Those supposedly defending our lives
The last, desperate hope – the forlorn, remaining illusion that the elected government leaders and the army generals will ultimately defend the people and the country seems to have been shattered by recent events.
The head of our national government, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, calls upon not the country’s law enforcement agencies and the national army, but the very perpetrators, the Taliban enemy to bring to justice the criminals and murderers for bombings, killing, targeting of our citizens in cold blood.
In other words, he is asking the enemy to bypass the country’s own legal and judicial system and to punish the terrorists through the enemy’s own parallel justice system.
The prime minister further comes to the aid of the Taliban enemy by belittling the daily mass murders of our civilians and policemen as mere ‘incident’ that would hamper the ‘sacred talks’. I guess these massacres of our people would have been fine if they were not to affect the talks.
Our chief of the national army, through its spokesman says that the army will defend and retaliate only if this enemy attacks its soldiers and installations, but will not do likewise if the enemy targets, bombs, or kill and maims our unarmed citizens.
In any other country these gentlemen would have been tried for treason for dereliction of their sworn, sacred duty of upholding the country’s constitution and laws, for failure to protect the lives and property of the citizens, for failure to defend the territory of the country against declared enemies and for their complicity with the enemy. In any other country, the government leaders and its army generals would have put their lives at stake, in the forefront, to fight and crush its blood thirsty enemy.
Not a normal country
But ours is not any other normal country. It’s a country where its rulers cower in fear of the enemy, where helpless, innocent people are left at the mercy of the enemy to be slaughtered as sacrificial lambs. It’s a country where its leaders and generals in the face of an ongoing genocide of its people escape in luxury to faraway countries to ‘cement ties’.
It’s a country where death rules and evil stalks the land unchallenged.
There’s no universal law or divine principle that prevents people of a country from protecting themselves and defend their lives. Right to life is the most inalienable, the most basic of human rights. During the last decade or so, numerous appeals, thousands of columns must have been written to ask the powers that be to fulfill their fundamental duty and defend the lives, families and property of the people. But all to no avail.
An offensive war is our only option as the enemy with its numerous agents and cohorts have infiltrated every corner of our land.
A state’s assertion of its sovereignty comes with its most important responsibility: the responsibility of protecting its citizens from invasion and mass murders. That is why a state is bestowed upon the sole and exclusive authority to wield the power of coercion.
But if the state is unable or unwilling to perform its fundamental duty of protecting the people or defending its territorial integrity then its monopolized power of coercion is seriously questioned, lacking in justification.
Radical situations require radical steps. To cut to the chase, if the state cannot or will not fight the enemy and to defend the people for any reason, then the people must be allowed to exercise their most fundamental right – the right of self-defense.
And in this people’s epic battle for survival the state must help, not hinder, the citizens of the country and facilitate their defense by providing them with small arms and training etc. As far as strategic weapons, nuclear assets, missiles, jet planes are concerned, even though all armaments are paid for by and belong to the people, the state can continue to secure the custody of these weapons.
Thousands and thousands of our people continue to get shot at, or murdered or maimed or blown up into pieces in their homes, mosques, hospitals, streets, schools, bazaars, trains, buses etc. All these atrocities are being inflicted on the unarmed civilians by a few thousand thugs and natural born killers with unkempt beards and without a shred of human decency or morality in their body.
I am absolutely certain that our fellow citizens are strong enough and motivated enough to take on these bullies and cowards hiding behind women and children. Remember that not too long ago an alien force of only a few hundred was able to kick the Talibans out from their seat of power and from their country. The televised images of these ‘brave’ Talibans running scared like headless chicken, begging for forgiveness is still fresh in our memory.
So it all boils down to a really stark and straightforward choice: Either the state establishment or the citizens of Pakistan must face and wipe out these evil serial killers or to watch the inexorable evisceration of the state and the progressive genocide and enslavement of our fellow citizens.
An offensive war is our only option as the enemy with its numerous agents and cohorts have infiltrated every corner of our land.
Up and until now our supposed protectors and defenders have, for whatever reasons, incredibly refused to confront and annihilate these Taliban/Jihadi perverted, blood- thirsty fascists. If this fatal inaction continues to be the case, then the least the government and the army can do is to hand over the guns to the citizens. And just get out of their way!