A part of the equation that is missed when talking about Pakistan is the drug mafia. The Taliban elements of the north west have certain alternative means of funding, now that they have become more tolerant of the poppy cultivators. The international illegal drug trade is worth 8 billion dollars, and most of the illegal poppies come from the frontier areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The way these fundamentalists in NWFP of Pakistan inflict terror : murdering artists, politicians and bombing girls schools, and most pertinently : murdering journalists who are taking a neutral position and are just providing a coverage of events : indicate they have links to the underworld. Some of the acts of these fundamentalists are even against hardline Islam : digging up graves and hoisting the dead-bodies in public is not in Islamic custom. However, such gruesome acts were done by the drug mafia to terrorize the locals in other areas of the world.

And then there are Talibans (according to Joe Biden)
“Five percent of the Taliban is incorrigible, not susceptible to anything other than being defeated,” Biden told a press conference at North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters in Brussels today. “Another 25 percent or so are not quite sure, in my view, of the intensity of their commitment to the insurgency. Roughly 70 percent are involved because of the money.”

Read whole thing here
http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20090310/pl_bloomberg/ayvhevellxa8_1;_ylt=Ap8kZeh9A3vQJZGGMijSSQQBS5Z4

and then there are “moderate Talibans”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/us/politics/08obama.html?_r=3&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

ANd here is what Stephen Walt has to say about realists foreign policy

“Finally, because the world is a competitive place, realists look for opportunities to divide adversaries and to discourage potential rivals from joining forces, based on the simple idea that it is better to face weak and/or divided opponents than a strong and unified opposition. ”

So all this voilence may seem fueds between sunnis and whabbies(remember Shia ,Sunnie violence in Iraq). But let us not lose the bigger picture ………

On a more serious note, where is the popular outrage? After every atrocity, I hope against hope that people will shout “enough”, storm the nearest mosque popular with Taliban sympathizers and terrorize the terrorists… okay, maybe that is a bit too much, but again… where is the popular outrage?

Is it possible that the Taliban were motivated by recent reports by the RAND corporation about supporting Desi Sufi Islam to counter Taliban and other extremist movements? A sort of pre-emptive strike to make sure they remain powerful? (really I don’t even know what this means, aren’t the Chishti’s and Deobandi’s Sufi’s too? Hasn’t Sufi thought influenced almost all Muslim theology to some extent in South Asia regardless of sect/adherence?) Plus, some of these shrines are really powerful and wealthy institutions (I’m thinking of the shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar), so maybe the Taliban just wanted to loot them (not surprised). On the other hand, they say its because women visited there. Whats your take sepoy?