Radical Islamist Students have taken over the Red Mosque in Islamabad again. This comes shortly after a bloody showdown at the same mosque in which more than a hundred radical Islamists were killed. Apparently these radical students--the ones who aren't dead yet--are demanding that Pakistani authorities release Maulana Abdul Aziz, their leader who was captured while trying to flee the mosque dressed as a woman. This article seems to be laden with fear. The authors seem to want to readers to feel uneasy (fnord) but I don't know why.
If you think about it, these students are harmless. They are clearly idiots. Assuming they can figure out which way to point their rifles, they seem to be under the misguided impression that they will not die in a hail of bullets like the hundred or so students that died just a couple of weeks ago. This is untrue. I suspect that they will all be dead within a week. Why should we fear these students? They are not bulletproof. Their leader is obviously a cowardly hypocrite: while inciting hundreds to die for him, he tries to sneak away dressed as a woman. I see no reason to fear these people. Their track record is not so hot. Certainly you hear a lot of fnord-laden panic in the media about how much we should fear these people and about how we should hide in our homes and cradle our shotguns, but look at these people: they are not a major threat. The odds of these students surviving this mosque incident and going on to cause more trouble seem slim at best. We should focus our attention on real threats, not on some idiots who think that taking over a mosque will win over a government.
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