Pakistan

[Lamplighter]

This event seems important and illustrative to me as to what the US is facing in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

We continue to hear news of US interactions with the Pakistani government leaders,
but it's the religious leaders behind the scenes who are truly running the show.
In my mind, military actions in Pakistan should be based on it being a religious, not a political, war.

NY Times
Assassination Deepens Divide in Pakistan
By CARLOTTA GALL
Published: January 5, 2011

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The emotional funeral of the assassinated governor of Punjab
and the cheering of his killer in court Wednesday highlighted the intensifying struggle between
secular and religious forces in Pakistan that has grown nastier than ever in the country’s history.
<snip>
Moderate religious leaders refused to condemn the assassination, and some
hard-line religious leaders appeared obliquely to condone the attack.

Certainly the assassination has thrown the government off balance while the religious right,
as the conservative and religious parties are generally described,
remains unabashed in its open loathing of Mr. Taseer and his opposition to Pakistan’s
strict blasphemy laws, for which, apparently, he was killed.

Government ministers and party officials indicated that they were dropping the campaign
to change the blasphemy laws that Mr. Taseer had championed.
<snip>
No senior official would be drawn to comment on the religious extremist
aspect of the killing at the funeral.
Those who did comment, indicated a shift in the government position,
by suggesting the killing was a political murder and a conspiracy,
rather than a religiously motivated attack.