Afghan Press Author: Rooh-ul-Amin

Though I have been always in disagreements with the contentious views of Maulana Maudodi but one of his quote did attract me and for that many would held me as emotional even irrational.

“Force means to bend not to be bent. There is no trace of revolution brought by castrated and emasculated in human history.

The people who have no courage of facing challenges and cannot go for sacrifices and whose aim of life is mere to be libertine and worshipers of orgies, who give way to challenges cannot bring any revolution even cannot speak truth at the face of obdurate ruler ”.

Indeed his quote has a vital message for Pakistani leaders (past and present) but it deems fit on Zardari and Gillani, who have no courage to denounce terrorism as a war of US alone.

Considering in this context Zardari’s performance when he met President Bush in New York. After Bush’s opening remarks, Zardari said: “As always you prove to the world that your heart is in there for us—Pakistanis.” This is embarrassing stuff but wait for the next bit and it’s more than toadyism: “We respect your feelings, we respect the American ideals. And we bring to this the whole concept of your promise to the world of bringing democracy to Pakistan.” His sycophancy further infuriated his public, refuting it that Pakistani troops have not fired at US copters instead asking them that why US-led forces infringed into Pak territory and it reserves the right of defending its frontiers.

Mistakenly high hopes were pinned on the newly elected civilian leadership that it would free the nation from the overbearing influence of USA. But all of the hopes dashed to ground when public found them worse than Musharraf and his team of sycophants. Having voluntarily given their tails in the hands of USA, the new leaders are in no position to even whine when US troops are raining missiles in FATA unhesitatingly. There is a widely held apprehension that USA under the garb of fighting the militants may capture FATA and turn it into a free zone controlled by UN troops. In the process it may extend its reach forward and hit at our nuclear installations.

Notwithstanding the pathetic response of our paralytic leaders, exercise of this option at a time when change of guards in Washington is round the corner and US troops are neck-deep involved in two hotspots and are entirely dependent upon logistics on Pakistan and the fact that it cannot hope to win the war in Afghanistan without active collaboration of Pak army, it will be an impractical adventure.

Fortunately for US here has always been an abundance of such leaders who feel pride in wagging tails for America. And this is the only reason that Pakistan received a fresh series of “do more” orders from US and abiding by it is bleeding its own citizens at US altar.

CIA has been unable to catch any prominent al-Qaeda member in Afghanistan and unlike it over 600 al-Qaeda operatives have been nabbed by ISI and FIA in Pakistan including some high value leaders. Instead that, the US establishment, diplomats and its forces are not tired lashing Pakistan responsible for all the terror. In spite Pakistan sincerity CIA for undermining peace in FATA has been already spreading fear and panic among the residents of Waziristan to force them to migrate. Each strike is launched with a hope that it may hit the wanted high value target, which could help in up swinging the fortunes of Republicans, but it has always engulfed peace-loving civilians.

So far 44 border violations have taken place after February which includes an aerial assault on a security check-post in Mohmand Agency on 10 June, and a ground assault on 3 September and US forces fired at the skull of two women. But no agitation and condemnation came of the Pakistani leaders and so-called human rights organizations.

These bloody intrusions are taking place in spite of the fact that the new government has abandoned its policy of dialogue with the militants and has employed the army on several fronts simultaneously. But this step has been proved more fatal than lucrative and pragmatic and the docile leaders in Pakistan are not in the position to detach its relation from US ambit.

Even the day is not so far that it will string the entire Pak Army and ISI with Al-Qaida and Taliban.

And moreover if US-led forces think that missile or ground raids attacks in FATA would be helpful in defeating terrorism they are sadly mistaken.

They will have to contend with uncontrollable insurgency in Iraq, Afghanistan and tribal belt, acute hatred of the Muslim world, impudence of Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela and Bolivia, defiance of Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic movement in Algeria, China emerging as potential superpower in near future, return of cold war because of Russian assertiveness, its fast dwindling economy and jeopardy of unipolarism turning into multipolarism.

Iran is a tough nut to crack where immense force will be required to achieve victory at a huge cost for US.

But alas! on the other hand, Pakistan is a soft state where its leadership has already been subjugated psychologically and will succumb as it had shown in past allying with US just because of a telephonic call threat.

US has brazenly made its intentions clear by declaring it as a battleground and has decided to shift its focus from Iraq to Afghanistan and our leadership has neither the heart nor the resolve to keep US aggressiveness at bay, the coming months will see more bloodshed but it will have to mum.

In such a circumstance it is very degrading to unashamedly say that we cannot fight the Americans. It is also preposterous to assume that Pakistan may not survive without American support. Pro-American elements within Pakistan on US payroll have been parroting this theme since creation of Pakistan to safeguard their vested interests. North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran are living examples who have survived despite adopting hostile posture against USA. It is high time that we gird up our loins and put our act together to face up to the challenge boldly.

But unfortunately in the whole game of bloodbath the tribal are the worst sufferers on both the fronts. If trans-Attock there is a bit of terror incident, the entire government machinery and media move while if there is massacre and cataclysm in FATA that is considered as a day to day occurrence and normal.

This is the reason that the tribal did not declare the Marriot hotel incident inhuman but sadly some of the tribal were happy though it is not good.

This is the reason the tribal believe that non-Pakhtoons Pakistanis don’t care about the massacre of Pakhtoon tribes either by the Pak security forces or the US troops that has displaced over 400,000 from Bajaur during recent operations.

In this regard a senior defence analyst admitted that despite the difficulties, the Bajaur operation was the only ray of hope for the security forces. If this battle is lost, Pakistan will not be able to stop the march of the Taliban towards the cosmopolitan centres of the country. In response to this creeping militancy, President Asif Ali Zardari, while in New York for the United Nations General Assembly meeting, talked with US officials about creating a joint border force comprising American, Afghan and Pakistani troops to hunt down the Taliban.

At the same time, in Islamabad, the federal advisor to the Interior Ministry, Rehman Malik, contacted the Taliban leader in South Waziristan, Baitullah Mehsud, and other Taliban commanders such as Faqir Muhammed to negotiate a ceasefire agreement.

The offers were turned down. This leaves Islamabad in a very awkward situation. It cannot afford another Marriott incident, let alone attacks in major towns and cities. It needs more breathing space, but the militants are not prepared to provide it, leaving conflict escalation the only remaining option.

It emboldened the Taliban to abduct Afghan ambassador-designate to Islamabad from the posh Hayatabad township of Peshawar, and that too in broad daylight. Abdul Khaliq Farahi was apparently first taken to Khyber Agency and remains missing.

Under the ambit of Army the only ray the tribal saw was Gen Kayani when he expressed its resolve to confront the threat and safeguard country’s sovereignty. But simultaneously they observed a marked increase in devastation in the tribal area. It is now up to our weak-knead rulers still busy in power game as to how they stand up to the test. It will be naive to expect that the threat will be warded off with diplomacy alone. We must make USA realise that it will become exceedingly difficult for US-led allied troops to operate in Afghanistan if Pakistan disengages itself and refuses to provide transit facility. The magnitude of dependence can be gauged from the fact that each day over 400 containers ply from Karachi and Quetta to Afghanistan transporting food, munitions and 300 million gallons of fuel for US-Nato troops in Afghanistan. We may also consider bridling CIA’s unchecked activities and closing down four bases in control of USA.