Deadly Delusion

Yesterday’s attacks on Data Darbar should dispel any doubt that we are under attack by anything but ruthless killers and there can be no excuse for their wickedness. How can you walk into a shrine and murder some people who are doing no harm to anyone? And now we have seen this attack is not against Christians, Hindus, or Ahmadis. It is not against Americans or Indians or Israelis. This is attack against Pakistani Muslims who only had the mistake of being the wrong kind of Muslim for these barbarians.

I watched the news coming during yesterday’s attack with tears of sadness and rage filling my eyes. How can this keep happening? As i watched people reporting and discussing on Twitter, I found some insights that

Syed Ali Raza Abidi posted on his Twitter,

Its “Wahabism VS. Every other sect or Religion”

Reading this it struck me that this is what nobody seems willing to admit.

Police have found the bodies and have begun to identify the attackers. We know who they are and where they came from.

One of the suicide attackers who blew himself up at the Data Darbar shrine in Punjab’s provincial capital, killing 45 people and injuring 180 others, was today identified as a resident of a Pakistani village located on the outskirts of Lahore.

Police said Rafiq alias Usman, aged about 20, was a resident of Hadyara village, which is located on the outskirts of Lahore and close to the border with India.

“His family has identified him,” a police officer told PTI.

The officer said Rafiq’s elder brother was serving in the army.

“We are collecting other details about Rafiq. He was a student at a seminary and we are investigating whether he had gone to Waziristan for training,” the officer said.

This is known. It is fact. And it should not even be a surprise to us. How often do these militants have to attack us and then tell us exactly why they are killing people before we will believe them?

My tears returned when I read the headlines today. Rage not against these attackers, but against the deadly delusion that continues in this country.

Pakistani’s blame US after shrine attack in Lahore

‘America is killing Muslims in Afghanistan and in our tribal areas (with missile strikes), and militants are attacking Pakistan to express anger against the government for supporting America,” said Zahid Umar, 25, who frequently visits the shrine.

Pakistanis are suffering because of American policies and aggression in the region, said Mohammed Asif, 34, who runs an auto workshop in Lahore. He and others said the attacks would end if the US would pull out of Afghanistan.

Washington ”is encouraging Indians and Jews to carry out attacks” in Pakistan, said Arifa Moen, 32, a teacher in the central city of Multan.

Data Darbar attackers can’t be Muslims: Khawaja Sharif

The Chief Justice of Lahore High Court (LHC) Khawaja Muhammad Sharif and condemned the attacks on data Darbar said that the attackers can not be Muslim or Pakistani.

For many people it is sad that they have been so misinformed by conspiracy wallahs like The Nation that they think this attack has something to do with America or Afghanistan. This was no drone attack. This was not revenge for drone attacks. It doesn’t even make sense. Why these militants would attack a Sufi shrine for revenge on drone attacks? That is absurd. This absurdity in the minds of the people is a direct result of the ‘Three Js’ of Judges, Journalists, and Jihadis that are destroynig this country one bomb attack at a time.

Do you think this is going to far? What about the sickening statement made by LHC Chief Justice Khawaja Sharif that these attackers cannot be Muslim or Pakistani. They are both. We know this from the evidence. If the Chief Justice cannot understand this then why is he allowed on the court bench? If his eyes are so blind that he cannot see the facts when it explodes and kills hundreds of his own countrymen, he does not deserve to be on the court but to be in a lunatic asylum.

Farahnaz Ispahani said to DAWN, “Those who still pretend that we are not a nation at war are complicit in these deaths.” When will these judges and journalists learn that their words and their actions have consequences. The Americans learned that trying to use these jihadi groups as pawns was a deadly game. They got their “blowback” from these jihadis when the World Trade Center building came tumbling down killing 3,000 of their people. How many more thousands of our people have to die before we learn this same lesson? If we continue in these delusions, it will be us destroying ourselves. It’s time to wake up.