Pakistani poll: What we need is a lot more democracy — and shari’a
posted at 3:34 pm on January 7, 2008 by Allahpundit
Exhibit A in why the new Biggest Problem in the World admits no easy solutions, no matter what your candidate of choice may tell you on the stump. The good news? Majorities support democracy and madrassa reform and oppose “Talibanization.” The bad news? 64% think Musharraf’s attack on the Red Mosque this summer — ground zero for jihad in the capital city of Islamabad, mind you — was a mistake. Then there’s this:
The Times went page one with a mini-bombshell yesterday about fears within the U.S. government that the threat to Pakistani stability from jihadis was so grave that the U.S. might have to step up its CIA and Special Ops presence in the tribal areas. To what end, though? Even assuming you could get close enough to Bin Laden or Zawahiri to bump them off, the numbers in those polls mean it’s likely to do Musharraf as much harm as good. (No wonder he continues to insist publicly that U.S. troops aren’t welcome.) It’s not a question of top AQ leaders hiding out anymore, if it ever was; it’s a question of whole tribes of Taliban guerrillas enlisted in the jihad against the Pakistani government. Small teams of hunter-killer Special Forces aren’t going to do much to thin their ranks.
Which isn’t to suggest that they couldn’t do some good while in the neighborhood.
If you want a reality check, skip down to page 24 of the PDF and see how Pakistanis rank the various threats confronting them. Exit question quotation, which isn’t at all related to this subject:
About every three days, unknown to most Americans, an elite team of federal scientists hits the streets in the fight against nuclear terrorism…
The teams would first attempt to disable a bomb’s electrical firing system and then quickly transfer the weapon to the Nevada desert. There, the bomb would be lowered into the G Tunnel, a 5,000-foot-deep shaft, where a crew of scientists and FBI agents would attempt to disassemble the device behind steel blast doors, logging any evidence…
Vahid Majidi, a nuclear weapons chemist and head of the FBI Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate, seemed more confident. Asked how good his chances would be to find a nuclear bomb in Manhattan with 24 hours’ warning, he said, “Quite reasonable.”
Blowback
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Are you sure that these polls weren’t taken in San Fran?
Browncoatone on January 7, 2008 at 3:37 PM
Vahid Majidi?
zane on January 7, 2008 at 3:39 PM
This is the sort of thing that reminds me why Obama would be even worse than Hillary.
It’s also making me lean more towards McCain.
http://pajamasmedia.com/2008/01/war_on_terror_conversation_joh.php
Dash on January 7, 2008 at 3:41 PM
President Bush 43 “This Oxy-thing is misoverestimated”.
Entelechy on January 7, 2008 at 3:43 PM
Red Mosque was an attack on a school. I would expect a lot of negative feelings about it.
bnelson44 on January 7, 2008 at 3:43 PM
We shouldn’t care what they think. They are not our friends. We shouldn’t give them any more money. We need to treat them like Afghanistan. They don’t get to vote, they aren’t Americans. If they want to go against our military, good luck. But we need to clean out the tribal areas. These polls are evidence that nobody in Pakistan is going to do it and they are not our friends.
ThackerAgency on January 7, 2008 at 3:46 PM
The concept of “democracy” is, to these people, the same as the concept of quantum mechanics is, to a cat.
OhEssYouCowboys on January 7, 2008 at 3:46 PM
FrontPageMag: Confirmed: Barack Obama Practiced Islam
and so it starts. Will “Likeability” overcome the Islam thing? Would Huck vs. Obama lead to an official start of the new Crusades? j/k, but the possibilities for these type of questions, paticularly in the political gutters away from the campaigns, i think is high.
jp on January 7, 2008 at 3:46 PM
HAHA.
The Pakistanis think we’re the real threat to their vital interests.
So tell me, how many American suicide bombers have killed innocent civilians in Pakistan?
Until these people get their collective heads out of their Koran, they will continue to live, and die, in their stone age world.
fogw on January 7, 2008 at 3:46 PM
Plus, asking them if they want government based on Islam is like asking Americans if they want Judeo-Christian based government. I’m certain that the poll would read the same way in America.
