Tuesday afternoon, beginning at 4:30 pm ET/1:30 pm PT, David Montero of the Christian Science Monitor and FRONTLINE/World’s newest documentary "Pakistan: State of Emergency" will be here to chat live. The documentary explores some of the intertwined religious, political and power issues in Pakistan:

In “State of Emergency,” a joint project of FRONTLINE/World and the Christian Science Monitor, airing Tuesday, February 26, 2008 at 9:00 P.M. ET on PBS (check local listings), reporter David Montero travels undercover to the remote and beautiful Swat Valley where a mysterious Taliban cleric named Maulana Fazlullah has been leading thousands of followers in a guerrilla war against the government. Known as the “radio mullah” for his fiery sermons broadcast on a pirate FM station, Fazlullah represents the new face of the Taliban – young men trained in Afghanistan, who now pose a major security threat to neighboring Pakistan, and the entire region.

Montero is the only Western reporter to have interviewed the reclusive Fazlullah. In a meeting last May, when the Swat Valley was still relatively quiet, Fazlullah told Montero that he wanted to wipe out the darkness of Western ideas. Last fall, Fazlullah’s forces began overrunning military and police outposts and captured sixty towns in the Swat Valley. Then they took their terror tactics a step further and began beheading local opponents, often leaving the bodies on display with a note: “Those people who serve America, the same thing will happen to them.”

Many locals, fearful of Fazlullah’s rise, turned to one of Swat’s traditional leaders for guidance—Asfandiar Amir Zeb— a prince whose family has ruled Swat for a hundred years. For months, Zeb appealed to President Musharraf’s government to intervene against Fazlullah…

What is going on in this region of Pakistan highlights many of the issues arising between ultraconservative and more moderate religious and political forces across these vast mountains wherein the Taliban and tribal rivalries were born and continue to rage.

And every move that the Bush Administration makes can either help to inflame or douse these long-raging disputes.

Thus far, as many of you know, our track record has been less than long-term planning…and it has shown up in the increased instability in a region that approaches its boiling point. If you’ve read Three Cups Of Tea, you know the enormous difference that a bit of education and some measure of hope can make in the lives of the residents in these forgotten corners of Pakistan and Afghanistan. If you’ve spent any time on the Global Affairs Blog, you know how volatile things can be in a region where so many of the inhabitants simply want the promise of working toward something better, but are continually confronted with hardship and very little consideration from their national government.

David Montero’s exploration of the swirling political and religious conflicts of the region add another crucial layer of information on how we are making things worse with our current courses of action, prodding us ever forward to better decision-making in the future. I hope you can join us at 4:30 pm ET/1:30 pm PT tomorrow to chat live with David Montero about this FRONTLINE/World documentary production.


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