Bombs kill 15 amid political crisis in Pakistan

it boggles the mind....

Agreed, an amazing thread.

Odd, isn't it? Still we can't quite decide who gets to be called "freedom fighters" (in this case meaning regional religious nationalists) "terrorists." Especially when they challenge foreigners who merely bomb the country where they live.

I guess those Boston Tea Party guys really were as revolting as King George said.

I guess too, as Scarabus hints - we'd better reassess history's revised list of Anti-Terrorist Humanitarians. You know - guys like Hitler, Tojo, and Mussolini. Let's really work hard to reveal their heroic but tragic effort to snuff out, (sorry, cleanse and uplift) those -

British, American, Polish, French, Belgian, Scandinavian, Dutch, Canadian, Australian, Balkan, Jewish, Greek, Chinese, Indian, Filipino, Burmese, and that Russian, um, "terrorist" rabble

Because had the axis powers won, you can bet your BMW you'd be speaking German today and hanging your head in shame at the eternal infamy of defying The Reich, The Spaghetti Warlord and The Rising Sun.

Bombing campaigns? Quintessential military pragmatism in total war. Don't waste troops up front, at least not until the invasion and occupation. Before then blast everything in sight and starve the population into submission.

Worked great in Vietnam didn't it? Iraq too! And soon some of them may be our allies again, in the absence of alternatives.

A wonderful misstatement appears above...

"The bombings, coming days after gunmen attacked Sri Lanka's visiting cricket team, were a fresh reminder of the militant threat in Pakistan, where Western leaders worry that a growing political feud could distract the government from tackling the extremists head on."

The Pakistan government ONLY is distracted by terrorist bombings? But not ours? We believe that's OK with the population?

If the crazies we further incite to attack us (by bombing the innocent with drones) don't get hold of nukes and hit us first, maybe 50 years from now Pakistan will be our best friend. Possibly not. At this point what is their incentive to do anything for us?

More realistically are we doing it again? Pushing another of the world's most unstable and corrupt countries to join forces with Russia and China? - Both of whom appear to be more solvent than are we.

And all of them armed with nukes..

OK. It's 1:35 a.m. I'm worried about our daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter driving south from Atlanta, and I've been drinking Tennessee whiskey. So I might very well be maudlin, incoherent, or both. However, with those stipulations...

I've really been enjoying these exchanges. For the record, just in case, the late Stephen J. Gould was both a scholar at Harvard and a liaison to the public via his long-lived series of articles in Natural History magazine.

Should be obvious by now that I'm not a scientist and thus not in a position to assess Gould's scholarly theories. But I can say I love his "accessible to the lay person" articles and his posthumous book
The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox: Mending the Gap Between Science and the Humanities. In part it's a response to E.O. Wilson's "consilience" theory.

OK! Cut to the chase, Scarabus!

Following Gould's death, especially because he was a liaison between professional scientists and rest of us, his overall contributions were discussed in general interest periodicals like The New Yorker. General drift was that, while Gould might not have been right in his serious scientific contributions, he definitely encouraged serious debate and further research, either to support or to discredit his theories.

Wouldn't that be a good epitaph? None of us is absolutely "right," of course. What matters is that together we inspire and contribute to rational, informed, and respectfully civil debate.

cerealforeal what would you want us to fight with? Sticks? Words? Stick out our tongues? Say nanny nanny boo boo? Give them the finger? Or when they shoot at us, we shoot back? hum? Your comment lacks any substance except a hint at your leftist thinking and a vein attempt at being clever.

What do you do when someone comes into your house wanting to rape and kill your family? Do you talk to them? Do you make them coffee and donuts? Or do you just allow them to kill you? Inquiring minds want to know. You obviously don't want to use fire if they are using fire.

It is not the perspective that weighs whether one is "good guy", or "bad guy", but the action of said guys that is the clarifying factor...Hmmm?

Fighting fire with fire... when will Americans learn any better?

So Scarabus what you are saying in so many words is that "bad guys" is relative to who says it. ummm.........yeah.

I got a "ding" to let me know that privateibber had contributed, but I couldn't find his/her entry. So I respond with good spirit, but without confidence that I'm recalling the full contribution. Apologies, private.

Anyhow, what caught my interest was your saying that "bad guys do whatever it takes." You're probably right. But who and on what basis gets to decide which guys are bad, which waffling, and which good?

Mind you, I think my values are probably aligned with yours. I'm not piddling on you. I just want to suggest that those you and I might consider "bad guys" undoubtedly see themselves as "good guys." And they see us as "bad guys."

