Capitulation

[Solomon2]

Capitulation
From the Newspaper | Cyril Almeida | 20 hours ago 10

TALIBAN, two; politicians, zero. Not a bad start to the year if you’re an anti-state militant. You’ve drawn the enemy’s blood repeatedly and yet somehow turned its attention towards peace talks.

In fact, the TTP has turned counter-insurgency on its head: it’s the state that is supposed to pound the militants until they are left with no choice but to drag their bloodied and battered selves to the negotiating table — not the other way round.

Nobody really thinks the TTP wants peace. Neither the maulanas talking peace at their APC nor the secular ANP talking peace at its APC believe it.

How can they? They know the Pakistani Taliban too well: some because they’re cut from the same cloth; others because the Taliban have risen from their midst.

So what’s going on?

Think of it as pre-election posturing. And arguably the Taliban’s greatest victory.

Start with the politicians. Elections mean a surfeit of targets: politicians campaigning; voters turning up at rallies and at polling booths; local influentials running around trying to stitch up winning coalitions.

If you’re a politician, it’s precisely the time you don’t want to be the focus of the TTP’s attention.

Fata is a new prize and an old complication: with political parties permitted to field candidates for the first time, the politicians have to get out there and fight a new game — in a land that has politically and socially been turned upside down by a decade of insurgency.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is and has been an electoral patchwork and is again shaping up to be intensely competitive come election time.

Neither in Fata nor in KP can politicians and political parties take anything for granted the next few months. But the already hard, political, slog becomes infinitely more complicated if you’re being walloped by the Taliban.

So it’s time to buy some time.

The Taliban says it wants peace, we’ll give them all the talks about talks they can handle, the politicians are thinking.

Maybe the Taliban will bite, maybe they won’t, but it’s worth a shot with a general election on the cards.

Who knows, maybe instead of 20 suicide bombings, 10 devastating attacks and five high-profile assassinations during campaign season, there’ll be five suicide bombings, three devastating attacks and one high-profile assassination, the politician willing to sue for peace is saying privately.

What about leadership? What about rallying the public against the greatest danger to state and society since state and society contrived to lose half the country some four decades ago? What about doing the right thing?

Pfft. It’s election time.

Nothing matters more to a politician than winning an election. Not in India, not in Italy, not in Israel, not in the US. Why should Pakistan be any different?

Unspoken Rule No 1: you can’t win an election if you’re dead, so better to live to cower another day.

Now, what are the Taliban up to? What’s this business of attacking ruthlessly while talking peace?

That the Taliban have proved to be fairly un-strategic and not very bright has been to Pakistan’s enduring luck over the past decade or so.

Swat, for example, became both the apogee and nadir of Taliban power because they weren’t patient enough, or smart enough, to consolidate the gains there after Nizam-i-Adl had been ceded by the state.

Instead, they spilled out into neighbouring districts and tore apart the artifice that Swat was a localised problem with a localised solution that the state had so cravenly helped the Taliban construct.

But now the Taliban have conjured up a masterstroke: inserting themselves into the political course and with it, driving a stake through the possibility of the elusive societal ‘consensus’ against militancy emerging.

Count the ways in which the Taliban have racked up wins with the devilishly timed offer of talks.

One, the political class is once again being assembled into pro-Taliban and anti-Taliban camps.

Since Swat and South Waziristan, talk of talks was the remit of the extreme right and Taliban Khan — and both were hammered for it. While public opinion had never come close to coalescing around decisive military action, the idea of talks had faded as the option mainstream politics preferred.

Now, with elections upon us and politicians needing to fan out among the people, the Taliban have dangled a carrot: go soft on us and we’ll turn our cross-hairs elsewhere.

Cue politicians falling over themselves to grab the Taliban carrot.

Two, the old confusion in society and the media has been resurrected.

There was no ‘Malala moment’ last October because there is no coherent counter-narrative to militancy and extremism — at least no counter-narrative that has widespread traction.

But public suspicion of the Taliban’s goals, if not their ideology, had grown to the point that uncomfortable questions were being asked, loudly and aggressively on TV and in the street.

Now, because inherent in the idea of talks is reasonableness, the creeping image of monstrousness that the Taliban had begun to acquire has been swiftly halted by the offer of talks.

Yes, they still kill and maim, the public and media can once again debate, but perhaps there is some humanity in the Taliban after all.

