Why The War Against The Taliban In Pakistan Is Difficult

Residents, rescue workers and security officials gather after a bomb explosion at a Peshawar market on Wednesday, October 28, 2009. (Fayaz Aziz/Reuters)

From The Washington Post:

PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN -- When terrorists last week blew up the Mina Bazaar, a market for women and children, they detonated a car bomb so powerful it left more than 100 people dead and 15 missing in a nightmarish scene of scattered limbs, charred corpses and victims trapped alive under mounds of debris.

The bombing crossed a new line of callousness, uniting Peshawar in grief and fear and unleashing a tide of anger. But most of the outrage expressed by survivors, witnesses, religious leaders and other residents this week was not directed at Islamist extremist groups, whom the government has blamed for the attack, but at the countries many Pakistanis see as their true enemies: India, Israel and the United States.

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My Comment: You cannot quickly undo decades of indoctrination and propaganda. A good friend of mine (of Pakistani descent) outlined to me how the media, the education system, religious institutions, and the political class were aligned in an unholy alliance of hate and intolerance towards India, the Jews, and the West ..... and this was in the mid 1990s.

Too many people are vested in continuing this campaign against the West, and bombings in civilian areas are not going to change this mindset.