically, it has required vast quantities of blood and treasure.

Free-floating nukes in the hands of nutters, however, are a whole different kettle of fish.

And another thing: your remark about ‘genocidal comments’ at Tim Blair’s site is defamatory, and presumably you as a lawyer are aware of that fact. It’s now hosted on our site, which makes us liable as publisher. I’ve notified Tim Blair and will remove the comment at his request, although he may have other preferences.

And finally: I’ve never played the guilt-by-association game, and consider it among the lowest forms of argument. If I cite someone, it does not mean I agree with all or anything that they say. It means I found their post useful on that point (in this case, chiefly on the basis of interesting footage).