The Pakistani Taliban Are Full of It.

I'm not the only person to realize this, but making a statement that killing over 100 schoolchildren is because of revenge over the Pakistan military's assistance to the west is, not to put to fine a point on this--bullshit. The apparent statement by a Taliban spokesperson:

Taliban spokesman Muhammad Umar Khorasani said that the Taliban had targeted the army's school "because the government is targeting our families and females," and that "we want them to feel the pain."

is particularly galling when the Taliban are being targeted, to the extent they are, because among their hobbies is attacking schools and targeting women and children. It is especially hard for us not to take note that these are the bastards that killed Benazir Bhutto (having killed 140 people in the Karachi bombing attempt to kill her before the attack that succeeded) and tried to kill Malala Yousafsai--an assault by anti-intellectual cowards who shot a young girl in the head. That's what they've got. And it would be ever so much easier to spare a moment of sympathy for their poor families--were it not that they've indicated these are, in their considered opinion and actual practice,  quite legitimate targets. And considering that they have intended to make people hurt--no surprise, they do. If there was little sympathy for the Taliban among western-looking Pakistanis before, though--what should there be for them now?

What they have done was revolting. The families of those slain in this assault have my sympathy.