Stop It! Pakistan’s Recent Bombings

Tags

When a militant core develops somewhere down deep in the middle of Pakistan’s middle or middle-elite and modernizing middle classes — business, landowners, and military — there may come a more vigorous battle against the miscreant forces throwing bombs at them.

* * *

AP reports two bombings today in Baluchistan — two soldiers killed in one attack; six people in the other (plus 11 wounded).

Having scratched through the surface of the Baloch Conflict — start looking up nouns if you’re enthused about solving this one of the world’s problems — I could not find the noble figure of a people’s leader who was not himself above it all in the now familiar narcissistic pattern, self-aggrandizing, self-enriching, not quite so truly egalitarian and magnanimous.

That fighting is going to go on until someone runs short of either ammo or manpower.

___

Also, in the same piece, AP tells of other recent deadly violence related to the ferrying relief to the victims of a recent earthquake in the region. Rather than tally the count, which is one way of removing and sanitizing what is happening — by turning humans into numbers — I’d rather readers used their imaginations for two minutes.

A terrible earthquake has taken place somewhere. Homes have been destroyed; roads have been damaged, perhaps; communities and families have found themselves cut off from others, the economic ecology of their lives — getting food, having a place to sleep — has been suddenly altered and they’re exposed to both malevolent human and natural forces. Military troops — good young men, every one of them — have been summoned to get in aid and for that expression of compassion and good deed doing have been attacked and killed with bombs or gunfire.

Of and for the dead we ask whether their murderers were Baloch separatists or Islamic militants when, in fact, the answer is irrelevant to the ethics and humanity of the situation.

Whoever the killers are, it seems they could not discern the difference between a combat mission and a humanitarian one, much less between a soldier and a civilian — and if the history of this fighting affords any clues, they never could.

_____

Start with the end of the story: “At least 20 people were killed and nearly 40 were injured when another bus carrying government workers was bombed in the same area in June 2012.”

Same time, next year?

Add a couple of months: 17 dead is the count from the bus bombing that took place a week ago in Peshawar.

______

“Police and hospital officials say most of the dead and injured were women and children. The diocese of Peshawar says several were Sunday school students and choir members.” — from the video heading Suicide bombers kill 81 at church in Peshawar, Pakistan – CNN.com – 9/23/2013.

Imran Khan who has promised to talk with the Taliban (I cannot but imagine that a “see here, old chum, this is just not acceptable . . . .” is not going to get very far) and Nawaz Sharif may be figuring out that not only is talk cheap in the face of such an onslaught of mayhem and murder, it may also no longer suffice for calming crowds and placating the bereaved.

______

Shafqat Malik, the head of the local bomb squad, said the bomb was planted in a car parked in front of a small hotel in the Qissa Khawani bazaar, the city’s oldest and one of its biggest. The device used about 440 pounds of explosives and was detonated by remote control, he added, leaving a crater 5 feet deep.

Car bomb kills dozens at bazaar in Peshawar, Pakistan – latimes.com – 9/29/2013.

Toll: 43 dead, 100 wounded, “in a crowded market about 350 yards from where a memorial service was being held for the victims of last week’s church bombing.”

Zulfiqar Ali and Mark Magnier’s piece in the Los Angeles Times makes mention of the recent series of attacks as possibly intended by Taliban to discredit peace talks with the government.

If it’s true, job well done, I’d say.