The Cancer is Back

Metastasis (Greek: change of the state, plural: metastases), sometimes abbreviated Mets, is the spread of cancer from its primary site to other places in the body (e.g., brain, liver).

Cancer cells can break away from a primary tumor, penetrate into lymphatic and blood vessels, circulate through the bloodstream, and grow in a distant focus (metastasize) in normal tissues elsewhere in the body.

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Sometimes, despite the best efforts of "modern medicine," cancer comes back. Unless every cell is removed or destroyed, the possibility exists for regrowth of the existing cancer or a metastasis elsewhere in the body. Tony Snow and Elizabeth Edwards are two prominent examples of cancer patients whose cancer has traveled through their bodies. So is Pakistan.

The cancer is Islamenoma, commonly known as Islamic Fundamentalism, and left untreated (as it has been in western Pakistan), the prognosis is grim. This report by Bill Roggio (ht: Panama Ed) could be considered the most recent of three major press releases concerning the unwelcome return of a malignancy.

Pakistan's Civil War

Events over the past week highlight the deteriorating situation in the country.

Over the past week, the Taliban have been very active in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province. The Taliban attacked the town of Tank, re initiated its turf war with the Uzbeks in Waziristan and continues to consolidate gains in Kohat and Bannu. But perhaps most disturbing event isn't the slow disintegration of the Pakistani state at the fringes, but the open defiance from the Taliban in the heart of Pakistani capital. At the peripheries, Pakistan is either engaged in a full scale civil war or is abandoning territory. At the core in Islamabad, the Islamist see real weakness in the Musharraf regime, and is growing bolder each day.

The Talibanization of Islamabad & the Las Masjid

The recent developments in Islamabad prove the Taliban and al Qaeda are not satisfied with remaining confined to the tribal belt or even the Northwest Frontier province and Baluchistan. The pro-Taliban leaders of the Las Masjid have become emboldened by the weakness of the Musharraf government of late, and are now openly challenging the rule of law in the very heart of Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan.

Zaffar Abbas, in an article titled "The creeping coup," explains how two brothers, Maulana Abdul Aziz and Maulana Abdul Rasheed Ghazi, run a pro-Taliban movement in and around Islamabad. Aziz "heads Islamabad’s biggest Jamia Fareedia madrassa" which "at any time... boasts over 7,000 students seeking higher degrees in Islamic education.""

Lal Masjid and its adjacent Hafsa madrassa have not only managed to enforce the Taliban-style system of ‘moral policing’ in matters of ‘vice and virtue’, to date they remain in control of the situation" in Islamabad, notes Mr. Abbas. Bands of burka-clad women wielding batons patrol the streets enforcing Sharia, just as Saudi Arabia's notorious 'Department for Virtue and Vice,' or the religious police, do. "Within no time [after becoming emboldened by government weakness over the past few months] groups of men and women from the brigade started visiting shops, threatening them with dire consequences if they didn’t stop selling DVDs, CDs or music cassettes," reports Mr. Abbas. "People were also issued directives about dress codes and other ‘moral and ethical’ issues."

The initial surgery in Afghanistan was not entirely successful and the Taliban cancer is now threatening to kill Pakistan which has been in a weakened condition for quite some time anyway. In October, I wrote:

Musharraf's on borrowed time. He knows it and with his book sales, has been feathering his nest in anticipation of his future endeavers. His value to the west has been as an ally against Islamists in Pakistan and his days of playing it down the middle between Bush and the Taliban are numbered. Both sides are becoming impatient.

It will be better when Musharraf is gone. Perhaps, then an aggressive treatment program can begin in earnest.

Step by stumbling step,
we wind our way through the darkness,
learning as we go.