Taliban attacks Pakistani school, 120+ dead, mostly kids

[Martinus]

I think you guys are ascribing too much of rational agency to the Taliban.

If there is any "rational" strategy to their actions (and that's a big "if") I would say it's this: draw a wedge between the "moderate Muslims" and the "West", so that the former have to choose whether they side with the latter (in which case they will be slaughtered together) or the Taliban.

[Admiral Yi]

I think you guys are ascribing too much of rational agency to the Taliban.

If there is any "rational" strategy to their actions (and that's a big "if") I would say it's this: draw a wedge between the "moderate Muslims" and the "West", so that the former have to choose whether they side with the latter (in which case they will be slaughtered together) or the Taliban.

If this were their strategy then attacking Muslim children is the exact opposite of what they would have done.

Their strategy is: if you mess with us, we kill you.

[Martinus]

I think you guys are ascribing too much of rational agency to the Taliban.

If there is any "rational" strategy to their actions (and that's a big "if") I would say it's this: draw a wedge between the "moderate Muslims" and the "West", so that the former have to choose whether they side with the latter (in which case they will be slaughtered together) or the Taliban.

If this were their strategy then attacking Muslim children is the exact opposite of what they would have done.

Their strategy is: if you mess with us, we kill you.

As others pointed out, these kids looked Western. And I'm not saying this is an effective strategy. But if I were them, I would aim to do what I described.

[mongers]

Latest death toll - 132 murdered children and 9 teachers. 121 children injured, along with 3 adults. 

Apparently the school had around 1,000 pupils, so 1 in 8 of them killed in a few hours and another 1 in 8 injured or maimed.

One of the older injured students, I think a 15-17 year old, said in his classroom the terrorists killed his classmates and as he hid, they shot and burned his teacher.
My assumption being she received this special treatment, for being a woman who dared to be both a teacher and to educated children of the opposite sex.

Pakistan's innocent are reaping the whirlwind sown by their country's elders.

[MadImmortalMan]

So many times I fantasized about setting my teachers on fire.

[Josquius]

Well that's gotta be excellent PR for them in the country where they're most popular...

[Siege]

True - this is just extreme terrorism - just going strictly for straight out fear and intimidation.

However, the audience is still going to end up being larger than just the victims families. Does it matter than everyone else in Pakistan and Afghanistan is now thinking the Taliban are the people who murdered 120 children in cold blood, regardless of whose children they are? Apparently the Taliban doesn't think so...does that say something about the Taliban, or something about that audience?

If you would like to know, my experience is that muslims, and arabs in specific, though these are not arabs, see children as an extension of their parents and don't emotionally connect with the western perception that children are innocent regardless of whom their parents are. They understand the principle of the western concept, and shamelessly exploit it in their propaganda videos, but they themselves don't give a rat's ass about children that don't belong to their tribe.

Bottom line, muslims don't care about children dying whose parents they consider infidels or traitors, therefore pro-taliban populace will see this as a valid target.

[DontSayBanana]

So many times I fantasized about setting my teachers on fire.

Man, I just fantasized about banging a couple of mine.

[sbr]

I only had 2 teachers I can think of who could be even close to hot.

The first was my fourth grade teacher, but I was like nine.

The other was a Junior High (7th grade to 9th grade, ~12-14 years old) PE teacher.  She had a smoking body but was a royal bitch and everyone was pretty sure she was banging the other creepy male PE teacher.

[Siege]

I had a history teacher that was smoking hott.
I think she was my first crush.

[DontSayBanana]

I only had 2 teachers I can think of who could be even close to hot.

The first was my fourth grade teacher, but I was like nine.

The other was a Junior High (7th grade to 9th grade, ~12-14 years old) PE teacher.  She had a smoking body but was a royal bitch and everyone was pretty sure she was banging the other creepy male PE teacher.

Two of mine were genuinely hot, and the third was a case of "I wouldn't kick her out of bed for eating crackers."  One was particularly painful, because I had a one-on-one class with her, and she was fond of short dresses/tight clothing (granted, with her rack, it was hard not to stare at her chest even when she was wearing a really conservative turtleneck sweater).

To top it all off, she was a fellow sci-fi nerd.  At the time, we were both super-excited about the upcoming release of The Phantom Menace (in my defense, it looked like it would be awesome- we live and learn).  Only thing that kept me from super-embarrassing mess-in-pants situations every day was that she also insisted on talking at length about her fiancee.

[Norgy]

From the slaughter of children to sexual fantasies about teachers. 
It's: Languish.

