Taliban Torture Pakistan

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Doc
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Taliban Torture Pakistan

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http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/16/world/asi ... ol-attack/
Taliban halted after slaughtering at least 130, mostly children, in Pakistan school

By Sophia Saifi and Greg Botelho, CNN

updated 10:04 AM EST, Tue December 16, 2014

Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- A deadly, hours-long siege of a school in northwest Pakistan ended Tuesday evening with all the Taliban militants responsible killed, at least 130 people -- most of them children -- dead and a country once again grasping for answers after a horrific attack.

Six suicide bombers scaled the walls of Army Public School and Degree College in the violence-plagued city of Peshawar around 10 a.m. (midnight ET) intent on killing older students there, according to Mohammed Khurrassani, a spokesman for the Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan, or Pakistan Taliban.

These Taliban had "300 to 400 people ... under their custody" at one point, Khurrassani said.

Pakistani troops responded, fending off gunfire and improvised explosive devices planted by terrorists as they went through the compound, building by building, room by room. By 4 p.m., they had managed to confine the attackers to four buildings, and a few hours later, Peshawar police Chief Mohammad Aijaz Khan said that all of them were dead.


Pakistan takes on Taliban militants

Still, the ordeal wasn't over.

Pakistani authorities continued clearing the school in Peshawar, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) from the country's capital, Islamabad, wary of planted explosives and other potential threats.

Making sure others weren't still hiding for their safety, counting the dead and treating the wounded -- 182, according to provincial Information Minister Mushtaq Ghani -- remained pressing tasks as well. Pictures showed victims being treated at a nearby hospital. The 130 killed don't include the slain militants.

In a tweet, military spokesman Gen. Asim Bajwa called the attack a "ghastly act of cowardice in killing innocents" that, in his view, proves that the Taliban are "not only enemies of (Pakistan) but enemies of humanity."

"They have hit at the heart of the nation," Bajwa said. "But ... they can't in any way diminish the will of this great nation."

What do the Pakistan Taliban want?

Minister: Most dead between ages 12 and 16

On a typical day, the Army Public School and Degree College is home to up to 1,000 students, most of them sons and daughters of army personnel from around Peshawar. The boys and girls attend classes in different buildings on the compound.

How many of them will go home to their families alive remained in question Tuesday night, as Pakistani troops went room by room.

The Pakistani military had said that most students and teachers managed to evacuate the complex before being targeted or taken by the Taliban.

But many could not.

Students said gunmen walked through where students in grades 8, 9 and 10 have classes and began firing randomly, said Dr. Aamir Bilal of Peshawar's Lady Reading Hospital. Seventh-grader Mohammad Bilal said he was sitting outside his classroom taking a math test when the gunfire erupted.

"They were making exclamations of 'God is great.' Then one of them proclaimed that 'A lot of the children are under the benches; kill them,' " recalled another student, 14-year-old Ahmed Faraz, from Lady Reading Hospital. "They climbed the benches and started firing at the children. "

Most of those killed were between the ages of 12 and 16, said Pervez Khattak, chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, of which Peshawar is the capital

By 7 p.m., Lady Reading Hospital had already taken in 31 dead boys and another 45 injured boys, Bilal said. He described the condition of the injured as very serious, noting that many of them had gunshot wounds all over their bodies.

Obama: Pakistan attack shows Taliban 'depravity'

Violent past

Pakistan has seen plenty of violence, much of it involving militants based in provinces such as South Waziristan, North Waziristan and the Khyber Agency -- all restive regions in northwest Pakistan, along its border with Afghanistan.

It is the home base the TTP, an organization that has sought to force its conservative version of Islam in Pakistan. They have battled Pakistani troops and, on a number of occasions, attacked civilians as well.

Schoolchildren have been among their targets. The most notable among them was Malala Yousafzai, who was singled out by Taliban militants October 9, 2012, and shot while riding from home. The teenage girl survived and, last week, became the youngest ever recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to promote education and girls rights in Pakistan and beyond.

