Good thread bro!
I would humbly add two important questions in this discussion.
War On Terror is American term to define THEIR objective. How should Pakistanis have defined it?
Martyrdom of Pak army's jawans- What is the objective of their sacrifices?
The two factors are off course intertwined and it will be difficult to discuss one without the other.
1. WOT or DOT
Pakistanis should have never called it "War on terror". WOT was declared by Americans to send their troops to faraway lands. American troops are fighting to protect US interests. That's their main focus in WOT.
From Pakistan's perspective, it was never a WAR, it was rather a defense of our own lands, our own region against the Jihadi anarchists. It was always Defense of our Territories or DOT.
We must separate ourselves from Jihadi or American propaganda and try to see clearly what we have to do in this situation. So let's look at Jihadi objectives.
Osama used Jihad to free ARAB i.e. Saudi and Palestinian lands from "foreign occupation". Unfortunately he started this Jihad from Afghanistan. If Osama had balls, he would have setup his mission control in some stronger region and deployed his Jihadi troops where his prime objectives existed, namely in Saudi (presence of American troops), and in Palestine (presence of Israeli troops).
Basing his head quarters in Afghanistan was the most stupid thing to do. In Urdu we have an old proverb "Tutti ki aar main shikar". It means you try to hide behind a very flimsy, see-through piece of crap and fire bullets at a much stronger opponent. As soon as your opponent fires back, the tutti collapses leaving you in a defenseless position.
This is exactly what happened. When Americans came after Osama, his defense in the form of Mullah Omer' aka Tutti, capitulated in less than 3 days.
Afghanistan could never have defended Osama from the onslaught of Americans or any other power trying to go after him and his Jihadis.
Having explained the mistakes of Osama, let me change the focus to Pakistan now. Pakistanis miscalculated the American resolve in going after Osama. We were lulled into inaction by our socialist thinkers who heavily relied on myths and an outdated analysis of history.
Pakistani socialists looked at past performances of USA in places like Vietnam, and the more recent ones the way President Clinton's anemic reaction to the acts of Jihadi terrorism in Africa and Middle East.
Unfortunately Pakistani analysts forgot that US had already won Gulf War I, and rolled over Granada and Panama. Plus UK's faulkland wars had changed the dynamics. US and UK were no longer living in Vietnam era war policies.
Thus Americans were bound to come after Osama in Afghanistan sooner or later and we in Pakistan should have been ready to block off any spillover into FATA.
Unfortunately we didn't. We left our FATA region as distant land not to be cared for, not to be civilized and brought forward to 21st century.
We never established the writ of our government. Poorly trained Khasa dars, and FC men were no match for the battle hardened, and extremely motivated Jihadis.
Thus after the collapse of Taliban Tutti, when Jihadis poured over our border and occupied our areas, we took it lightly and never thought that a big war of Pakistan's survival is coming.
Not only did we ignored our area called FATA, we started bhand-bazi about sarcasm about WOT just to spite the Americans. Why do Americans care whether we joke about WOT or take it seriously. We should have been the one to name our war and for us it was not a WOT, but instead Defense of Territories (DOT) or defense of our border lands.
We should never call our war in FATA as WOT. It was always DOT and it will remain DOT until the last Jihadi is killed or captured.
2. Sacrifices of our jawans
Our jawans have given their ultimate so that we in Lahore, Karachi, Faisalabad, Multan, Islamabad, and Peshawar with some semblance of normalcy. Not great as US or UK life, but not terrible as Afghan life but somewhere in between.
Yes we lost close to 2000 of our precious young soldiers in the defense of our motherland. But we have also sent thousands of Jihadis to hell where hopefully they will reside forever.
We must learn from Somalia and Afghanistan. These budqismat countries didn't have brave jawans like ours, and look what has happened to them. One is under foreign occupation and the other is on the deathbed.
We are khush qismat that we have our soldiers defending us. Their martyrdom will never go in vain. As long we have our brave soldiers we will not turn into Islamic Emirates of Somaila and Afghanistan.
Sure we made mistakes in the beginning of our DOT. We sent in poorly trained Khasa daars and FC men resulting in their killing or capture. But now we have sent in tanks and gunships and soldiers who are properly equipped and trained.
We are already seeing the result. Thanks to the immense sacrifices of our army jawans, Jihadis are running in front of them like dogs with tails in their legs.
But we must not stop. Jihadi terror must be chased down to every cave and every hill of Bajore and Wazirastan. Yes we may lose some civilians, but we still have our country.
Ask Afghanis and Somalis if they could turn back time and stop the Jihadi menace when they could. It is too late for Somalis and Afghanis. But thanks to our soldiers, we will survive and win the DOT.