Not long ago I received a private message from a guy who made a provocative suggestion: namely, if you’re gonna do it, then why not go big? Why settle for 15 if you could nail 1,000,000? Good question. In response I’d say forget the logistical issue. Let’s focus instead on the example of history.

Admittedly, the logistical issue counts. For example, obviously it’s a lot easier to kill 15 people than to kill 1,000,000. I mean, despite the elaborate plot, Osama bin Laden managed to kill only @3,000 people. And in return he riled up rather than defeated his enemies’ will. Likewise, George Bush, despite the investment of trillions of dollars, thousands of American lives, tens of thousands of Americans physically and/or psychologically damaged -- never defeated his enemies’ will and courage.

In times past, the policies of Genghis Khan might have worked: Resist? You’ll be totally obliterated. Submit? You’ll be allowed to live and pay tribute. That’s my lay person’s understanding. I’m not a professional historian.

Still, as an amateur I can’t help thinking about WW II. Hitler bombed the civilian population of London, trying to break the will of the British people. Backfired. Hitler tried to break the will of the citizens of Stalingrad by aerial and artillery attack. Didn’t work. Tables having turned, the allies tried the same tactics on Germany -- examples being Dresden, Cologne, and (most horribly) Hamburg. Didn’t work.

Granted, there might be a point where quantitative scale becomes qualitative scale. One might refer to the U.S. destruction of the innocent civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But without further persuasion I for one can’t accept that as a breaking of will. Surely it was due more to an acknowledgement of practical reality: Are we willing to see our land and our people totally obliterated? Or would we prefer to see land and people survive, to grant them the opportunity to rise again?

The only way to perpetuate constant fighting is to keep people angry and in fear. I believe that bad guys do whatever it takes. It's just the reader's opinion as to who is who.

I'm still on the side of the people that give women rights. That tells me all I need to know. If you're uncivilized and backward in one area you will tend to be that way in all areas. Just my opinion and that of any other fair and civilised human being.

This is a fascinating thread but I do agree that we cannot be military strategists from our armchairs. That is the job of the men and women who are serving and sacrificing and their commanders. All I was referring to was the Pashtoons and their old rituals and rites and who knows what "loyalties."
War is hell Harry and this is too complicated for me to comment upon. It's like those movies with the quintuple agents and nobody ever knows who did what. Glad I'm home.
Thanks by the way for all of these very intelligent and insightful posts.
The technology that goes beyond the sword is no more intelligent than the sword. It's just a slicker form of killing. It's never nice when people have to die. I'm going to another thread.
I just watched that program and learned something new. As I do here all the time. I wonder if the Drones have names? I mean like Harry or Dave or Jack or even Dorothy. Could be a woman drone.

I'm not an expert, so I grant the possibility you are right in saying, "[I]t is well known that a tactic of the taliban is to bomb their own people…"

But quite frankly I've never heard of such a practice, and -- no disrespect intended -- I'm not prepared to take your word for it. (Just as I hope you would resist taking my word for the contrary.)

Can you provide objectively documented research to support your premise?

I think it is well known that a tactic of the taliban is to bomb their own people and a school or hospital works best then blame it on a US drone, or 500 lb bomb from a US warplane, anything to incite the local populace where they get most of their suicide bombers. It is a recruitment tool really. Anger the peasants with evidence of a bombing of innocents, say it was because of the evil Americans and their crusade to wipe out Islam. A crusade that ended a thousand years ago. It works every time. When you control the media you can say what you want when you want and manipulate the masses. It can happen in small border tribal groups or a million strong German population. Or it can happen in the 500 million strong industrial country, like ours.

More information is needed to decide if what they are saying is reality or a manipulation of facts. What has always bothered me is during the eradication of Saddam and subsequent years our own media seems quick to pick up on these kinds of stories and reproduce them in our mainline papers as truth. Why would they do that when we have our young men and women in harms way? Seems nothing gets in the way of political agenda. It still has not been reported by our mainstream media that yellow cake uranium was found in northern Iraq stored for later use.

Certainly killing oneself and others in a suicide attack must make the murderer (in prospect) and fellow believers feel good. But do these murders actually make a positive difference in advancing a cause? Anyone of a study that has explored this?

In the case of U.S. remote control killing of innocent civilians, the net return really seems negative. I mean, the drones might kill some opposition leaders along with innocent civilians. Sure. But does the political, let alone moral, cost really advance U.S. interests?

Real questions, not just rhetorical. This stuff ought to be out there, on the table. And it ought to be acknowledged in every news report or opinion piece that addresses such bombings.

Should the U.S. focus more attention on Pakistan?

thanks!!