Saturday, January 29, 2011

Imran Khan in Davos Criticizes War in Afghanistan

By Amy Kellogg, FoxNews.com, January 27, 2011

Former cricket star turned Pakistani politician Imran Khan. 
AFP  Former cricket star turned Pakistani politician Imran Khan.

DAVOS, Switzerland — Former cricket star turned Pakistani politician Imran Khan has been working the corridors of the World Economic Forum in Davos, with a message about the war in Afghanistan, which has spilled over into Pakistan.

“This war on terror is a disaster for the people of the U.S. It’s a bigger disaster for the people of Pakistan. It is causing more radicalization, more polarization in the society. The war is perceived by the vast majority as a war against Islam and because it is perceived as a war against Islam there is no shortage of people willing to die for it.”

Khan is the leader of the Tehreek-e-Insaf party in Pakistan, which is trying to make inroads on the political scene, and eventually take power. Pessimistic about the prospects for the war in Afghanistan to succeed, he says the situation in his own country has become worse in the past few years. He points to the recent assassination of provincial Governor Salman Taseer, who was shot by a bodyguard opposed to his relatively liberal views.

Taseer had called for leniency in the case of a Christian mother sentenced to death und
er the blasphemy ban. He was outspoken against the blasphemy law. In the wake of his assassination, people have come out and staged protests in support of his confessed killer.

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