Why are we killing our own people for someone else interest? 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/19/wpak119.xml
Pakistan troops ‘lose faith in war on terror’
By Isambard Wilkinson in Islamabad
Last Updated: 2:33am BST 19/09/2007
Eighteen Pakistani soldiers have been killed by pro-Taliban militants, bringing to more than 1,000 the number who have died fighting their own countrymen in the US-led war on terror.
The troops were ambushed at a security post in the country’s North Waziristan tribal region, near the Afghan border, on Sunday night.
An official said some had had their throats cut.
The morale of Pakistani troops fighting terrorism on their own soil is coming under intense scrutiny. President Pervez Musharraf has repeatedly claimed that the country is defending its own interests by battling al-Qa’eda fighters and tribesmen aligned to the Taliban.
However, an increasing number of analysts have questioned the soldiers’ will to fight what many Pakistanis believe to be “someone else’s war”.
The number of military fatalities has soared since July, when a peace deal with militants broke down in North Waziristan and the army assaulted the radical Red Mosque in Islamabad. Last Thursday, 16 elite commandos were killed in a suicide attack on their canteen at a camp near the capital.
The previous week, two suicide bombers killed 25 people, many of them staff at the military’s main intelligence agency, in Rawalpindi.
The army’s willingness to fight against its fellow Pakistanis has been in particular doubt since Aug 30, when 248 soldiers were captured by tribal militants in South Waziristan without firing a shot.
A colonel and two majors were among those held.
Gen Naseerullah Babar, a former interior minister, said it was not a case of a loss of morale but of a reluctance to fight on the soldiers’ part. “Perhaps they are not convinced to fight against their own people,” he said.
Talat Masood, a retired lieutenant-general, wrote in a newspaper column earlier this week that it had been an “abject surrender”.
“For all practical purposes, the state has lost its authority and is in full retreat especially in Waziristan and Bajaur,” he wrote.
An army spokesman denied, however, that troops were reluctant to take up arms.
“There is no low morale in the army,” said Lt Col Baseer Haider. “They are fighting and that is how they are suffering losses.”
Referring to the capture of the battalion, he said the “facts cannot be ascertained as the troops are not here”. He added: “A situation developed where they preferred not to fire and they had to give up their weapons but that cannot be called a surrender.”
The military campaign in the tribal areas has coincided with political turmoil and uncertainty over the army leadership’s future.
Gen Musharraf must soon appoint a new army chief as his aides have said that he will resign his military position if he secures re-election as president next month.
But the general faces challenges in the supreme court over claims that he is ineligible to continue as head of state.
The United States, which has paid Pakistan at least $10 billion in mainly military aid over the past five years, has constantly demanded that Gen Musharraf “do more” in the war on terror.
A law was enacted earlier this year that links American aid to Pakistan’s performance in the conflict.
