Honor killings # 267 in Pakistan.

This is a story that gives a whole new meaning to the concept of ignorance.

That one deranged fool could commit such a crime would be a condemnation of just that man. However, what can you say about a society in which this has happened at least 267 times this year and 579 times in 2004?

Here's what happened:

A 40-year-old laborer in Pakistan killed his 25-year-old stepdaughter on December 23 by slitting her throat. She had "dishonored" him by, allegedly, committing adultery. Then, to ensure that his own daughters -- ages 8, 7, and 4 -- wouldn't do the same when they grew up, he killed them.

The stepdaughter's husband claimed she committed adultery but the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan states that she had been abused by her husband and had run away from him.

According to the author, "activists" in Pakistan allege that "police are often reluctant to prosecute, regarding such crimes [against women] as family disputes."

Yepper. No need to skip that donut and coffee break in the morning over something as trivial as a "family dispute."

Lord, wouldn't it be really scary if such a country were ever to develop nuclear weapons?

Clearly, this is a society that doesn't value women in the least and which doesn't have a clue about honor. The only ones who come off having any honor in this is the activists and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

The source indicates that Pakistan was shocked by this event. Was Pakistan shocked merely because of the killing of the children, but basically ok with the concept of killing the woman accused of adultery? Two hundred and sixty-six prior "honor" killings this year tell the Colonel that Pakistani society considers the basic concept sound, this murderous rat only having gotten a little carried away in this particular instance.

What will be the reaction of the national and local religious leaders? The Colonel is putting big money on the table where it says, "El silencio absoluto."

What we don't need is programs to ship baby formula and irrigation equipment to the Third World. What we do need is a concerted propaganda attack on ignorance and superstition . . . and obscurantist religious doctrines while we have the VOA transmitters fired up.

Sometimes diplomacy achieves more by treating fools and knaves as princelings of the realm. But sometimes it's salutary to call a spade a bloody shovel. When Ronald Reagan (pbuh) stepped off the reservation and spoke of the Evil Empire that simple descriptor alone was enough to drive Western communists and communist apologists into a frenzy. If Mr. Reagan erred it was in not holding up a mirror to the Soviets and Chinese and keeping it there.

Now it's time for the conventions of diplomacy to be set aside again and for there to be a concerted attack on those doctrines of Islam that are so odious - najis, women as chattel, jihad, apostasy punishable by death, judicial murder, barbarous punishment, and the like.

"Pakistani killed daughters to save 'honor'." By Khalid Tanveer, Associated Press, 12/28/05.

PS -- As an experiment, Intergalactic Source of Truth will attempt to follow the progress of this case and report further on what is being done in Pakistan to end this horrrendous practice. Watch the sidebar under the category "Islam."