"Cover 'em like a sack of flour, and keep them inside your homes."

The New Indian Express reports that the gentleman in the photo above held a news conference in Islamabad, Pakistan asking for military strikes against women who wear jeans.

According to him, the immodesty of women is the cause behind earthquakes, inflation and other kinds of disasters.

Fazlur Rehman went on to say that a woman who is not covered like a 'sack of flour' is a mobile weapon of mass destruction for her state and that Pakistan has multitude of such nuclear missiles in all its major cities.

Rehman then blamed 'immodest women' for the Baluchistan crisis, lack of energy supply and the deteriorating security situation in Pakistan.

Fazlur Rehman was suggesting that, if these women are wrapped in sacks and kept inside homes and if the Shariah law was in place, then the Taliban brothers would not be attacking Pakistan.

And you think we aren't blessed for living in America?
Read more here.

In the Middle East, the time of the True Believers appears at hand.

So writes Patrick J. Buchanan at CNS News. Buchanan analyzes who has the will to fight, and who does not.

In almost all of the wars in which we have been engaged, those we back have superior training, weapons and numbers. Yet, for whatever makes men willing to fight and die, or volunteer for martyrdom, the Islamic State, al-Qaida, and the Taliban have found the formula, while our allies have not.

To be a martyr for Allah, to create a new caliphate, to expel the infidels and their puppets, these are causes Islamic man will die for. This is what ISIS has on offer. And the offer is finding buyers even in the West.

What do we have on offer? What do we have to persuade Iraqi Sunnis to fight to return their Anbar homeland to the Iranian-backed Shiite regime in Baghdad?

Of our Arab allies, the Qataris, Saudis and Gulf Arabs are willing to do air strikes. And the Kurds will fight -- for Kurdistan.

But if the future belongs to those willing to fight and die for it, or to volunteer to become martyrs, the future of the Middle East would seem fated to be decided by Sunni tribesmen, Shiite militia, ISIS and al-Qaida, Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

In the Middle East, the time of the True Believers appears at hand.

Read more here.

Christians fighting back in Pakistan

Ed Krayewski writes at reason.com,

A pair of suicide bombings the Pakistani Taliban took credit for interrupted Sunday mass at two churches in the Christian neighborhood of the city of Youhanabad. At least 15 people were killed, including two police officers who tried to block the terrorists’ way into the churches. Two suspected attackers were also killed by a mob that gathered after the attacks.

Via the Pakistani newspaper Dawn:

Up to 4,000 Christians later spread across the city’s streets; many were armed with clubs as they smashed vehicles and attacked a Metro bus station in a rare show of anger by the beleaguered minority…

The thousands of Christian protesters who clashed with police on Sunday attacked their cars with stones and sticks, as women wept and beat their heads and chests.

The protesters, some wearing crosses round their necks, later turned on the city's bus rapid transit system -- a signature project of the ruling PML-N party of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Christians make up around two percent of Pakistan's mainly Muslim population of 180 million. They have been targeted in attacks and riots in recent years, often over allegations of blasphemy…

Christians also took to the streets in other cities, including Karachi, where around 200 protesters blocked a main road and burnt tyres. There were also demonstrations in Peshawar in the northwest, in the central city of Multan and in Quetta in the southwest.

"Smart Power"

Yeah, us having more empathy with the Taliban will change the prospects for peace all right. From Ace of Spades:

Today: Taliban Butchers 130 Schoolchildren; Sets Teacher on Fire In Front of Class
Last Week: Hillary Clinton Claims We Need to "Empathize With" Our Enemies

Which aspect of them shall we empathize with -- their raping of women, or their massacring of children?

Or perhaps their raping of children?

"This is what we call Smart Power," Hillary says.

Oh? Doesn't sound that smart to me.

Incidentally, how are Obama's negotiations with the child-massacring Taliban faring, eh? Have we negotiated how many children they will murder down from 2000 per year down to 1000 per year?

Found here.

More information about Bergdahl

Michelle Malkin presents more information about Bowe Bergdahl.

The Bowe Bergdahl mess isn’t just a story about one deserter, but two. There’s the muddle-headed lowlife who left his post and brothers behind. And there’s the corrupt commander-in-chief who has jeopardized more American soldiers’ lives to “rescue” Bergdahl by bowing to the Taliban, while snubbing the surviving heroes and the eight dead American soldiers who lost their lives because of him. This cannot stand.

Read more here.

How the Taliban and Pakistan's religious leaders work together

Carlotta Gall writes about how the Taliban and Pakistan's religious parties work together in madrasas in Pakistan to raise an army of militants.

The linchpin in this two-pronged and at times apparently oppositional strategy is the ISI. It’s through that agency that Pakistan’s true relationship to militant extremism can be discerned — a fact that the United States was slow to appreciate, and later refused to face directly, for fear of setting off a greater confrontation with a powerful Muslim nation.

The ISI is Pakistan's main intelligence service.

Read more here.

thanks to Scott Ott for linking to this piece.

2012: The most active year for terrorism on record

Rodrigo Sermeno writes that Congress has been getting reports from terrorism experts that

According to data compiled by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, more then 6,800 terrorist attacks killed more than 11,000 people in 2012, making it the most active year of terrorism on record.

Bill Braniff, a terrorism analyst at the University of Maryland, said the six most lethal groups in 2012 – the Taliban, Boko Haram, al-Qaeda in Iraq, Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and al-Shabaab – were responsible for approximately 5,000 deaths.

One of these Salafi jihadist groups, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), recently seized control of parts of the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi located in Iraq’s Anbar province – the site of a long and bloody battle for U.S. forces during the Iraq war.