And Peshawar, an ancient city of more than 3 million people tucked right up against the Khyber Pass, has often found itself in the center of it all. Militants have repeatedly targeted Peshawar in response to Pakistani military offensives, like a 2009 truck bombing of a popular marketplace frequented by women and children that killed more than 100 people.

Yousafzai said Tuesday she was "heartbroken by this (latest) senseless and cold blooded act of terror in Peshawar."

"Innocent children in their school have no place in horror such as this," the 16-year-old said.

Growing up scared in Peshawar

Deadliest attack since 2007

Still, even by Pakistan and the Taliban's gruesome standards, Tuesday's attack may be the most abominable yet.

This is the deadliest incident inside Pakistan since October 2007, when about 139 Pakistanis died and more than 250 others were wounded in an attack near a procession for exiled former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, according to the University of Maryland's Global Terrorism Database.

As recently as last spring, the Pakistan Taliban -- a group closely affiliated with the Taliban in Afghanistan and whose members swear allegiance to the Afghan group's leader, Mullah Omar -- and the Pakistani government were involved in peace talks. The government released 19 Taliban noncombatants in a goodwill gesture.

But talks broke down under a wave of attacks by the Taliban and mounting political pressure to bring the violence under control.

Inside militants' secret tunnels in Pakistan

Taliban: Revenge for killing of tribesmen

In September 2013, choir members and children attending Sunday school were among 81 people killed in a suicide bombing at the Protestant All Saints Church of Pakistan. A splinter group of the Pakistan Taliban claimed responsibility for the church attack, blaming the U.S. program of drone strikes in tribal areas of the country.

And for the past few months, the Pakistani military has been conducting a ground offensive aimed at clearing out militants. The campaign has displaced tens of thousands of people.

The military offensive in the region has spurred deadly retaliations.

Khurrassani, the Pakistan Taliban spokesman, told CNN that the latest attack was revenge for the killing of hundreds of innocent tribesmen during repeated army operations in provinces including South Waziristan, North Waziristan and the Khyber Agency.

The TTP spokesman challenged that ordinary citizens were targeted, saying that five army vehicles are routinely stationed at the school.

"We are facing such heavy nights in routine," Khurrassani said, rationalizing the siege shortly before it ended. "Today, you must face the heavy night."

By all standards, the attack on the Army Public School and Degree College is historic -- not just for Pakistan, but for the entire world. It's the bloodiest on a school since armed Chechen rebels took about 1,200 children and adults hostage in Beslan in 2004, a siege that ended with at least 334 people killed.


British Prime Minister David Cameron called the news "deeply shocking," saying "it's horrifying that children are being killed simply for going to school." He was among a number of officials from around the world who condemned the violence.

"By targeting students and teachers in this heinous attack," U.S. President Barack Obama said, "terrorists have once again shown their depravity."
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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Endovelico
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Re: Taliban Torture Pakistan

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All this reinforces my view that this type of taliban and ISIS people should be subject to a war of extermination, with all means available, and I mean ALL means. Genghis Khan had the right approach to this sort of problem and was very successful in his time.

Image

Of course this wouldn't include populations taken hostage by the savages, but every man in arms should be simply destroyed. Would that take a land invasion? Probably, but I think it would be worth it. And I don't mean the halfhearted operations as previously carried out in Afghanistan. I mean hundreds of thousands foot soldiers, serious use of air power and neutron tactical bombs where necessary. Not a single taliban or jihadist should be left alive. Total eradication is the only lasting solution. Followed by a policy of tolerance and acceptance of whatever regimes would spring to life, if adequately supported by the population.
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Re: Taliban Torture Pakistan

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Endovelico wrote:All this reinforces my view that this type of taliban and ISIS people should be subject to a war of extermination, with all means available, and I mean ALL means. Genghis Khan had the right approach to this sort of problem and was very successful in his time.

