Pakistan Taliban storm Peshawar school and kill 100. Horrific.

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BBC link

Fuckers.

Another appalling event in a long list of appalling events, sadly, demonstrating that the various groups carrying them out are death cults, determined to intimidate & terrify populations into submisson. Significant that it is an army school. The message being that they can strike at any target and the ineffective Pakistani government has no response.

There's Malala's Fund

I haven't checked out everything it does, but now seems a good time to learn more.

The Taliban are afraid of education- to embrace it would force them to ask questions of which the answers pour piss all over their mediaeval beliefs.

This is the most disgusting thing I have ever had the misfortune to see on the news. ANy person that condones this grotesque violence against defenceless, unarmed children cannot be human.

I am thankful that I am able to wake up each morning and not have the fear of rape, murder and oppression hanging over me- especially grateful that my children are fortunate to live in an environment so removed from that witnessed today.

The Malala Fund looks great. I guess I vaguely knew of it already. There must be more.

Want to celebrate free education.

I'm utterly saddened and sickened by this. Those poor, poor babies. I would happily flay the fuckers who did this if given the opportunity.

However what can be done about these evil and barbaric bastards?

Nothing can be done about them. We tried for a decade in Afghanistan to eradicate the Taliban, but that was fruitless as they enjoyed support from the Pakistan government.

Don't forget that the Pakistan military shielded Bin Laden who was found living just down the road from a military base in a garrison town.

We just have to let them sort it out.

Apparently the Afghani Taliban have "condemned" these actions. It's so unspeakable even the fucking Taliban have condemned it. I hope it breaks the camels back and more will be done.

i don't have anything to say except i cried watching the news and am glad to find the thread.
i just can't put into words how shocking and sad this is. poor poor little children.

good god. what is wrong with this fucking world.

This news is so terrible but what can ever be done about these people? What do they actually want to achieve from this massacre? How can we deal with people that don't seem to actually have any clear objective?
To purposefully attack and kill children is just beyond any words I have

i don't know.
i can't sleep. feel so helpless.

This news is so terrible but what can ever be done about these people? What do they actually want to achieve from this massacre? How can we deal with people that don't seem to actually have any clear objective? To purposefully attack and kill children is just beyond any words I have.

IMO the only thing that can be done is to annihilate them, wipe them from the face of the planet. They won't stop perpetrating these horrific acts until they're all dead. There is no reasoning with people who are capable of something like this.

You can't annihilate an ideology. Especially not one with a core obsession with death - their own included. The answer is going to be more complex and it will involve raising up the education, living standards, equality and expectations of the whole population. The Taliban is just one of the nastier aspects of that society.

I was sat eating tea with my dd (5) when this came on the news yesterday. I can't even comprehend the horror those families are going through.

Then this morning on the way to school dd asked me if father Christmas would take those children's presents to heaven for them

As to what can be done, I have no idea. How do you begin to fight back against a group with no morals whatsoever.

As WetAugust said, the Pakistani gov haven't been strong against the Taliban. Hilary Clinton warned then it was like keeping poisonous snakes in your back yard and expecting them only to bite your neighbours. Sadly it seems she was right.

Truly barbaric. Why don't these barbarians stop for one minute and ponder over what Islam teaches about the sanctity of life and killing of civilians, in particular innocent children?

It is ignorance of true Islam and lack of understanding the real Islamic way of life that makes these barbarians interpret the religion to suit their own agenda.

My heart goes out to all those grieving parents and family members and those injured and shocked children.

No words can express the horror. Those poor children.

the 'rational' was apparently they were military kids - as in the children of pakistani military personnel so it was an attack on pakistan's policy/interference with the taliban.

it is a massive provocation and presumably pakistan will have to get off the fence as it were in the face of this?

poor children were just used to get at their parents and those in power.

"It is ignorance of true Islam and lack of understanding the real Islamic way of life that makes these barbarians interpret the religion to suit their own agenda. "

Sadly, you've only to look at other barbaric practices in that part of the world.... particularly violent female subjugation, 'honour killings', gang rape as a sentence, kangaroo rural courts, .... to see that religion is routinely used to justify a lot of different agendas. The Taliban simply take it to extremes. It's a sick society.

I thought the finale of this season's Homeland was far fetched, but it wasn't as bad as this. People use the word medieval to describe the taliban, but I doubt the middle ages in England were ever that bad.
I don't think the West should take any action at all, it always seems to backfire and just feeds into their world view, that we are crusaders attacking muslims. Plus it results in the few christians still present in Islamic lands being scapegoated. In the end the islamic world has to sort out its own tensions and the impasse between fundamentalists and modernisers.

those poor children and poor teacher

'Gunmen instructed to shoot senior students and not small children'. Radio 4 News

Why? What sort of twisted logic ...?

'Government is bringing back capital punishment'. Radio 4 News

Why? What sort of twisted logic ...?

How can you understand them? There's no way in.

The Taliban did not suddenly appear on this earth. They are a product of society, as we all are. What sort of sick world produces monsters like them? How can the vast majority of good people work against this poison?

do Muslim men and women grieve separately?

I noticed on the news reports that at the funerals it was either large groups of men behind coffins or large groups of women. None mixed.

is that part of the faith ?

more the culture than the faith.

whataboutbob - there were many comparable horrendous acts during England's medieval period - and many many since, and as the Taliban has said that the school was targeted due to the school's connection to the army, which is very anti-Taliban obviously, and that this attack was in response to the West's drone bombing and military actions in the north, it's not about fundamentalists and moderates or education but another disgusting act which has lost thousands and thousands of children and innocent people in this continuing conflict.