Stop This Madness
By Shireen M. Mazari
The terrorist
attacks against Ms Bhutto's cavalcade in Karachi,
once again resulted in the deaths of innocent people.
There can be no condemnation too strong for this
dastardly act of cowardice clearly intended to kill
the innocent followers of the Bhutto name.
A raging debate is now taking place on whether or
not Ms Bhutto should have heeded the multiple warnings
about suicide bombers having been assigned to attack
her; whether or not she should have taken the government's
advice and at the very least desisted from the mammoth
rally to show her popular support rather than playing
the spoilt brat and letting the human shield of
the poor around her suffer the ultimate sacrifice;
whether or not abstaining from huge public rallies
will in fact be succumbing to the terrorist's agenda;
and so on. But no part of this debate can impact
the utter condemnation and rejection of the terrorist
act itself.
Yet, this act once again highlighted the growing
irrationality and absurdity in which we as a nation
are being plummeted ever since we became an ally
in the US-led war on terror. This is the second
time we have become a front line state for a US-led
war -- and the consequences are even more dire this
time round. In the first US-led war in Afghanistan,
we ended up with millions of refugees the world
forgot about; we had our society's fabric rent asunder
through the drug and "Kalashnikov" culture
and we won no kudos from the Afghans for our sacrifices
in ensuring the Soviet withdrawal from their land.
As for the political costs within our domestic policy
-- we saw the rise of sectarian and ethnic cleavages
and the official imposition of a harsh and distorted
version of Islam that did not gel with the diverse
cultural and Sufi-loving tradition that was an intrinsic
part of a tolerant Pakistani civil society before
the Zia blight. So if one was to do a cost-benefit
analysis of our allying with the US to get the Soviets
out of Afghanistan, certainly the costs were far
too high and the benefits transitory.
In the present US-led war on terror, the costs for
Pakistan are even higher, because we face our own
terrorist threats. We need to wage a war against
terrorism but taking our own ground realities into
account. We cannot go the US route of bombing all
and sundry with no regard for human collateral damage;
nor can we go the US way in Afghanistan and Iraq
where innocent people are being killed with impunity
not only by occupying forces but also by the private
mercenaries hired by the US. There are many reasons
why we cannot go the US route in fighting what is
an essential war against terrorism.
The most important reason is that we are fighting
the extremists within our own people and therefore
cannot afford the collateral damage in terms of
innocent lives lost. That is why the earlier government
deal with the tribals was commendable. It allowed
for dialogue and accommodation and gave the local
people a stake in their own preservation. Equally
important, it was the first attempt in the war on
terror to actually create space denial to the terrorists
-- something the US-led war on terror has failed
to do. In fact, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
have so far created increasing space for terrorists
and Al-Qaeda has spread into areas where it had
no presence before 9/11.
That the deal eventually collapsed and we have seen
increasing death and mayhem since then is equally
apparent. Why did this happen? There are multiple
reasons including errors -- with the terrorists
succeeding in creating fatal misunderstandings between
the tribals and the government, especially the Pakistan
military. However, perhaps the greatest problem
the deal faced was the US doubts over the deal and
American demands, ad nauseum, calling on Pakistan
to "do more". It seemed the US was never
going to be satisfied unless Pakistan simply bombed
the tribal areas to rubble. As their own lack of
success in Iraq and Afghanistan has grown so the
US has sought to draw Pakistan into a similar quagmire
in the tribal belt.
So what has been the result of our "doing more"
in the sense desired by the US? A gradual loss of
credibility within the people of the tribal belt
many of whom are increasingly seeing the military
action as part of a US agenda. As the civilians
suffer increasing collateral damage as a result
of aerial attacks by the US and Pakistani military,
we are losing the support of the besieged citizens
of the area. Yet the war on terror is an unconventional
war seeking to isolate the terrorists from their
base of support amongst the locals as well as to
win over the local population. So we are certainly
not achieving these ends by forcing the locals to
flee and by causing death and injury to innocent
women and children and creating a wave of antipathy
against the state as these innocent souls flock
to the urban centers of the NWFP for aid and shelter.
The worst result, perhaps, has been the spread of
the extremist culture from the tribal belt to the
mainstream of the country with a special impact
on women at all levels. Our collateral damage in
terms of our citizens has long-term political costs
we will, as a nation, be paying, long after the
US and its allies have left this region.
There is an insanity to what is happening in Pakistan
today. Our alliance with the US is extracting a
terrible price in terms of our national cohesion.
Provincialism, that fuelled separatism in East Pakistan
in 1971, is raising its head in the tribal belt
also. Ironically, Ms Bhutto herself played the provincial
card when she lashed out against the Supreme Court
before her arrival in Karachi. And, despite the
costs, some of our political elite want to draw
the US in even more into our state's internal workings,
not just in the tribal areas but within the very
fabric of the Pakistani polity.
We recently had the absurd sight of a US delegation
telling us how to run our politics and asking the
ISI not to intervene in our politics. Pakistanis
also seeks fair and free elections and it does not
become the US to issue sermons on this count especially
given how they, along with the UK have sought to
broker political deals, effectively writing a pre-election
script for the post-election political dispensation
in Pakistan.
As the terrorist threat casts an increasingly large
specter over Pakistan, it is time for us to stop
the madness of following US diktat and evolve a
more viable and holistic anti-terror strategy. The
US has a suspect agenda in terms of the Pakistan
military and we are in danger of falling prey to
it. Why target the military in general and the army
in particular? We need to recognize the fact that
Pakistan's nuclearization does not sit easy with
the US and its allies -- and the nuclear capability
has been targeted without letup by the Western media
and politicians, especially post-9/11. Also, there
is a clear understanding that the nuclear capability
has been underwritten by the Pakistan military.
To create a compliant Pakistani state in the region,
the institution of the military has to be weakened
and destroyed from within. What is happening today
in the tribal belt cannot but impact the mindset
of the soldiers and officers. We must extricate
ourselves from the madness of the US-led war on
terror and adopt a national approach, embedded in
national ground realities and a national political
consensus if we are to rid our nation of the terrorist
threat.
(The writer is director general of the Institute
of Strategic Studies, Islamabad. Courtesy The News)
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