It wouldn’t be wrong to assume that being a key ally in the war on terror and being located at a geo-strategically lucrative position, playing central in the long war, we have had little reason to celebrate. Despite being at a vantage point in so many regards, Pakistan has suffered colossal and utter losses. The fact that the Pakistani armed forces have invested their time, energy, resources and all the money they can ill afford in the backdrop of the economic setbacks the country has received is not something to be easily swept aside.
More than 35000 soldiers have been martyred so far and around US$ 70 billion spent with more than 90 percent of the militant strongholds dismantled and turned ineffective, nothing tangible has been attributed to the Pakistani side. Apparently, neither the Pakistani authorities nor the media has been successful in broadcasting and highlighting our own achievements.
The fact that the Pakistani agencies have, since 2001 been working in complete collaboration with the CIA and has been instrumental in the capturing of various high ranking Taliban leaders is something that the world has been taking for granted. Names, such as Khalid Shiekh Muhammad, a top man of Al-Qaeda, Abu Zubaida, Ramzi Yousuf, Mullah Baradar have been caught and targeted by the spy work of our own agencies. Whereabouts of more than 600 top militants have so far been identified by the ISI and thus, targeted most accurately by the US drones is a major factor that has brought the war this far.
This decade long story of intelligence sharing between the ISI and CIA, however, was suddenly cut short by the CIA on the silly notion of the probability of a prospective leakage of such a sensitive piece of vital information by the ISI. What a joke! A very weak argument and certainly not plausible in this backdrop.
This, however, stole the Pakistani thunder from right under our noses by the US and nothing could be done. Ten long years into the war and the most wanted man who would have won Pakistan a lot of acclaim and jubilation slipped out of our hands leaving us with more allegations and ignominy and leaving the US with all the causes to celebrate. Had the tradition of intelligence sharing continued between both the agencies, Pakistan too, would have had reason to celebrate.
PROFESSOR KABIL KHAN
Peshawar