It’s different than asking them if they want sharia. If you polled them whether or not they wanted sharia, it’d probably be closer to 20% said they did. Not good, but not the 90% numbers from this poll here.
ThackerAgency on January 7, 2008 at 3:48 PM
The part you quoted makes me feel good. This part, not so much:
Spirit of 1776 on January 7, 2008 at 3:49 PM
They probably just remember that Obama’s big foreign policy idea was to invade Pakistan to get Bin Laden. Since he’s up in the Democrat nomination, I would say its a valid fear for them.
jepersonal on January 7, 2008 at 3:50 PM
Democracy and Sharia, working together hand in hand.
“Vote for the Candidate of the Party of Allah, or I keel you!”
thejackal on January 7, 2008 at 3:51 PM
Democracy leading to sharia. I wonder if dubya and our State Dept ever think about this when we push it on cultures which look at denocracy as only a means to an end. Like the PLO.
a capella on January 7, 2008 at 3:52 PM
I like the Democrat candidates’ solution to the Pakistan problem– call it PAH- KEY- STAHN. It adds the necessary “gravitas”, especially to the two boy wonders, and makes one sound like a mid-east expert.
JiangxiDad on January 7, 2008 at 3:55 PM
the problem is supporting pro-western Dictators in these countries, leads the left and paultard right to calling American an “Imperialist Nation” with “puppet States”, etc. Its were our partisian politics has led to.
they didn’t have this problem with Korea, where we put in pro-western dictators in early years then pushed for democracy and got it later on, after putting down the violent forces there first. This is basically what Rumsfeld wanted to do in Iraq but got over-ruled.
jp on January 7, 2008 at 3:58 PM
That leaves us only one alternative and that’s a sustained saturation bombing campaign of the area in question.
Would they view THAT as preferable?
SuperCool on January 7, 2008 at 4:03 PM
Unknown… until now. Thanks, MSM.
joewm315 on January 7, 2008 at 4:19 PM
This would basically confirm that the Democrats are idiots, and that the only possible course in Pakistan is to support the government and military and remain at arms length. Unless you’re prepared to go into Pakistan as an unfriendly, invading force with 80+ % of the population willing to wage war upon you.
Nice.
Jaibones on January 7, 2008 at 4:21 PM
“Democratic Shari’a”. An even better descriptor for an oxymoron than “Jumbo Shrimp”.
King Dom on January 7, 2008 at 4:51 PM
As Robert Spencer and Hugh Fitzgerald frequently point out,
the application of the Bush’s concept of democracy to the Middle East and Asia has been a disaster. Muslim majority populations are antithetical to the Western idea of Democracy. The best system for dealing with a Muslim majority population is some form of nationalism similar to what Ataturk promulgated in Turkey, which allows some freedoms but eliminates fundamental Islamism from any influence in governing.
It’s sad to say, but for all its flaws, Communism was much more successful in the governance of Islamic peoples than Democracy. In Central Asia, the various Stans under Soviet control saw women liberated from the village and their abbayas and given an opportunity for education and jobs.
In the last thirty years, sadly, Afghani women had it best, when the Russians were in control.
Mister Ghost on January 7, 2008 at 4:55 PM
ThackerAgency:
You are exactly right with this:
And then you are both right and (just a little) off with this:
If the poll said “sharia”, many would still be in favor, for the same reason you stated in your first point. It’s a vague identification; sharia can be read as a concept of being based in Islamic law to Muslims. It’s not viewed with the negative assumptions of a right-wing blog reader or secular humanist.
Only when you recite the particulars of sharia independent of the identification, or force Muslims to actually live under animated and rather strict sharia rule (as in Iran, Algeria until recently and parts of Iraq), do many/most Muslims with a foot in the 21st Century actually chafe at what that really means. And you’re right about the 20% in that case.
I know many folks dislike any comparisons between religions, but tabling false equivalency rebuttals and for the sake of illustration, it’s like asking a modern western Christian if they want to live under Christian values … when what that could mean (or be interpreted as) is asking them if they want to live under Oliver Cromwell or Cotton Mather.
Most committed Christians in the West do not like to live under very strict interpretations of Christian theology by historical or even modern standards.
