PAKISTANIS SLOWLY WAKING UP ABOUT THE TALIBAN - but still in denial about Islam

WASH POST/AP: Taliban-Style Justice Stirs Growing Anger - Sharia Being Perverted, Pakistanis Say

The Taliban's draconian practices have horrified many Pakistanis.

Sharia, after all, is the legal framework that guides the lives of all Muslims.

Officials said people in Swat were fed up with the slow and corrupt state courts, scholars said the sharia system would bring swift justice, and commentators said critics in the West had no right to interfere.

Today, with hundreds of thousands of people fleeing Swat and Pakistani troops launching an offensive to drive out the Taliban forces, the pendulum of public opinion has swung dramatically.

The threat of "Talibanization" is being denounced in Parliament and on opinion pages, and the original defenders of an agreement that authorized sharia in Swat are in sheepish retreat.

The refugees are the "victims of ignorant cavemen masquerading as fighters of Islam," columnist Shafqat Mahmood charged in the News International newspaper Friday. He said that the "barbarian horde" that invaded Swat never intended to implement a sharia-based judicial system and that they just used it as cover. "This is a fight for power, not Islam," he wrote.

RWTW.

• HE IS WRONG: THIS IS A WAR ABOUT ISLAM. WITHIN ISLAM AND BETWEEN ISLAM AND EVERYTHING ELSE.

• ULTIMATELY, THE PAKISTANIS - AND ALL OTHER MUSLIMS - WILL HAVE TO WAKE ALL-THE-WAY-UP.

MORE PROOF ISLAM ITSELF IS THE PROBLEM:

Sufi Mohammad, a cleric with substantial following in Swat recently declared that democracy is not compatible with the Sharia.

We might dismiss him as one who is poorly educated in Islamic studies but for the fact that others in his clan of orthodox ulema entertain similar views.

THE COLUMNIST GOES ON TO ARGUE THAT THE CLERIC IS WRONG - BUT HE DOES THIS ON HISTORICAL GROUNDS, NOT THEOLOGICAL.

THEOLOGICALLY, ISLAM IS ANTITHETICAL TO DEMOCRACY, LIBERTY, SCIENCE, AND MODERNITY.

ULTIMATELY, MUSLIMS MUST CHOOSE ISLAM OR MODERNITY.

• THE ISLAMISTS HAVE A FIFTH COLUMN IN THE WEST: LEFTIST POSTMODERNISTS HAVE ALSO REJECTED MODERNITY.

• TOGETHER, THEY CAN DEFEAT THE WEST -

• WITH CREEPING SHARIA AND DHIMMITUDE,

• AND WITH SOCIALISM (WHICH WILL KILL PROSPERITY) AND DEVOLUTIONARY MORAL DECADENCE (WHICH KILLS THE THOUSANDS OF YEARS OLD TRADITIONAL INSTITUTIONS AND VALUES WHICH ARE THE VERY FOUNDATION FOR THE RULE OF LAW AND SANCTITY OF HUMAN LIFE).