Not too long after Hilary Clinton arrived in Islamabad, a car bomb went off in an area frequented by women in Peshawar, not too far from where Clinton was. Supposedly this is the area where Al-Qaida and other extremist groups are hiding.
After this, Clinton said, ""They are not courageous, they are cowardly...if the people behind these attacks were so sure of their beliefs, let them join the political process. Let them come forth to the people of Pakistan in this democracy and make their case that they don't want girls to go to school. That they want women to be kept back...and I want to make clear that the United States and Pakistan have a long history of cooperation and partnership. We have a relationship that we want to strengthen, but we don't want it to be lopsided. We don't want it to be just about security and just about our anti-terrorist agenda, although, as I said, that's our highest priority. So we want to strengthen democracy, we want to strengthen civilian institutions, which we think are in the best interest of the people of Pakistan."
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi completely agreed with Clinton, "We will not buckle. We will fight you. We will fight you because we want stability and peace in Pakistan," he said. "You are on the run, and we know that."
This event is extremely unfortunate. Clinton dealt with this situation in a very diplomatic way considering the circumstances she was put in.
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6 comments:
And violence only keeps getting worse. this is so sad and I just hope that one day things can all be better! What was hilary doing there anyway? I wonder if it was her fault that this car bombing went off? Well watever the reason is it is truley dissapointing and it does need to be fixed some way. This is not the way the world should be living!
"This is not the way the world should be living!"
I completely agree with Sabin. Howeever, it is just way too difficult to spread peace when the other side is ignorant or take their religion to an extreme extent. It is really sad that these extremist groups and Al-Qaida view women as powerless and do not have the freedom to get an education like men.
I respect Clinton for her stance on Pakistan civilian democracy and peace, as well as her claim on security and anti terrorism as a first priority focus.
~Emily Niemann
It will be a good day when Al-Qaida buckles and decides it will stop all of this nonsensical violence
^^^^Considering that Al Qaeda has been so dedicated to working against the West (the US in particular), I doubt that will happen.
-Esther A
I agree with Esther. I think Hillary Clinton's statement of US being in the interests of Pakistan make the Al Qaida in Pakistan (and some other extremists) more angry. They are so against Western ways and that statement basically says, here's some more Western influence, you need it, so take it. Unless the US really wants to get into another war, it's going to be hard to get the violence and prejudice to stop in Pakistan with just words.
-Henry Zhang
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