Here’s a scary piece at the New York Times on Bangladesh, where the barbarism of extremist Islam is taking hold: The Next Islamist Revolution?

In Bangladesh, “Islam is becoming the legitimizing political discourse,” according to C. Christine Fair, a South Asia specialist at the United States Institute of Peace, a nonpartisan, federally financed policy group in Washington. “Once you don that religious mantle, who can criticize you? We see this in Pakistan as well, where very few people are brave enough to take the Islamists on. Now this is happening in Bangladesh.” The region, Fair added, has become a haven where jihadis can move easily and have access to a friendly infrastructure that allows them to regroup and train.

Another close observer of Bangladeshi politics, Ali Dayan Hasan of Human Rights Watch, told me recently: “The practical effect of politics along religious lines is that you start to accept a religious identity and reject every other. It’s absolutely crucial to understand that this is happening in Bangladesh right now.”

If it’s so crucial, maybe NGOs like Human Rights Watch should spend more time on this issue instead of devoting the vast majority of their budgets (and fading credibility) to attacking the United States and Israel.