Re: Shame on you, Mr Khan
When this war began, most of us were against it. The way it was fought, again was flawed. I believe that some terrorists were there in FATA, and that was due to our foreign policy from 1979 to 2001. When the Uturn was taken, Musharraf did not bother to bifurcate the terrorists from ordinary tribals. He took help from some tribes (lashkars) and attacked others, following British era divide and rule and making use of British FCR he created a civil war situation there. What Imran Khan has been saying since 2001 was right as we see what transpired later. But the situation has changed a lot during the past few years, now what Imran says also seems simplistic.
There are two schools on which how to tackle this issue once for all, carpet bombing of FATA or submitting to taleban. The answer is not in both of these options. Should we now forgive taleban, especially after thousands of murders? If they are forgiven what is the guarantee that they wont start spreading to other areas (like they invaded Buner after peace agreement in Swat)? Will they accept Pakistan’s writ? I believe that their higher command must be punished, and the lower ranks should be weaned back into the main stream.
This is a very big and complex challenge. Some people try to confuse this with Srilanka conflict although both are completely different. Srilanka was an island, and the war was essentially between marginalize Tamils and majority Sinhalese. Pakistan has a large porous and problematic border with Afghanistan. Any operation on the Pakistani sides will only push them into Afghanistan. Another thing is that these people are using the name of Islam to confuse people. Hence I believe they should be isolated foremost through the religion itself (like some sort of unanimous fatwa against them and their activities).