I’m not a fear monger, but right now, the whole world needs to pay attention to what is going on in Pakistan. Taliban militants are continuing their assault, and have had a series of victories that continue to move them closer to the capital of Pakistan. It’s risen fears the country is on the brink of collapse, and the secular Awami National party is on the verge of being overrun. If you don’t think that’s a very big deal, try and remember what they did with Afghanistan. The Taliban is interested in only one thing; Islam, and they are ready to spread the ‘good word’ with sword in hand. The problem, of course, is Pakistan is one of the few countries in this world with the deadliest of swords: The Atomic Bomb.

I don’t want to be needlessly alarmist, but we cannot allow Pakistan to fall into the hands of theologically motivated whackos. It’s one thing to battle individuals based on politics, but it’s quite another to battle someone’s religion. The Taliban does not negotiate, does not compromise, and does not care for anything other than the complete submission of every Muslim.

The Taliban in control of a nuclear state is one of those doomsday scenarios that plays out like a Tom Clancy novel without the super cool international special forces. Hopefully, the Pakistani government will be able to suppress this rebellion (especially with help from the West), but it’s very likely that over time they may gain more support, especially with the quagmire in Iraq providing them with fresh recruits and political fodder.

Dark times are ahead, people.

More trouble in Pakistan, as Islamic fundamentalists kidnapped two police officers and are holding them hostage in a mosque in Islamabad, asking that the government impose ‘Islamic rule’ in the country. The standoff continues, as the military is hesitant to take any action for fear of creating a volatile situation in a country that seems poised to become another fundamentalist state.

The rhetoric that spews out of the poorly educated mouths of these so-called students is an obvious sign that negotiations are not going well; they claim no responsibility for the crime of kidnapping, and instead accuse the government of being kidnappers themselves. How they see the logic in this is beyond me. It only illustrates negotiation is a useless endeavor with fundamentalists; they are interested only in the Islamification of Pakistan (and eventually the world), and any successful negotiation is simply a tactic on their part to allow more time for them to consolidate their power and plan their next move.

Pakistan is in a bad situation. On one side, if they intervene with the military, it may create even more attention and support to the cause of Islamic fundamentalists (which is highly undesirable for a nation with the atom bomb), on the other they cannot hope to meet any demand on the part of the kidnappers. It’s next to impossible to negotiate with individuals so deluded that they believe the kidnapping and (most likely eventual) murder of two innocent men is but a few broken eggshells on the way to heaven.