Cripples cannot fight.

Yesterday 4 women in Karachi and another woman in a village in Peshawar, involved in distributing polio vaccines to children, were shot dead by gunmen. The day before a volunteer with the WHO was also killed in Karachi. The Taliban claim that the polio campaign is organised by the US government to spy on Pakistan and that the vaccine contains material banned by Islam. Some militants in tribal areas want drone attacks to stop before they will allow the vaccine program to function, although what the connection is between drones and protecting little children against a terrible scourge is anybody's guess. Their suspicion is based on Shakil Afridi, a Pakistani doctor who helped the CIA gather DNA samples to pinpoint Osama bin Laden's location through a fake vaccination program. Afridi was charged with treason and sentenced to 30 years in prison and fined $3500. The reasoning is stupid because the present program is organised by the Pakistani government and so many thousands of volunteers cannot possibly be spies. Anyway, if the Americans want to they can easily bribe people, who are dirt poor and would be extremely grateful for a handful of pennies, to spy for them. To condemn little children to a lifetime of hobbling around on withered legs just to take revenge on Americans is perverse in the extreme but then what reasonable person would join the Taliban. On 9 October, 2012 a 15 year old girl, Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head and neck by a gunman while returning from school in the school bus. She remained unconscious for a long time but improved enough to be transferred to a hospital in Birmingham in UK where she is recuperating at present. In early 2009 when just 11/12 years old she started writing a blog under a pseudonym on the BBC in the Pashto language describing life under the Taliban in Swat valley. When government forces pushed the Taliban out of Swat she became widely known after a documentary by the New York Times. She became chairperson of the District Child Assembly in Swat and continued to campaign for education of girls. This made her a target for the Taliban who want women to remain illiterate to stay at home and look after their families. Why does Pakistan tolerate vicious killers like the Taliban within their territory? Surely it is a loss of sovereignty if a militant group controls large swathes of territory where the army dare not venture? The reason is that the establishment sees these terrorists as useful tools against India and the west and a useful leverage to prize more aid out of the US. We saw how the Pakistani Foreign Minister, Rehman Malik taunted and insulted India while on an official visit to India. Pakistan should not be so sanguine. What is happening in Syria could easily come here. However, if there is an epidemic of polio in Pakistan it may bring peace. After all you cannot terrorise on withered legs.