Third, the civil-military divide is wider than ever.

The army high command says, we can’t go for the kill unless the politicians back us and the public supports us.

Assume — and this is a fairly big assumption — that the army means it.

The politicians are falling over themselves to grab the Taliban carrot. The right-wing in the media is giving John Lennon a run for his money. And society is slipping back towards the default state of Pakistani nature: confusion.

Where does that leave the consensus, political and social, the army demands? Nowhere.

Game, set and the first half of 2013 to the Taliban.

The writer is a member of staff.

cyril.a@gmail.com
Twitter: @cyalm

 

[Solomon2]

No responses. It's tough for aggressive boys to realize that when push comes to shove they are as cowardly as everyone else. Yet perhaps the hope for fixing Pakistan is in you guys, if you put your heart in the right place and apply yourself. As the article points out, Pakistan's political leaders stand against terror is that of tissue paper rather than a brick wall so they aren't going to do it for you. Or will you continue to do the easy thing and do nothing or join the terrorists?

 

[Star Wars]

No responses. It's tough for aggressive boys to realize that when push comes to shove they are as cowardly as everyone else. Yet perhaps the hope for fixing Pakistan is in you guys, if you put your heart in the right place and apply yourself. As the article points out, Pakistan's political leaders stand against terror is that of tissue paper rather than a brick wall so they aren't going to do it for you. Or will you continue to do the easy thing and do nothing or join the terrorists?

Pakistani politicians are too busy in corruption and amassing personal wealth than actually help the country ..
ISI and Army still considers some of the extremists and strategic asset when it comes to Kashmir and Afghanistan post 2014..
Imran Khan and his fellow party members have a screwed up mentality of how to deal with this...

What is the solution to this conundrum...

 

[RazorMC]

I never supported these peace talks with TTP. When will people realize that we need to keep the war on their doorsteps, not ours ?

 

[Solomon2]

I never supported these peace talks with TTP. When will people realize that we need to keep the war on their doorsteps, not ours ?

After what happened to Taseer and others what Pakistani politician can afford to openly defy militants? AUs Americans took the approach that if someone tries to assassinate a political leader for political reasons the politicians respond by uniting to implement the assassinated leader's plans, even if they originally opposed them. Had Pakistan's leaders united in trashing the blasphemy laws and prosecuting and executing people who led mobs to kill accused blasphemers would Pakistani politicians be quaking under the threat of the TTP today?

 

[RazorMC]

After what happened to Taseer and others what Pakistani politician can afford to openly defy militants? AUs Americans took the approach that if someone tries to assassinate a political leader for political reasons the politicians respond by uniting to implement the assassinated leader's plans, even if they originally opposed them. Had Pakistan's leaders united in trashing the blasphemy laws and prosecuting and executing people who led mobs to kill accused blasphemers would Pakistani politicians be quaking under the threat of the TTP today?

National unity is one thing, but removing the blasphemy laws would mean political suicide. There's no removing that political obstacle. There's only a tiny group that wants to change the status anyways, and there's no sign of that changing.

Plus the law is wrongly blamed for the misuse by powerful people. Most of the people in jail for supposedly committing blasphemy are Muslims, not the minorities.

I don't really know why we even need a law in the first place. I, personally, haven't met any minority member who would purposely defame Islam or the Prophet.

 

[Solomon2]

National unity is one thing, but removing the blasphemy laws would mean political suicide.

No Pakistani leader is willing to be a true martyr. Yet don't they know the TTP's going to kill them anyway, at their convenience?

There's only a tiny group that wants to change the status anyways, and there's no sign of that changing.

Change starts not when someone says "We should do - " but when that someone can say, "I'm tired of the status quo and this is what I'm doing -"

So try the opposite approach: don't advocate eliminating the blasphemy law but replacing it by one that PROMOTES blasphemy. At least you'll get people's attention....

 

[muse]

No responses. It's tough for aggressive boys to realize that when push comes to shove they are as cowardly as everyone else. Yet perhaps the hope for fixing Pakistan is in you guys, if you put your heart in the right place and apply yourself. As the article points out, Pakistan's political leaders stand against terror is that of tissue paper rather than a brick wall so they aren't going to do it for you. Or will you continue to do the easy thing and do nothing or join the terrorists?

