Salman Rushdie - Time to declare Pakistan a terror state

Are we really supposed to believe that Pakistan didn’t know Osama bin Laden was living there for five years? Salman Rushdie on why it’s time to declare the country a terrorist state.

Osama bin Laden died on Walpurgisnacht, the night of black sabbaths and bonfires. Not an inappropriate night for the Chief Witch to fall off his broomstick and perish in a fierce firefight. One of the most common status updates on Facebook after the news broke was “Ding, Dong, the witch is dead,” and that spirit of Munchkin celebration was apparent in the faces of the crowds chanting “U-S-A!” last night outside the White House and at ground zero and elsewhere. Almost a decade after the horror of 9/11, the long manhunt had found its quarry, and Americans will be feeling less helpless this morning, and pleased at the message that his death sends: “Attack us and we will hunt you down, and you will not escape.”

The U.S. administration confesses it was “shocked” by the elaborate nature of the compound.

We had heard—I certainly had, from more than one Pakistani journalist—that Mullah Omar was (is) being protected in a safe house run by the powerful and feared Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) somewhere in the vicinity of the city of Quetta in Baluchistan, and it seemed likely that bin Laden, too, would acquire a home of his own.

In the aftermath of the raid on Abbottabad, the old flim-flam (“Who, us? We knew nothing!”) just isn’t going to wash.

I have argued, many times that the Pakistani peoples have made themselves the enemy of the American people. That the ISI PROPERLY represents the way the populace feels, and that this is one of the major reasons why the secular govt can make no progress against fundamentalist Islam and it’s cat’s paws the ISI, Taliban and AL Qaeda.

Out govt, and western govts refusing to state the facts, is an understandable attempt to avoid an ugly truth and ugly results, but it is FUTILE.

The people want what they want. We have stood for democracy and everywhere we see it and it’s birth in the M.E., we see more Islamist behavior.

Turkey, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Gaza, Libya, Syria, and Pakistan. Only where such govt has been for more than a generation (Iran) is there any sign that OTHER than this is what is wanted by the people.

Out govt should at least have the GUTS to say the truth.

‘We are in for a rough ride. We HOPE that while we avoid a major clash of civilizations, that realistic hopes and dreams intercede against religious fundamentalist behavior, BUT IT MAY NOT’

If anything comes out of getting that mass murdering racist cretin which is more positive than his death it should be that we are FINALLY unafraid in the media to ask the right and tough questions, and demand their answers.

NOW.

Related articles

• Osama Death-China Stands by Pakistan. (ramanan50.wordpress.com)
• SALMAN RUSHDIE: It’s Time To Declare Pakistan A Terrorist State (businessinsider.com)
• Osama Bin Laden Was My Neighbor In Abbottabad (thedailybeast.com)
• Pakistan: We didn’t know he was here (cbsnews.com)