BillINDC on January 7, 2008 at 5:00 PM
The Iraqi Constitution has this in it:
GEN Petraeus has said over and over again that we have to reconcile with our enemies, not our friends. He received damnation from particularly Democrats who thought we were making deals with the devil by reconciling former insurgents to Iraqi political and social life. The opposite was true. If Pakistan feels they have a shot at entering into negotiations with the Taliban, that’s up to them. They can decide, just like we did in Iraq, which “bad guys” are reconcilables or irreconcilables, as Petraeus calls them.
Based on a lot of anti-Muslim sentiment we see in American blogs and elsewhere, it’s only fair Pakistanis are suspicious of American intervention. All the better for us if they can handle their own affairs without us.
The problem isn’t more Islam in Pakistan, the problem would be more apostates like Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. Islam and democracy can and do co-exist in parts of the world. The brilliance of GEN Petraeus’ strategy has been dividing the two; irreconcilables from reconcilables; real Muslims from apostates and heretics who use violence to achieve their goals. It is usually uneducated and poor Muslims who buy into the violence.
Amy Proctor on January 7, 2008 at 5:36 PM
Once we come up with a viable alternative to oil, we should ban all travel to or from the Muslim world. These people are freaking nuts. Imagine having part of your country that’s controlled by bandits, tribes, and terrorists and you don’t want the government to do anything about it? If you ask me, we should be able to invade FATA (Qaedastan) because Pakistan has no control and no claim to it. It is a rogue state.
fleiter on January 7, 2008 at 5:54 PM
The sooner Mushy is gone the better. He only serves to anger more and more Pakistanis against the West. It’s too bad things couldn’t have been ironed out with Black Water to protect Bhutto.
(as always….apologies for spelling)
oakpack on January 7, 2008 at 6:03 PM
Based on a lot of anti-Muslim sentiment we see in American blogs and elsewhere, it’s only fair Pakistanis are suspicious of American intervention. All the better for us if they can handle their own affairs without us.
Amy Proctor on January 7, 2008 at 5:36 PM
Based upon the attack on the World Trade center it’s only fair Americans are suspicious of muslims…and the Cole, and the shoe bomber, and flight 93 and Padilla, and and and
real Muslims from apostates and heretics who use violence to achieve their goals
Muhammed who used violence to achieve his goals. Is he apostate?
entagor on January 7, 2008 at 6:04 PM
Good News, but also Good News.
Cuz like… the first one is literal and the second is how Allah does the.. – oh forget it
Richard Bushnell on January 7, 2008 at 6:12 PM
Is Islam compatible with democracy? Which is not a qualitative question.
Facts against ideology
Discussion in GB of almost 2 hours! I know you have no time or are not interested. But still…
It may not be on the forefront of your life now, but trust me, it will be…
http://kalcc.org/html/mp3player.html
Listen to this sometimes interesting and amusing discussion. It may be the last time it is allowed.
canadacees on January 7, 2008 at 7:27 PM
I just saw this amazing newspaper ad for Pakistani Airlines from 1979. You will be freaking BLOWN-AWAY when you see this…
http://pizdaus.com/single.php?id=16232
Shawn92101 on January 7, 2008 at 7:55 PM
Didn’t Pakistan have democracy in the ’90s? They got Bhutto and that goofball who tried to deny Musharraf’s plane landing rights. Can’t help but think Bush II/Rice were behind Bhutto’s return to Pakistan. She’s a club member; send her back in. Pakistan needs morally neutral democracy impressed on Islamists. Her homecoming will be a blast! Musharraf is expensive but the best we could hope for in Pakistan. He basks in the gratitude of Bush II, the same as Bush II’s voter base (us!).
Feedie on January 7, 2008 at 8:14 PM
same thing was said about Shintoism and democracy, worked out in the end. Of course it took the US military to put down oppressing forces
jp on January 7, 2008 at 8:29 PM
Some people here have some crazy ideas not particularly tied to reality.
BL@KBIRD on January 8, 2008 at 12:39 AM
OXYMORONSright2bright on January 8, 2008 at 9:15 AM