Image

Of course this wouldn't include populations taken hostage by the savages, but every man in arms should be simply destroyed. Would that take a land invasion? Probably, but I think it would be worth it. And I don't mean the halfhearted operations as previously carried out in Afghanistan. I mean hundreds of thousands foot soldiers, serious use of air power and neutron tactical bombs where necessary. Not a single taliban or jihadist should be left alive. Total eradication is the only lasting solution. Followed by a policy of tolerance and acceptance of whatever regimes would spring to life, if adequately supported by the population.

A more recent version

You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace."


General William Tecumseh Sherman
to the Mayor and Councilmen of Atlanta



In the mind of General William Tecumseh Sherman, who made famous the phrase "War is hell," there was no doubt as to the integrity of the North's cause. Sherman was renowned as a fierce - some would say tyrannical - military leader, and in September 1864 he gave orders for the city of Atlanta to be evacuated and burned. Despite appeals from the citizens of Atlanta, including reminders that there were elderly and pregnant women whom it would be difficult and even perilous to move, Sherman's decision was final. He explained himself to the mayor and council members of the city.


HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION of the MISSISSIPPI in the FIELD
Atlanta, Georgia,
James M. Calhoun, Mayor,
E.E. Rawson and S.C. Wells, representing City Council of Atlanta.


Gentleman: I have your letter of the 11th, in the nature of a petition to revoke my orders removing all the inhabitants from Atlanta. I have read it carefully, and give full credit to your statements of distress that will be occasioned, and yet shall not revoke my orders, because they were not designed to meet the humanities of the cause, but to prepare for the future struggles in which millions of good people outside of Atlanta have a deep interest. We must have peace, not only at Atlanta, but in all America. To secure this, we must stop the war that now desolates our once happy and favored country. To stop war, we must defeat the rebel armies which are arrayed against the laws and Constitution that all must respect and obey. To defeat those armies, we must prepare the way to reach them in their recesses, provided with the arms and instruments which enable us to accomplish our purpose. Now, I know the vindictive nature of our enemy, that we may have many years of military operations from this quarter; and, therefore, deem it wise and prudent to prepare in time. The use of Atlanta for warlike purposes in inconsistent with its character as a home for families. There will be no manufacturers, commerce, or agriculture here, for the maintenance of families, and sooner or later want will compel the inhabitants to go. Why not go now, when all the arrangements are completed for the transfer, instead of waiting till the plunging shot of contending armies will renew the scenes of the past month? Of course, I do not apprehend any such things at this moment, but you do not suppose this army will be here until the war is over. I cannot discuss this subject with you fairly, because I cannot impart to you what we propose to do, but I assert that our military plans make it necessary for the inhabitants to go away, and I can only renew my offer of services to make their exodus in any direction as easy and comfortable as possible.

You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop, but will go on until we reap the fate of Mexico, which is eternal war. The United States does and must assert its authority, wherever it once had power; for, if it relaxes one bit to pressure, it is gone, and I believe that such is the national feeling. This feeling assumes various shapes, but always comes back to that of Union. Once admit the Union, once more acknowledge the authority of the national Government, and, instead of devoting your houses and streets and roads to the dread uses of war, I and this army become at once your protectors and supporters, shielding you from danger, let it come from what quarter it may. I know that a few individuals cannot resist a torrent of error and passion, such as swept the South into rebellion, but you can point out, so that we may know those who desire a government, and those who insist on war and its desolation.

You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable, and the only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home, is to stop the war, which can only be done by admitting that it began in error and is perpetuated in pride.

We don't want your Negroes, or your horses, or your lands, or any thing you have, but we do want and will have a just obedience to the laws of the United States. That we will have, and if it involved the destruction of your improvements, we cannot help it.

