Re: Peace For KPK
One thing I’ve noticed that it’s so typical of people from third world countries to make foreign policy a matter of great personal pride and ego. Thats largely because their countries have no international history, no diplomatic standing, no national record of statesmanship. Hench the disgustingly polarised views that only see the world as divided into black and white blocks. In countries like Britain and USA, people aren’t aren’t throwing toys out their pram over the issue of negotiation with the Talibans because they are aware of the fact that their countries have long history of securing lion’s share through signing of ceasefires and treaties. There would not have been any British Empire if the Brits hadn’t known the art of penning down agreements and making deals for long term benefits.
Anyway, back to your original post. Why do you think Talibans are in Pakistan? Yes, because NATO forces with their supremely advanced technology, man power, full international backing and sophisticated training had miserably failed to suppress the Taliban let alone ever coming close to eliminating them. Where the NATO forces have failed, what makes you think Pakistan army will succeed? Considering once the Allies leave, stopping all the financial aid and assistance, but the most frightening fact of all, leaving an increasingly anti-Pak Karzai behind, who would most probably be in a coalition with the Talibans along with India as a proxy Kingmaker. In this case, what makes you think Pakistan would be able to handle all that alone successfully? So you are happy to see Taliban assuring the NATO forces that neither their countries nor their people will be attacked but you don’t want to see Pakistan extracting the same pledge for the sake of security of their own people? Is the idea of seeing a continuous warfare and most gruesome form of violence really thrilling for some people that they are so ready to totally sacrifice the prospect of long term peace and stability of the region?
Sometimes reading posts on this subject here makes me wonder if people just started following this conflict yesterday because Justin Bieber made a twitter post saying Talibans are bad? Why the Pak army doesn’t want to launch militray operations? Any idea? Yes, because it was Major Gen Ather Abbas who said during Musharraf’s rule that Pakistan army is not trained to launch offensive against its own civilians. There is no way you can defeat the enemy who hides amongst civilians in a civilian get up. There were even some inside reports suggesting that huge number of Pakistani soldiers were extremely disheartened to be part of the Swat operation due to the guilt felt over seeing massive amount of civilian suffering and loss of innocent blood in their own backyard by their own hands. Don’t even get me started on the amount of money that was needed to re-construct that area. The civilian casualties, the huge number of displaced population and material damage caused by Sawat operation is all well documented and available to see, now would you mind telling me what impact it had on defeating the Talibans or stopping the bomb attacks? No in fact, right after the Sawat operation, the entire country was shaken by series of bomb blasts in urban areas, bombs were blown off even when the army was in the middle of carrying the operation.
So what do you suggest Pakistan army should do? Dig trenches, deploy tanks, start aerial bombing, march up and down the streets machine gunning every nook and corner of Karachi, Multan, Quetta, Peshawar Pindi, Noshera, Faisalabad etc, so within days you have at least seven separatist movement coming out of a tiny country called Pakistan? Anyone who has an ounce of knowledge about the history and the sensitive and volatile nature of the relationship between Pakistan army and the civilian population would not even bother suggesting within border military operation as an only solution. It’s extremely dangerous for the survival of the country.
Has it ever occurred to you that Pakistan army has been part of this conflict for 12 years, TWELEVE bloody YEARS plus extra ten years of experience from Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; so maybe, just maybe they know more about the situation than you do? With 22 years of continuous warfare in the region, can you honestly blame the Pakistani people (who actually live in the country) for begging, pleading, yearning for a lasting peace?
Call of Talibans or whatever, at the end of the day, it’s just another form tribal resistance that cannot be defeated no matter which superpower is fighting against. The Brits were first to figure that out, the Soviets eventually realised that, the USA has learnt its lesson and I‘m sure as hell that Pakistan knew this fact all along.