Peshawar Versus Paris

Genteel Sophistication Or Faithfulness to Duty

The Guardian has carried a piece on Pakistan, one year after the Peshawar school massacre.  Doubtless this act of murderous infamy has long since been leeched from the memory of most people in the West.  To refresh our minds:

It only takes the crash from nearby building work to send the teenage survivors of one of Pakistan’s worst ever terrorist attacks diving for cover.  “Everyone is traumatised inside the school,” said Mehran Khan, a 14-year-old student at the Army public school in Peshawar. “We are all thinking that there will be another attack.”

A year ago on Wednesday, Khan was shot three times when gunmen armed with suicide bombs stormed into the school auditorium where several year groups were watching a first-aid lecture. Most of the boys were unable to get to the exits, turning the hall into a scene of particular horror. The following day, when television crews were allowed in, the hard floors were still wet with blood.

More than 140 students and staff were killed, many of them executed at point-blank range by gunmen who also detonated bombs around the school buildings.

In the succeeding twelve months, much has changed in Pakistan, we are told.
 Because of a determined campaign against terrorists and terrorism, the "irregular" soldiers of Islam have been driven from the country--at least it is alleged to be the case.

Many say Pakistan itself has changed. After the attack all schools were ordered to rapidly build walls and extra defences. To the consternation of some of Pakistan’s European donors the country abandoned an informal moratorium on the death penalty and has so far executed more than 300 death row prisoners.

Most observers credit the attacks with spurring the country into tackling domestic terrorism like never before. The prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, publicly recognised Pakistan’s longstanding ambivalence on the matter, vowing an end to the distinction between “good and bad Taliban”.

A year after the APS attack, the tide of violence has fallen dramatically. “There are no more bomb blasts, all the terrorists have left Pakistan now,” said Ajoon Khan, a lawyer whose 15 year-old son Asfand died in the auditorium. “The country is changed completely because of the sacrifice of our children.” 

The stark difference between the West's response to Islamist terrorism and Pakistan's is plain for all to see.  Pakistan decided to go to war against the Taliban and domestic terrorists.  The blood of 140 martyrs to the terrorist cause was too high a price to pay for genteel vacillation.  There was to be no longer such a thing as "good Taliban".   On the other hand, the West is congratulating itself on bombing runs in Syria.  It is choosing to overlook the war being waged and conducted in its own back yard.

The question is begged: how many more non-combatant innocents must die at the hands of Islamic irregular soldiers in the West before Western countries reach the same conclusions as Islamic Pakistan and go to war on the enemy already hiding amongst them?

For Pakistan the tipping point was the murder of 140 school children and their teachers. For France, the death of 130 innocents in Paris was not enough.  More needed please (apparently).  This aptly illustrates how the West in general and France in particular on these matters is far more backward than Pakistan.

The civil magistrates, the judges, and the governors in Pakistan are fulfilling their God-given duties and responsibilities.  In France?  Not so much.  France is far too sophisticated and advanced for that.