You have heretofore read public sentiment in your newspapers, that live by falsehood and excitement; and the quicker you seek for truth in other quarters, the better. I repeat then that, by the original compact of government, the United States had certain rights in Georgia, which have never been relinquished and never will be; that the South began the war by seizing forts, arsenals, mints, custom-houses, etc., etc., long before Mr. Lincoln was installed, and before the South had one jot or title of provocation. I myself have seen in Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, hundreds and thousands of women and children fleeing from your armies and desperadoes, hungry and with bleeding feet. In Memphis, Vicksburg, and Mississippi, we fed thousands and thousands of the families of rebel soldiers left on our hands, and whom we could not see starve. Now that war comes to you, you feel very different. You deprecate its horrors, but did not feel them when you sent car-loads of soldiers and ammunition, and moulded shells and shot, to carry war into Kentucky and Tennessee, to desolate the homes of hundreds and thousands of good people who only asked to live in peace at their old homes, and under the Government of their inheritance. But these comparisons are idle. I want peace, and believe it can only be reached through union and war, and I will ever conduct war with a view to perfect an early success.

But, my dear sirs, when peace does come, you may call on me for any thing. Then will I share with you the last cracker, and watch with you to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter.

Now you must go, and take with you the old and feeble, feed and nurse them, and build for them, in more quiet places, proper habitations to shield them against the weather until the mad passions of men cool down, and allow the Union and peace once more to settle over your old homes in Atlanta. Yours in haste,

W.T. Sherman, Major-General commanding
http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/sherman/ ... lanta.html
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
noddy
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Re: Taliban Torture Pakistan

Post by noddy »

the chinese beat genghis in the long run, butchery and rape will only get you so far.
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Doc
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Re: Taliban Torture Pakistan

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noddy wrote:the chinese beat genghis in the long run, butchery and rape will only get you so far.
They say "the south will rise again" so far I don't see that happening.
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
noddy
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Re: Taliban Torture Pakistan

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Doc wrote:
noddy wrote:the chinese beat genghis in the long run, butchery and rape will only get you so far.
They say "the south will rise again" so far I don't see that happening.
i dont get the reference.
ultracrepidarian
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Endovelico
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Re: Taliban Torture Pakistan

Post by Endovelico »

noddy wrote:
Doc wrote:
noddy wrote:the chinese beat genghis in the long run, butchery and rape will only get you so far.
They say "the south will rise again" so far I don't see that happening.
i dont get the reference.
I suppose Doc means Southerners were successfully beaten into permanent submission. Unless one does likewise to jihadists - preferably by killing them all - we are not going to control terrorism nor prevent acts of savagery like those we have witnessed.
noddy
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Re: Taliban Torture Pakistan

Post by noddy »

seriously ? mountains of skulls and near complete genocide of military aged men.

good luck with getting that through parliament.
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Doc
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Re: Taliban Torture Pakistan

Post by Doc »

Endovelico wrote:
noddy wrote:
Doc wrote:
noddy wrote:the chinese beat genghis in the long run, butchery and rape will only get you so far.
They say "the south will rise again" so far I don't see that happening.
i dont get the reference.
http://www.raabcollection.com/jefferson ... rise-again

I suppose Doc means Southerners were successfully beaten into permanent submission. Unless one does likewise to jihadists - preferably by killing them all - we are not going to control terrorism nor prevent acts of savagery like those we have witnessed.
No not at all. They were just convinced that all the fighting was not worth it. The only way the southern army could exist and would have continued to exist was by the support of the southern civilian population. The farmers of the Shenandoah Valley feed the Army of Virginia for years during the war. The city of Winchester changed hands 72 times during the war. It was not until the barns were burned and the livestock was taken by the north that southern resistance stopped in the valley

There is way too much false pride in the Muslim world. Most of it being insecure as a culture. They need to be convinced that it Is not worth all the death and misery to continue to fight western culture and more to the point the modernity it bring with it. I suppose everyone at some point looks back to the past as a simpler time live.

