Cue the scary music and cast your eyes upon Pakistan where we seem to have helped the Pakistanis blow away about 80 jihadis and jihadi wannabees. The locals aren't happy:
In Bajur's main town of Khar, near Chingai, 20,000 tribesmen, many brandishing firearms, railed against President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and President Bush and called for their deaths.
"God is great!" "Death to Bush! Death to Musharraf!" and "Anyone who is a friend of America is a traitor!" they chanted.
Local pro-Taliban elder Inayatur Rahman told the crowd he had prepared a "squad of suicide bombers" to target Pakistani security forces in the same way militants are attacking in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"We will carry out these suicide attacks soon," he said, asking the crowd if they approved. The angry mob yelled back, "Yes!"
The rally also adopted a verbal resolution to stone to death anyone found spying for the Pakistan army or the U.S. government.
Pakistan has been a lot more help to us than I expected on September 11, 2001. But there are a lot more of these jihadi-loving loons running around Pakistan than I'd like. I worry that they are one bullet or car bomb away from seizing control of Pakistan and its nuclear arsenal. Even if I doubt the accuracy of all those "5 to 10 years" estimates of an Iranian bomb, at least there are no bombs in Iran right now. But nukes already built in Pakistan suddenly coming under the control of mad mullahs could take place at any time.
Would it be too callous of me to wonder if 80 dead isn't nearly enough?
Pakistan is a Scimitar of Damocles that we need to worry about. Pakistan's government needs to take out the frontier jihadis and we need to get the Pakistani government to pay the price to bring those nutballs under control. And we need to get Pakistan to introduce democracy and rule of non-Sharia law while the jihadi types are still a minority inside Pakistan. Because there's an easier way for nutballs to get nukes than spinning up centrifuges a thousand at a time.
This decade truly sucks. I'm reasonably sure I've mentioned that before.
