TankMan
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You were the one using surveys to make an argument. You are supposed to provide them. It is your argument, you need to back it.
In an attempt to say 'you were wrong' on my post, your [sic] forgot the most essential ingredient - reading the post first.
It doesn't say ''oh it's all good as long as it only kills non-Muslims''. It says never against civilians.
You are using a false premise to back your argument.
They most likely just didn't care until it affected them. At those times, the basic idea in peoples' minds would have been about Afghans defending themselves from an invasion - same as it was in the 80s. Most uneducated Pakistanis either didn't hear about incidents like 9/11, didn't care enough about them or believed some conspiracy theory.
Either way, they were wrong to support terrorism and I'm glad that it's changed - you should be glad too, or at least satisfied about it.
Besides, isn't it a good thing that support for terrorists reduced over time? I'd say it's a very good thing, so what's the problem here? You are arguing as if it was a bad thing.
You could have, sure. Would it have changed anything? Not at all. You can be as condescending as you want to, but I won't use that condescension to disregard any valid arguments you present.
'Exporting Jihad'? How do you export struggle? You mean like UN missions - nothing wrong with those.
On a more serious note, you mean 'terrorism'. Just use that word instead of supporting the terrorist narrative that jihad means terrorism. You seriously just said that suicide bombings are Jihad. You are a propagator of terrorist narratives.
Terrorist narrative = ''Islam encourages Jihad, our terrorism is Jihad, so Islam supports our terrorism''.
It does not, actually, so please do not help terrorists in the same way that you accuse us of doing.
There is nothing in your statistics to back that assertion. The criteria of support is not Muslims or non-Muslims. It's 'civilian'. They approved of civilians dying, in the same way people nowadays approve of 'collateral damage'. They don't anymore.
The freedom fighters example wasn't a specific reference to MB, but to general proxy warfare. Nowadays it's the Baloch militants, a while ago it was MB. That's unfortunately how modern conflicts work. The Baloch militants are, in fact, being declared terrorists.
Pakistan's strategic interest was countering soviet influence and supporting the US as part of a cold war era geopolitical strategy. I don't agree with what the US and Pakistan did, but I am not a fan of the USSR's expansionism either.
The Vietcong weren't left with a power vacuum to fill, unlike the Mujahideen groups which were well armed and had very little opposition - all that was needed was a few extremists hijacking the whole country, it was wide open for them. The Vietcong had very, very much resistance to deal with even without US forces.
It had nothing to do with the Pashtun ethnicity, more to do with political leverage in Afghanistan. That was the intent - gaining influence over Afghanistan and simultaneously countering Indian influence. Needless to say, it didn't work too well, but that's an entirely different topic.
Many nations are reckless - I agree with introspection (we're already working on it, a lot) and with careful, considerate foreign policy. No argument there. The argument is that it's not just Pakistan, it's the global game that's responsible for it. Many, many nations are involved in it, the most prominent of them being the US. Pakistan can change all it wants, terrorism and proxy warfare will remain.
The problem is that none of these arguments are being held in any legitimate manner - internationally, I mean. It's more about making the other guys look bad than it is about actually solving anything. The same people blaming Pakistan for irrigating a 'global Jihad forest' are themselves throwing fertilizer on that forest.
