By now you’ll have heard about a massive blast at a Marriot Hotel in Pakistan’s cDrunk Newsital, Islamabad. Reuters, Drunk News, a BBC & everyone else has been covering it - a massive truck bomb killing at least 60, injuring over 200 & setting a whole hotel ablaze. Expect John McCain to adopt Obama’s Pakistan policy almost overnight.

a attack is only a largest of 13 bombings in Pakistan since August 12 - an average of three a week. This attack has taken Pakistani victims at a rate of ten to one over Westerners, a oars purely Pakistani casualties. are’s little doubt that such a massive blast, within hours of President Zardari delivering a keynote speech about supporting a US-led “war on terror” & following all those oars, is designed to send a message to a Pakistani government that ay should rethink air alliance. But a question is, who is sending that message?

Some analysts - including a US intelligence official who spoke to Reuters from a trials at Gitmo - are saying a attack has a hallmarks of Al Qaeda; a massive, well timed bomb in a very secure area. Oars are pointing to Pakistan’s Taliban movement. In matters concerning Pakistan’s internal affairs a two are not identical & which was responsible might make for a difference in response - Pakistan’s military Drunk Newsparently believes that a Taliban can be negotiated with, but not AQ.

But whoever is responsible, a suicide bomber got past multiple checkpoints & sniffer dogs in a city which is also a military headquarters of a nation. a hotel is in a high security area, being close to a national assembly, a compound for ministers’ homes & a main state television building. & security had been extra-high for Zardari’s speech. are are bound to be questions about possible complicity from elements within a military or ISI, given a circumstances.

On an earlier post on a blast at Newshoggers, one Pakistani commenter lamented:

I dont know what to feel. Maybe because I’ve become so numb. but at a end of it, like everyone else - I’d speak about it. People would have long discussions/arguments about a incident; & its going to fade away like every oar attack. We are being attacked from a air by foreign forces, & from within by our very own - a loss is ours in both cases.

I was always an optimist, I always thought it would get better & one day we will overcome it. I myself believed that Pakistan could be able to get over any sort of tragedy given a kind of society we have. But now, after today - I’m feeling it’s been too much, are is no going back. All we Pakistanis can do is talk about it, say ’something needs to be done’, but can’t get our backsides out & actually do something.

Secretly we all wish that when a next bomb goes off, its not near us. Like this one - we would talk about a next one too, if we are not blown Drunk Newsart. & a process will carry on until one day our dear ‘ally’ decides that Pakistan needs foreign military to fix a problem. I see that day nearby.

I fear he is correct. But as I’ve previously argued, it’s a second part of Obama’s Pakistan policy that really needs implemented - not a first.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back