Sol

We can't do the right thing - maybe the army and her agencies can, but they are also one of us, well, no, that's not quite true, lets say they are from us.

The Jammat e Islami and Jammat e Ulema e Islam are both on record as seeking the Army's approval, something the TTP have demanded - now lets see if Amir u Momimeen will join in ---then the army and her agencies will claim that by giving their approval they are doing their constitutional duty of supporting the government and "Democracy".

Dr. Cohen says of the Pakistan Army that it negotiates with friends holding a gun to it's own head, this may be another opportunity to lend credence to that idea.

 

[RazorMC]

...
So try the opposite approach: don't advocate eliminating the blasphemy law but replacing it by one that PROMOTES blasphemy. At least you'll get people's attention....

I think I'll be getting more than attention. I feel the world will be a better place with me in it, not without

-----------------

But seriously though, I'm not going to promote blasphemy at all. This will centralize the role of radicals in our daily lives and make the situation worse.
The law needs to be seen through objective eyes, not to promote such insanity, but to promote openness.

Too sleepy now...

 

[Solomon2]

Sol

We can't do the right thing - maybe the army and her agencies can, but they are also one of us, well, no, that's not quite true, lets say they are from us.

Such powerlessness...from citizens to mere subjects.

Dr. Cohen says of the Pakistan Army that it negotiates with friends holding a gun to it's own head, this may be another opportunity to lend credence to that idea.

I believe the Army is the only institution in Pakistan that has demonstrated it can change course quickly and immediately if it so desires - yet nowadays it won't initiate political discourse, save in its immediate self-interest, yes? Kiyani, the corps commanders, and various alums leave it up to others to take that risk. So why wouldn't a Pakistani politician willing to take a brave public stance then find support echoing through the Army?

 

[muse]

Such powerlessness...from citizens to mere subjects.

So why wouldn't a Pakistani politician willing to take a brave public stance then find support echoing through the Army?

Alas -- Because the Army itself is not a monolith -- remember Musharraf? Remember he was COAS and recall how many of the attempts on his life = mostly by members of the armed forces -- and while Kayani was his ISI guy -- things that make you go hmmm?

So before anything like that happens, the change has to take place in the ethic of the armed forces itself - this is why we keep pointing to the motto -- and I recommend Ejaz Haider's This war and our monumental confusion – The Express Tribune

 

[Awesome]

No responses. It's tough for aggressive boys to realize that when push comes to shove they are as cowardly as everyone else. Yet perhaps the hope for fixing Pakistan is in you guys, if you put your heart in the right place and apply yourself. As the article points out, Pakistan's political leaders stand against terror is that of tissue paper rather than a brick wall so they aren't going to do it for you. Or will you continue to do the easy thing and do nothing or join the terrorists?

If you really mean that - buddy I agree with you.

The max that can happen is that we'd get killed by terrorists and their sympathizers. Dying for the country is something not everyone gets a go at. Die doing something noble - breathing life into the dead morals of the Pakistani.

I'm all up for negotiating with the Taliban but not when they aren't **** scared of you, let them beg for negotiations, don't go begging them.

I mean what are you going to negotiate? They'll say make Pakistan an Islamic state you'll say no and then we go back to fighting?

 

[haviZsultan]

I don't see how anyone can negotiate with someone that is intent on destroying your way of life utterly. There can be no negotiations until there is no other choice and in that case it is not called negotiation but capitulation. We should make a solid effort to eliminate or ravage their top leadership... for example commanders like Hakimullah Mahsud, Wali Ur Rehman... these are some of the most dangerous terrorists out there today and no action is being taken in regards to this. Isn't it our job to eliminate these terrorists?

This might sound strange because its coming from a PTI supporter (and Imran Khan has supported exactly that) though one who has been researching and knows the nature of the mass murdering Taliban as a result. These people are cruel, mass-murdering maniacs but since operations haven't been successful enough... what to do?

 

[Solomon2]

I don't see how anyone can negotiate with someone that is intent on destroying your way of life utterly.

The Israelis manage it.

There can be no negotiations until there is no other choice and in that case it is not called negotiation but capitulation.

That works both ways, doesn't it?

We should make a solid effort to eliminate or ravage their top leadership...

You don't mean, "we" as in "myself and other Pakistanis" but just "other Pakistanis", yes? Even if you're not military, are you doing something today to openly support such the efforts of those who must put their bodies and families at risk?