Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Khyber (shall not) Pass

Does Sharia law compel cutting off one's nose to spite one's face;
Pakistani activists in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province have blocked a key NATO supply route to Afghanistan to protest against US drone strikes. Traders say it is causing them huge financial losses.
'Activists' are the same the world over, they're best at imposing costs on bystanders.
Pakistani traders.... say the blockade is causing them huge financial losses. According to them, the PTI activists have not only taken into custody the trucks carrying NATO supplies, but also those which are used for trading other goods with Afghanistan. The traders claim the belligerent PTI workers stopped 40 trucks on November 25, out of which only one was delivering NATO goods.
"There are over 350 people in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and around 1600 in the southern port city of Karachi associated with the Pakistani-Afghan transit trade. These people employ a staff of up to thirty people each. The blockade has caused financial loss to all these people," Zia-ul-Haq, president of the Pakistani-Afghan transit trade, told D[eutsche] W[elle]. "You can't put pressure on the US by not allowing the trucks to go into Afghanistan. It will only damage our own economy," he added.
And, the government looks on;
Pakistani police authorities confirmed the vigilante action but said they could not act against the activists as they belonged to the province's ruling party. 

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