Little Green Footballs [1] notes:
In their standoff with the Pakistani government, the depraved holy warriors of the Red Mosque in Islamabad have surrounded themselves with children: Brainwashed children plead to die as martyrs in Red Mosque siege [2].
SAIMA KHAN wants to die a martyr. Life is transient, she told her father in a telephone call last week, and the real glory is to sacrifice it for Allah. Her statement would be alarming at any age, but Saima is only 10.
As she spoke, rifle shots rang out, the acrid smell of tear gas drifted over Islamabad and hundreds of troops surrounded the pro-Taliban Red Mosque, a religious school complex in the heart of Pakistan’s capital where Saima was among hundreds of children being held as virtual hostages in a stand-off between militants and the government.
Saima and her 14-year-old sister, Asma, were embroiled in a struggle for the soul of Pakistan in which up to 70 militants died last week and more than 100 were injured, according to mosque officials.
Holed up inside the complex behind the lines of troops and razor wire, the children – many of them girls whose families had sent them to the mosque to receive a strict Islamic education – repeatedly rejected relatives’ entreaties to leave before a threatened army onslaught.
There was evidence that many had been brainwashed into a cult of martyrdom, and the authorities feared last night that some were being prepared to be suicide bombers. In barely eight weeks, Saima had been transformed from a religious but fun-loving girl to a jihadi, grimly craving martyrdom.
[1]The picture is one of female students of the Red Mosque holding bamboo sticks and shoving antigovernment slogans during the attack of the soldiers on the mosque, and is from AFP. I post it, along side the story, to give you a visual and help you understand. I would suggest you follow the link that Charles put up in the text I quoted, to get the full story.
If this doesn’t give you a fairly decent idea of what we’re up against the worldwide basis, I don’t know what would. Unfortunately the specter of Janet Reno style response almost seems reasonable in the face of such determination to sacrifice one’s self. And here certainly, we have more indication of the intents of the people inside, then we did at Ruby Ridge. (So I’m by no means defending Reno’s abominable actions…)
Fortunately, as the story that Charles links indicates, they didn’t end up having to nuke the place to quell the disturbance. Still, something along the lines of 70 people died. About 100 more were injured that we know about.
But for all that, the question becomes, how many lives were saved? How many truly innocents didn’t have to die because this weed got pulled up by the roots?
Truly, a quandary that’s beyond the ken of the “Peace at all costs” crowd. It’s a choice Cindy Sheehan has never understood, though her son being smarter than her, did. It’s a choice they wouldn’t be able to make if their lives depended on it. Their reaction to Iraq and our actions within it pretty much prove that. Unfortunately for them, it may, yet come to that dependency.
Udpate: Captain Ed has more [3]