How exactly did you come to this conclusion that PA is not capable to handle these terrorists. Also have you even bothered to analyze, how capable the US is which even after the passing of seven years has failed miserably in both Iraq and Afghanistan and now to cover this shame is shifting all blame on to Pakistan and wants to make Pakistan as its next scape goat. Pakistanis maybe divided and that too for obvious reasons but when it comes to external threat, somehow the nation gets untied. Till date i have met not a single Pakistani both from educated class and uneducated who was against the remarks of the army chief. The nations reaction is so strong that you cant imagine. PA might be inferior to both NATO and US when it comes to equipment but thats not all that makes PA the best in the business. When it comes to defending the mother land and specially when the whole nation is backing it up, you should be able to predict results what will happen to these yanks once they decide to cross the border.
Hon. IceCold:
No doubt you have a point. However I have not seen Pakistanis united against an external threat except in 1965. They certainly werent in 1971. Regarding the capability of PA to control the militants, you may chose to ignore the attacks on convoys, kidnapping of the whole companies and attack on the training areas, the facts speak for themselves. I have always believed that PA is an army of lions led by the donkeys. Brig Zafar Alam implies the same in his book the ways it was.
Regarding the US army, dont think they will enter Pakistan in large numbers; they will use predators, especially the cruise missiles to destroy Pakistan's assets. I have heard ex COAS Gen Musharraf on TV admitting that reason why he did a u-turn on Taliban issue was that he analysed possible scenario of confrontation with the US and found that co-operation was the best option. However if you have better info than the COAS, it is another matter.
I am posting a poignant article from todays Dawn for you benefit. You have of course every right to hold a different opinion.
Miscreants and militants
By Tasneem Siddiqui
THERE are a handful of miscreants, and we will sort them out in no time, thundered Gen Yahya Khan. The date was March 24 1971, the occasion: the launching of a crackdown against the Awami League and its supporters. A foreign correspondent asked how many of these miscreants were there.
Before Yahya Khan could reply, a colleague whispered in the correspondents ear, only four and half crores [45 million].
This was no joke. The crackdown soon transformed into a full-fledged military action against Bengalis, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people. With a few exceptions, no one from the western wing raised a protesting voice. The Bengalis, who had once been at the forefront of the Pakistan Movement and were more in number than the West Pakistanis, were ultimately declared secessionists and pushed out of the federation. It was a unique case of its own kind, a minority declaring a majority secessionists.
Pakistan is an interesting country in many ways. At one time or another in its history, large chunks of its population have been declared either anti-state, secessionist, miscreant, terrorist, militant or extremist by its own rulers. It is also interesting that while the population of one province or a political party is so declared, others watch in silence or enjoy their chagrin.
Treason factories started working right in 1947, when a freedom fighter like Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan was declared anti-state. Soon after, hundreds of Khudai Khidmatgars were brutally killed at Bhabhra. In the mid-1950s, the United Front government of East Pakistan which had defeated the Muslim League by a landslide, was not allowed to function properly and was ultimately dismissed on flimsy charges. Maulvi Fazlul Haq, who had presented the Pakistan Resolution on March 23, 1940 was declared a traitor.
The people of Balochistan and their leaders have been the most unfortunate. Starting with a forced merger of Kalat with Pakistan, they have repeatedly faced the wrath of the Pakistan establishment. Ayub Khan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Pervez Musharraf each in turn declared the Baloch nationalist leaders enemies of Pakistan and either imprisoned or killed them. Thousands of Marri, Bugti and Mengal tribesmen had to flee the country to save their lives. Many of them died in exile in miserable conditions.
Next it was the turn of rural Sindh to face the might of the state. The 1977 coup led by Gen Ziaul Haq and the judicial murder of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1979 had hurt the sentiments of the Sindhi population and most of them felt alienated from the state. In 1984 they found a chance to express their bitterness through the MRD movement which was suppressed with brute force. Urban Sindh, which did not support the MRD movement, but observed the torture and merciless killing of rural Sindhis from the sidelines, was next in line.
In 1991 the army chief declared the MQM a terrorist organisation and launched a crackdown against it. The circle was now complete. Except for Punjab, people from all the other provinces had either been declared traitors or terrorists, or both.
It must be said to the credit of ordinary Pakistanis that in spite of all exploitation, suppression, coercion, intimidation, subversion, torture, imprisonment and rigged elections (Arundhati Roys words describing the situation in Jammu and Kashmir), they showed resilience and bounced back every time whether it was separation of East Pakistan, military action in Balochistan or the reign of terror in Karachi.
Pakistan had many basic problems, but till the early 1980s it remained a peaceful country by and large. There was no religious, sectarian or ethnic violence and people were going to their mosques, imambargahs, temples, churches, schools and colleges without any fear. Streets were safe and the display of arms very rare. But things started changing when with Saudi money and American armament Pakistan found itself at the forefront of the war against Soviet Russia. Similarly, in order to stop the increasing influence of the revolution in Shia Iran, militant Wahabi Islam was promoted as a matter of state policy.
Now for the first time we saw the state, which so far had been fighting against miscreants, and extremists, producing, patronising protecting promoting and arming its own brand of militants calling them jihadis or mujahideen. Of course they were fighting a holy war in Afghanistan and Kashmir but its natural consequence was the rise of obscurantism and fanaticism in Pakistan.
At that time perceptive observers had warned that once the Afghan war was over, Pakistan would have to bear the backlash. Fears of brutalisation of society were also expressed. But all sane advice went unheeded. Things could still be controlled if Pakistans military junta had extricated itself from the Afghan quagmire after the Soviet withdrawal. But unfortunately, this development gave new ideas to Pakistans ruling class. Now they started talking about strategic depth and a puppet government in Afghanistan to safeguard Pakistans interests on a permanent basis.
The Mujahideen/Taliban were seen by the army as the countrys second line of defence on its western frontier. Some hawks also started talking of the revival of the glory of Islam by establishing a medieval theocratic state in Afghanistan.
However, 9/11 changed the whole scenario and the Americans asked Pakistan to take a 180-degree turn. On the surface, Gen Musharraf accepted US dictation but the army continued with its Afghan policy while taking only superficial actions against the Taliban for the worlds consumption. Fast forward to 2008. An operation which started in South Waziristan against foreign militants some years back, has gradually engulfed almost half of the Frontier province. Now no one knows who is fighting whom and for what purpose. The list of militant groups is daunting. We have the Al Qaeda, Afghan Taliban, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, Lashkar-i-Islam and leaders like Sufi Mohammad, Baitullah Mehsud and Mangal Bagh to name just a few.
In Kurram Agency two tribes are fighting against each other (the ISPR spokesperson is shy of calling them Shias and Sunnis). In Balochistan a low-level insurgency is going on against state coercion. While all this continues, nobody can distinguish the ISI creations from the genuine militants. Indira Gandhi had one Bhindranwale, but the Pakistan Army has many in its cupboard.
The problem is that for our military high command, their narrow institutional interests come first, and most of the time they equate their interests with national interests. But now we are facing a catch-22 situation. On the one hand, the Pakistani Army has neither the capacity nor the willingness to fight an all-out war against the militants, and on the other, it is not ready to allow the civilian government to take control of the Afghan policy. Will it be too much to expect that it will learn from its past mistakes and develop a national consensus before it is too late?
DAWN - Opinion; September 15, 2008
