Tribal areas

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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I believe pakistani army should have jurisdiction and control over every inch of pakistan. Any mini army, be it “mujahedin”, land lords or wotever should not be allowed to exist and as such i m in favour of pakistan’s attempt to control the tribal areas. I dont know the details of army operations and some of the methods used may not be proper, but i think the goal is justified.

This should of course be done for the intrest of pakistan and not of any foreign power. The effects of these operations should be minimized on the civil population of these areas because as pakistanis they are our brothers.

I want to get your input on this.

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Re: Tribal areas

Moved from World Affairs: The topic is strictly Pakistan related, so it should be discussed here.

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Re: Tribal areas

Your name shows as you are an old man of Chacha Ghalib time but I am sorry you are totally ignorant of the history. We must learn lessons from our past but the hawks like you will continue plunging this country into debacles.
I agree Tribal Areas should form part of Pakistan like all other settled areas but then there is a history and commitment as well. We can do that by any means less use of force.
A proud nation never use force against its own people collectively. The operations in those sensitive areas may create a situation which may not be far different from 71, if you remember something.

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no i m not an old man of chacha ghalib's time.. :) in fact i m in ma early 20s i just liked this nick at the time.. see ur nick is khushaal khan and there use to be an old dude named khushaal khan khatak in pak... does this make u old :D

now about the issue at hand. i was careful to point out that the effects of any operation should be minimal on the civilian population and our purpose in these operations should be the interest of pakistan. Any operation that causes any enmosity in the general public towards pakistan is not justified.
I explicitly said i was in favour of the goal and not necessarily the means employed, to which u also agree in the bold part.

I m not sure which commitment are u talking about? can u explain.

Don't these tribal dudes have their own mini armies, with which they try to block the pakistani army from operating in these areas? if thats the case what is the army suppose to do? chicken out and leave them alone or kick their butts out of the country? and again i m talking about the guys who fight the army not the civilians.

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Re: Tribal areas

The tribals areas joined Pakistan under certain conditions. We have no right to revisit or change those conditions any more than, say, Britain has the right to say now the they want to revisit the conditions of Pakistan's independence.

If we do not loike those conditions we should relinquish control over the tribal areas and let their jirgas choose whether to accept new conditions that give more control to Pakistan.

If they don't want to give more control to Pakistan, they should become part of Afghanistan or become independent.

Of course, the moment they choose to leave Pakistan they will be swamped with American troops and the mass killings that would result, so let them choose...

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Re: Tribal areas

they could do whatever the hell they want as long as it does not put Pakistan in trouble and does not break Pakistan's laws. I mean if these tribals want to maintain control, then either they need to control their idiots and other idiots that are hiding there from going and attacking in cross border raids, or they just deal with Uncle Sam and not get pakistan to try and cool down the mess. If Pak says okay today there will be some major pimp slapping by US going on there.

Now when i say they can do whatever the hell they want, I mean it, as long as it does not impact anyone outside of tribal region. No drugs coming to rest of Pakistan from there, no arms coming in from there, no car jackings in cities so the cars can then be used by sardars in these tribal areas.

I would rather not see the govt deal with the headache of reasoning with these neandrathals, and let them be... as long as they dont put Pakistan in any sort of danger.

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Chacha Ghalib, I think MS has given the answer in detail.
About US operations in Tribal Areas. I am sure, if Pakistan army is not there, America cant dare to enter into Tribal areas, I am sure they will be cut into pieced if they ever try to enter this region. American can only use their Gunship helicopters, which they are otherwise using them, violating all rules and regulations entering into a sovereign state, carryout bombardment and instead of reacting to that Pakistan put the entire blame on its forces who are unfortunately already under fire.
If we analyze the operations in Tribal Areas, apart from some regular army troops, most of the forces operating there are FC. FC consist of all tribal people, like Mashoods, Wazir, Afridis, Khattaks, yousafzais etc. And fighting against own people is not an easy job.
I think we should live tribal areas as they were before. If there is any problem presently prevailing in this region it is of our own making. We have motivated these people to fight in Afghanistan against Russia, we have invited all those Arabs into this region and thats how we are suffering.

