"If America bombs moderate sensibilities often enough, you may find that its actions are the best recruiting sergeant that the extremists ever had."

The above quote comes from the leading English language newspaper in Pakistan The News, as reported by The Australian on September 13, 2008:

"What amounts to a dramatic order to 'kill the invaders,' as one senior officer put it last night, was disclosed after the commanders - who control the army's deployments at divisional level - met at their headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi under the chairmanship of army chief and former ISI spy agency boss Ashfaq Kayani.

"Leading English-language newspaper The News warned in an editorial that the US determination to attack targets inside Pakistan was likely to be 'the best recruiting sergeant that the extremists ever had,' with even 'moderates' outraged by it."

The Australian goes on to report:

"The 'kill' order against invading forces, and the sharp deterioration in relations with the US, has far-reaching implications for the war on terror.

"Anger at all levels in Pakistani society was summed up last night in The News, not normally sympathetic to the militants.

"'There is an escalating sense of furious impotence among the ordinary people of Pakistan,' the newspaper said.

"'Many - perhaps most - of them are strongly opposed to the spread of Talibanisation and extremist influence across the country: people who might be described as "moderates."

"'Many of them have no sympathy for the mullahs and their burning of girls' schools and their medieval mindset.'

"'But if you bomb a moderate sensibility often enough, it has a tendency to lose its sense of objectivity and to feel driven in the direction of extremism.'"

Apparently, this is not, for even moderate Pakistanis who despise the Taliban and al-Qaeda extremists, the "change they can believe in."

From the Daily News, another Pakistani English language paper, on September 14, 2008:

Tribesmen say they are with army, warn US

Staff Report

MIRANSHAH: Tribal elders in North Waziristan on Saturday vowed to defend the country’s frontiers by fighting alongside security forces against any ‘possible American attack’.

Malak Nasrullah, Malak Qadar Khan, Malak Mamoor, Malak Muhammad Afzal Khan, Malak Mumtaz and Malak Habibullah welcomed Army Chief General Ashfaq Kayani’s statement, adding that it was the voice of eight million tribesmen.

They said that if the American forces did not stop attacking the Tribal Areas, they would feel the repercussions of such attacks in Kabul, Bagram and Kandahar.

The elders said that their tribal brethren living on the Afghan side would also join the fight, as the foreign troops were subjecting them to gross injustices.

And finally, from the Guardian on September 15, 2008:

Pakistani tribal chiefs threaten to join Taliban
· US warned of uprising if armed incursions continue
· New counter-terror policy backfires on Washington

The article begins:

"A controversial new US tactic to mount counter-terrorist operations inside Pakistan has met with fresh hostility, it emerged yesterday, as Pakistani tribesmen representing half a million people vowed to switch sides and join the Taliban if Washington does not stop cross-border attacks by its forces from Afghanistan.

"Reacting to American missile attacks in north Waziristan last week, which followed an unprecedented cross-border ground assault earlier this month, tribal chiefs from the area called an emergency meeting on Saturday.

"'If America doesn't stop attacks in tribal areas, we will prepare a lashkar [army] to attack US forces in Afghanistan,' tribal chief Malik Nasrullah announced in Miran Shah, north Waziristan's largest city. 'We will also seek support from the tribal elders in Afghanistan to fight jointly against America.'"

"The development threatens to widen the conflict, with previously moderate people from Pakistan's tribal border region with Afghanistan in danger of joining Taliban militants based in the area. They have reacted furiously to intensified American missile attacks on targets in the tribal territory in recent weeks."

...

"'If the Americans are coming to sort it out with force, they would create more enemies. The Americans might have supersonic jets and we might have to fight with stones in our hands, but we will stand up.'"

Read the rest of this article here.

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In the name of fighting extremists and terrorists, the US is engaging in war crimes and state terror, creating enemies among those who hate al-Qaeda and the Taliban, but who now, in what should come as no surprise to anyone, are deeply offended, angered, provoked and victimized by the US's willful attacks on their country and people.

These attacks upon and in Pakistan were advocated by Obama beginning in August 0f 2007. The Bush regime adopted it in July 2008.

Is this the change we can believe in?