Opinion

Your recent lead news item says, "Nawaz raises alarm over Taliban march". Isn't it too late and too little?
The question is: Are Pakistani rulers so naive that they can believe a truce with these extremists, who are obsessed with their own version of Islam, will make them surrender their weapons and submit to the writ of the government in all other fields of life? Or are they playing someone's game or working as tools for some ulterior objective?
Right from the time when Mr Hoti, Chief Minister, NWFP, was bragging that judicial officials (qazis) will be appointed by the provincial government and work under the purview of the High Court and the Supreme Court of Pakistan, Sufi Mohammad was saying publicly that he and his comrades will have full authority to build their own legal structure and run their own way as he didn't recognize the High Court and the Supreme Court and considered democracy as un-Islamic.
How come they could not understand the implications of the first move of Sufi's tribe to abduct and hold the EDO (Executive District Officer) of Mingora to ransom, to be released through negotiation, God knows on what terms?
All this amounts to making a laughing stock of the 170 million Pakistanis. Conscientious-minded Pakistanis, like me, here, find it hard to defend, unqualified moves and ill-founded statements by our (Pakistani) rulers.
We need rulers like Justice Ramday who has the guts to question the government for reappointment of Shoab Suddle, Director General Intelligence Bureau, after retirement while he was an accused in the murder of Murtaza Bhutto, brother of the late Benazir Bhutto.