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When I said swamped by American troops, I meant from the air. You're right, the US will not put their troops on the ground. But then like they did in Afghanistan in 2001, they will rely on their planes and helicopters, which means blowing up anyone who moves and then declaring they were a "terrorist". Not just the helicopter gunships, but the bigger planes and bombs. Think about it. Tajiks/Uzbeks/OtherTurkic/Persian soldiers start approaching a tribal village. The villagers fire to defend themselves, knowing the rape and looting Norther Alliance soldiers engaged in during the war versus the Taliban. The Afghans scream to the americans. The Americans define the village to be a militant fortress and call for fighter bombers to come and flatten it.

Now you may alledge that Pakistan or the US is doing this today in the tribal area. But even those allegations come infrequently, one every coupld of months. Now as the Tajiks/Uzbek/Turkic/Persian troops go through the tribal area trying to take over each and every village, this scene will be repeated a thousand times over.

I personally think Pakistan does have a major problem with tribal areas not acting in Pakistan's interests or more importantly, as per Pakistan's wishes. But I also think that the tribal areas have a valid legal right to act the way they are acting.

I therefore feel that the tribal areas should be offered a choice between renegotiating the terms of their merger with Pakistan and coming under full control from Islamabad and Peshawar, or being renounced by Pakistan and left to the mercy of Kabul and Kabul's puppet masters.

The Tajiks and Uzbeks and miscellaneous turkish/persian ethnic groups that dominate what little power Kabul has today would be far less kind to the tribal areas than Pakistan would be if allowed full control.

On the other hand, fully integrating the tribal areas into Pakistan, and more specifically, into the NWFP, would ensure that they remained as part of an overwhelmingly pakhtun administrative region, shelter them from Kabul and Kabul's puppet masters, and allow the Pakistan army to bloodlessly secure the region and enforce Pakistan's policy of peaceful co-existence with Kabul.

At the end of the day, Pakistan recognises Karzai as the sole leader of Afghanistan, recognised his government as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, and recognises his Afghan National Army as the sole legitimate armed body in Afghanistan. Pakistan must not allow any territory that it is responsible for, including the tribal area, to be used to undermine a leader, government, and armed force that it recognises in such a way.

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Re: Tribal areas

This naive &stupid sense of invincibility is going to take u down.

Remember americans are there in Afghanistan, an area more hostile and big than trial area. Tribal areas could not even control traffic of persian Afghans (Uzbaks,Tajiks) across tribal areas. They tried once but when the Farsi speakings attcked them with rocket launchers they ran to take refuge in mountains.

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The only advice I have for you to read history. Tribals have been the king makers in Afghanistan. British tyrannized the entire subcontinent but were so cautious while liening in to this region. Akbar was powerful king but had to succumb to these tribals.
Babar was a great hero but could not cross the tribal region without marrying with a yousafzai girl.
Even your godfather Ranjit Singh couldnt dare to enter into this region.
Please read something and then you will get the answer.

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And my advice to you is open up your eyes and get out of fairytales.
Even the tiny toony brigade of Pak army is carrying out operations in tribal areas, a few flights of B-52 and couple of thousand of US troops can push all of you out of tribal areas. The stories ur godfather wali khan told u r not gonna save u from TNT.

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I am sorry I think it hurts you, I thought you also consider Ranjit Singh as your godfather.
Anyway, Pakistan Army and tribals both are Pakistanis. I have to say sorry, when my own people are fighting against my own people.
As far as your B-52 and TNT is concern, so the only thing I can say, that you dont know anything. Probably you have never visited tribal area ever in your life.