So, in the same fashion, fundamentalist Muslims look back to the old days and say "The caliphate will rise again." That dream Is incompatible with the rest of the human race.
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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Endovelico
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Re: Taliban Torture Pakistan

Post by Endovelico »

Doc wrote:
Endovelico wrote:
noddy wrote:
Doc wrote:
noddy wrote:the chinese beat genghis in the long run, butchery and rape will only get you so far.
They say "the south will rise again" so far I don't see that happening.
i dont get the reference.
http://www.raabcollection.com/jefferson ... rise-again

I suppose Doc means Southerners were successfully beaten into permanent submission. Unless one does likewise to jihadists - preferably by killing them all - we are not going to control terrorism nor prevent acts of savagery like those we have witnessed.
No not at all. They were just convinced that all the fighting was not worth it. The only way the southern army could exist and would have continued to exist was by the support of the southern civilian population. The farmers of the Shenandoah Valley feed the Army of Virginia for years during the war. The city of Winchester changed hands 72 times during the war. It was not until the barns were burned and the livestock was taken by the north that southern resistance stopped in the valley

There is way too much false pride in the Muslim world. Most of it being insecure as a culture. They need to be convinced that it Is not worth all the death and misery to continue to fight western culture and more to the point the modernity it bring with it. I suppose everyone at some point looks back to the past as a simpler time live.

So, in the same fashion, fundamentalist Muslims look back to the old days and say "The caliphate will rise again." That dream Is incompatible with the rest of the human race.
You may very well be right, and I don't usually agree with you... But what if it takes them a century to see the light?... Are we willing to have another hundred years of carnage just to give them a chance to become civilized?... I'm not that patient...
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Doc
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Re: Taliban Torture Pakistan

Post by Doc »

Endovelico wrote:
Doc wrote:
Endovelico wrote:
noddy wrote:
Doc wrote:
noddy wrote:the chinese beat genghis in the long run, butchery and rape will only get you so far.
They say "the south will rise again" so far I don't see that happening.
i dont get the reference.
http://www.raabcollection.com/jefferson ... rise-again

I suppose Doc means Southerners were successfully beaten into permanent submission. Unless one does likewise to jihadists - preferably by killing them all - we are not going to control terrorism nor prevent acts of savagery like those we have witnessed.
No not at all. They were just convinced that all the fighting was not worth it. The only way the southern army could exist and would have continued to exist was by the support of the southern civilian population. The farmers of the Shenandoah Valley feed the Army of Virginia for years during the war. The city of Winchester changed hands 72 times during the war. It was not until the barns were burned and the livestock was taken by the north that southern resistance stopped in the valley

There is way too much false pride in the Muslim world. Most of it being insecure as a culture. They need to be convinced that it Is not worth all the death and misery to continue to fight western culture and more to the point the modernity it bring with it. I suppose everyone at some point looks back to the past as a simpler time live.

So, in the same fashion, fundamentalist Muslims look back to the old days and say "The caliphate will rise again." That dream Is incompatible with the rest of the human race.
You may very well be right, and I don't usually agree with you... But what if it takes them a century to see the light?... Are we willing to have another hundred years of carnage just to give them a chance to become civilized?... I'm not that patient...
It might take that long. But not that they are not civilized but rather they aren't civilized in a modern way. As always people usually have to learn the hard way. In this case they have to learn how to give up the old ways. When you see open societies in the Muslim world with benevolent governments, and real protection of minorities' rights, that is for the West what winning looks like.

Obama is playing a dangerous game. He is trying to get the people of the Middle East vested in fighting for the above. But I think he is seriously underestimating the "JV team" and their very sophisticated tactics. No matter how medieval they are behaving they certainly want to win no matter how long it takes. They spent a year working up to taking Mosul by demoralizing the people there and the Iraqi Army. Only then did they attack and defeat a far superior force that no longer had the will to fight.
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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