American War, Is it?

“Pakistani Army is fighting American’s War in Swat”, said Munawar Hassan, the newly knighted Amir of Jamat Islami. No sir, Mr Hassan, as of now, it is certainly not an American war, anymore. This is Pakistan’s own war with terrorsim against Pakistan written all over it. If somebody hurl a grenade at FC controlled check post, blow off Hotels, attack visiting foreign cricket team, attack police training centers or suicide attackers blast in the mosque where Army troops offer prayers, you still call it an American War? Imagine if all of the above was carried out by Indians, what would have been our response? It doesn’t really matter if attack comes from invader or insider, you need to match the response.

Let me tell you Mr Hassan the war that you guys fought with all the zeal and zest in Afghanistan in 80s was surely America’s war. And right now Pakistani nation is trying to clean the debris of that folly. Why Jumat Islami and other religious groups owned the first Afghan war, in the first place? We had nothing in common with Afghanis at that time. All the holy men of that time, without a tweak, embraced the dictator Zia and his self serving interests. At that time Jumat could not differentiate that actually it was a war of one super power to settle the score of Vietnam disaster agaist the other one.

Precisely this is the reason clergy is loathed in Pakistan and the religio-cum-political parties never, in the history of Pakistan, won the votes or confidence of the general public out there. Their double edged policies have wrecked the Pakistani nation manifold. It is time for us to set our priorities straight and political point scoring should be left for some other time. Army is facing the most cruel enemy. The enemy who uses ten year old children, pregnant women as human shield. Pakistani security forces needs moral boosting at this time and not the statements of Jumat kind with twisted standards. Perhaps time has come to ask such kind of parties, are you with us or against us? Everybody should be clear that chemistry of Pakistani nation is not like Afghani or Jihadi. Pakistan was nurtured as a modern state not a lump of orthodox Mullahs sanctuary. We can’t and shouldn’t allow any barbarian to destroy the academic institutions or flog poor and helpless girls in the middle of the road. Those who think that these are the ways of Islam, should better join their ranks and abandon all the modern facilities that they enjoy by virtue of the progress Pakistan achieved by its sheer merit and industrious people. We don’t need parasites who eventually sting us back.

There is one more interesting rhetoric of the Taliban apologists. They blame the Pakistani political leadership failure and post 9/11 US presence in Afghanistan as raison d’etre for Pakistani Taliban emergence. What I blame is the Afghan Jihad of 80s, responsible for all the current day evils that have plagued the Pakistan. And that was the real American war, for sure, and all of our so-called ‘ulema’ endorsed that one, for God knows what reasons and on what grounds. But the present military operation is certainly not America’s war, but it is a global war that Pakistan is fighting against those who want to turn the wheel of the time backward and cherish the medieval life style. We certainly cannot let them do that.

Tail piece: After writing this article I ran spell check and it suggested me to replace ‘Munawar’ with ‘unaware’ but I hit the ‘ignore’ button. How true!

Published in daily THE NEWS May 15, 2009