What Mobile Do u have ?
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Re: Tribal areas

MS I fully agree with you Pakistan should not allow anyone to use Pak soil for carrying out operations in other sovereign countries. But as I said earlier, it was Pakistan who initially encouraged them to fight in Afghanistan.
However, I dont agree to the option of giving choice to the tribals for choosing their future as it may open a Pandora box, secondly you cant treat Tribal area and Frontier separate entities as far as a unified struggle is concern.
I think we should concentrate our energy in bringing life, economic activities, education, industries, communication, sending their maximum people outside the country for different jobs etc etc instead of taking any extreme step.
We have very renowned personalities in tribal areas who are already working in these areas in tribal areas, like Latif Afridi, in fact FCR is never in the interest of the tribals but as long as they are happy with it, we have to continue the status quo. If we compare the developmental work in these areas, we will find that they are as backward as Balochistan is or may be worse than that.

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Tribal people are not anti-Pakistan and they should be allowed to retain their autonomy, which means they can continue to have strong ties with people in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, tribal leaders, both religious and secular, should understand that Islamabad is having to navigate through a minefield of problems. In such circumstances, they should act prudently and must not militarily support any insurgency in Afghanistan. However, to believe that anyone in Pak is the driving force behind Afghan insurgecny is preposterous.

There are 2/3 million Afghan refugees living in Pak, and they don't keep ID cards. Pak has around 900 checkposts along Pak-Afghan border as opposed to less than a hundred on Afghan side. Karzai admin. has refused to take any responsibilty. More than 50 percent of Afghan GDP comes from opium production and trade. There has been no tangible development in Pashtun regions of Afghanistan. What do we expect people living there to do?

After failing to achieve their objectives in Iraq, Americans are only going to become more hawkish in Afghanistan. They can't be seen losing both wars. So you can expect continuous pressure from Washington for the foreseeable future. Kabul will continue to take the easy way out and blame Islamabad.

In my opinion, Islamabad should make it clear that they're never going to support religious extremists (whatever you call them) even if Karzai govt. fails. However, on political front, Pak. shouldn't be expected to keep quiet about the myopic policies being pursued next door, especially when it has the potenial to destabilize the whole region, including parts of Pakistan.

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The trouble is you're living in the Medieval Age. Such is warfare now, that you fight from the air, not from the ground. Afghanistan up till around 1920, was not a weak area. They had technology and could beat off the British when it was rifle to rifle. That was why they could fight off invaders. The reason Afghanistan could defeat the Soviets? Stingers, Pakistani help etc etc.

Now you imagine the sort of disadvantage that any tribal versus some of the stuff Americans would have lined up for them, and even you must admit that there is no hope of them beating them. Stop this denial. Pakistan Army has deliberately gone easy on the tribals so not to upset anyone, as they consider them to be their own people. If it wanted to, it could genocide every single tribal, America will not be so sensitive to the regional feelings though. Lack of education amongst the tribals is a problem and must be changed so they can realize the gravity of the situation of playing host to these foreign extremists (I dont believe tribals are extremists, it's their hosts that see them as a soft, exploitable targets).

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^^^^ Agreed to each and every word of your post.

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heh did u mean it for roadrunner’s post or amorphous’ post :slight_smile:

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they can keep autonomy to some degree within the federation as the provinces have. However, they can't have total autonomy and refuse the pakistani army the right to operate in these areas. Isn't that wot they were doing? I mean wotever they do has an impact on the rest of pakistan and its international relationships, so the government of pakistan should have a say in wot goes on there.

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As i've always said it wasn't the uneducated tribals or the people of pakistan who have endangered pakistans existence, it is the educated jahills who are power corrupt who have played games with religion, lied and respect no promise or oath made. The day they are held to account I'd be believe the whole garbage about "writ of the state".

Anyone who doesn't realise that the US overtly and covertly has not established a major presence at all levels of government in Pakistan really knows very little about whats going on...the million rupee question is how does one protect a states writ when it has already been compromised at the highest level?