The evils of Islamic religious bigot charities in Pakistan

NY Times:

Islamist charities and the United States are competing for the allegiance of the two million people displaced by the fight against the Taliban in Swat and other parts of Pakistan — and so far, the Islamists are in the lead.

Although the United States is the largest contributor to a United Nations relief effort, Pakistani authorities have refused to allow American officials or planes to deliver the aid in the camps for displaced people. The Pakistanis do not want to be associated with their unpopular ally.

Meanwhile, in the absence of effective aid from the government, hard-line Islamist charities are using the refugee crisis to push their anti-Western agenda and to sour public opinion against the war and America.

Last week, a crowd of men, the heads of households uprooted from Swat, gathered in this village in northwestern Pakistan for handouts for their desperate families. But before they could even get a can of cooking oil, the aid director for a staunchly anti-Western Islamic charity took full advantage of having a captive audience, exhorting the men to jihad.

“The Western organizations have spent millions and billions on family planning to destroy the Muslim family system,” said the aid director, Mehmood ul-Hassan, who represented Al Khidmat, a powerful charity of the strongly anti-American political party Jamaat-e-Islami.

The Western effort had failed, he said, but Pakistanis should show their strength by joining the fight against the infidels.

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Pakistan is going to have to stand up to these religious bigots if they are going to succeed in defending their country from their weird religious views. It is especially hypocritical to be taking US aid and letting the preachers of hate denigrate our efforts to help Pakistan deal with the terrorist in their midst. At a minimum the preachers of hate and religious bigotry should be barred from the camps and the Pakistan Army should be handing out the aid to get the benefit of the gratitude. It is just nuts to turn the religious nuts loose to preach the hatred that has caused the problems to begin with.