[Viking]

Going after school children--modeled after a western military academy or not--in retaliation against the Pakistan Army's offensives in the Warizstan tribal areas may be the final nail in the Taliban-ISI covert relationship.

Peshawar school attack: Has Pakistan ISI 'secret support for Taliban' backfired?
Gianluca Mezzofiore
International Business Times
December 16, 2014 13:09 GMT

This is hardly News. Pakistan has been at war with it's own batshit crazy extremists for over a decade now. ISI and the Pakistani populace don't yet understand that they themselves unleashed this dragon. Like other non-rational societies this is more likely to be part of some conspiracy theory than the reasonable explanation.

Murdering kids isn't a problem for them since Pakistan just can't be honest with itself about the causes of the terrorism.

[Syt]

It's all the USA's fault.

http://sputniknews.com/analysis/20141216/1015915515.html

Pakistani Taliban Attacks Backlash Against Gov't Ties With US, Experts Say

Experts claim that Taliban attacks in Pakistan are a backlash against the involvement of the Pakistani government and army in the US operations in the Middle East.
MOSCOW, December 16 (Sputnik), Daria Chernyshova — The Pakistani Taliban attacks are a backlash against the involvement of the Pakistani government and army in the US operations in the Middle East, experts told Sputnik News Agency Tuesday.

The comments come after a deadly attack carried out on Tuesday by Taliban militants on an army school in the Pakistani city of Peshawar killed more than 130 people, most of them children.

"The TTP's [Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan] campaign against the Pakistani state is just that—a campaign against the Pakistani state. Certainly, one reason the TTP targets the Pakistani state is that it has a relationship with the US, but this is not the major reason," Michael Kugelman, a senior program associate for South and Southeast Asia at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said.

"They [Taliban] feel that the Pakistan government and army have supported the US war on terror attacks," Afzal Ashraf, Consultant Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), agreed, adding that the Taliban is reacting largely to Pakistani policy which is tuned by the United States.

Kugelman underlined that the TTP wants to overthrow the Pakistani state and transform the country into a hard-line Islamist regime, just as Afghanistan was in the 1990s. He also noted that Tuesday's attack could mark the beginning of a new phase for the Pakistani Taliban – "one in which it launches a long-delayed campaign of retaliatory strikes."

"The timing could not be worse, given that Afghan Taliban violence in Afghanistan is on the rise, and given that foreign troops are on their way out of Afghanistan. The US has wanted to achieve some semblance of stability in Afghanistan and by extension Pakistan. Recent news suggests such an achievement will be very unlikely," Kugelman told Sputnik.

Afzal Ashraf concurred and noted that the US drone attack in North Waziristan, northwest Pakistan on Sunday, which allegedly killed four Taliban militants, was the main reason behind the atrocity, as it has been successful in killing al-Qaeda and certain Taliban groups.

"Ideology drives Taliban to do some of the things that they are doing," Ashraf said.

Michel Kugelman noted that the Pakistani military is now likely to intensify its operations in North Waziristan

[CountDeMoney]

Now here's something a Texan can appreciate. 

Pakistan likely to execute dozens of convicts
At least 55 fighters on death-row likely to be executed soon, amid public anger over Taliban attack on Peshawar school.

Pakistan plans to execute 55 people in the coming days, after their mercy petitions were recently rejected by the country's president Mamnoon Hussain, reports say.

Six fighters have been hanged since a Taliban attack on an army-run school in the city of Peshawar last week left 149 people, mostly children, dead, triggering public anger.

Of the six hanged so far, five were involved in a failed attempt to assassinate the then-military ruler Pervez Musharraf in 2003, while one was involved in a 2009 attack on army headquarters, AFP news agency reported on Monday.

After the school attack, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lifted the six-year moratorium on the death penalty, reinstating it for "terrorism-related" cases.

According to the Dawn newspaper, it normally takes at least 14 days to hang a convict once his or hers mercy petition is rejected. However, the Punjab government, which is dealing with majority of people on death row, recently made amendments to its laws and reduced the period to two days. It also changed a law under which executions could be carried out only at 4am and now convicts can be hanged any time.

Prime Minister Sharif has ordered the attorney general's office to "actively pursue" capital cases currently in the courts, a government spokesman said.

"Prime Minister has also issued directions for appropriate measures for early disposal of pending cases related to terrorism," the spokesman said.

Pakistan began its de facto moratorium on civilian executions in 2008.

Before the latest resumption, only one person had been executed since the moratorium - a soldier convicted by a court martial and hanged in November 2012.