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SHIRAZ MAHER<\/strong><\/p>\n Over at his new blog<\/a> Inayat Bunglawala is already tying himself in knots over the guilty plea by failed Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad. During his plea hearing Shahzad told the court<\/a>:<\/p>\n Unless the US pulls out of Afghanistan and Iraq, until they stop drone strikes in Somalia, Pakistan, and Yemen, and stop attacking Muslim lands, we will attack the US and be out to get them\u2026Listen, you are attacking children with your drones in Afghanistan. I would not consider what I did was a crime. I\u2019m aware it\u2019s a violation of the United States laws, but I don\u2019t care for the laws of the United States.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Indignant but not insightful, Bunglawala tells readers<\/a> that Shahzad\u2019s guilty plea:<\/p>\n should in a more sensible world urgently prompt a rethink in the US administration about its callous strategy in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Perhaps we should scrutinise this \u2018callous strategy\u2019. An in-country poll commissioned by the BBC, ABC News and Germany\u2019s ARD just six months ago reveals the following<\/a> key facts:<\/p>\n Taliban, al-Qaeda and terrorism<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Future of the country<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Views on foreign troops<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Another in-country poll<\/a> conducted last year by the Asia Foundation, an NGO working in Afghanistan, found the following:<\/p>\n Democracy the best form of government? Freedom from the Taliban? Economic prosperity? This is what Bunglawala characterises as a \u2018callous mission\u2019?<\/p>\n Last month I travelled to Pakistan\u2019s tribal regions along the Afghan border for Standpoint Magazine and spoke with people<\/a> who have actually lived under Taliban rule. Yes, there is anger at the loss of civilian life and the indiscriminate nature of drone attacks \u2013 but I found very little actual support for the Taliban wherever I went. Indeed, most people wanted rid of them.<\/p>\n Of course, minimising civilian casualties actually requires more soldiers on the ground, not less. But that is not the point Bunglawala was making. What he wants is withdrawal and, therefore, the callous surrendering of Afghanistan\u2019s people and their future (not to mention our own) to the Taliban. <\/p>\n It has been said endlessly before but is still worth repeating, Bunglawala is a busted flush. Like so many of his Islamist chums, he betrays the very constituency in whose defence he claims to act \u2013 the Afghan people. <\/p>\n Bunglawala\u2019s attempts in recent months to remodel himself as a thoughtful commentator on British Muslim affairs is almost as comical as Mr Bean\u2019s latest reincarnation (to whom he bears absolutely no resemblance):<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Oh Bungles.<\/p>\n <\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n No related posts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Over at his new blog Inayat Bunglawala is already tying himself in knots over the guilty plea by failed Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad. During his plea hearing Shahzad told the court:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7010,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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