They Can't Know It

clipped from www.davidwarrenonline.com He may think he has no alternative, and he may have none, given the size of the domestic opposition Mrs Bhutto is mounting against him. What he has already done -- by declaring the emergency -- has moreover tended to fuse that opposition together. What Gen Musharraf knows, and they can't know by definition, is that this secular opposition does not appreciate the grave danger their country is in from the Islamists. They can't know it because, according to me, they are infected in their souls with the disease we call “liberalism” in the West. It operates on the soul through the medium of narcissism, and the strutting and preening of the opposition leaders gives a plain indication that the disease is well advanced. If only one of them -- preferably Mrs Bhutto -- would say clearly that Musharraf is not the worst evil the country faces, and the Islamists are, we might have some hope for their recovery.