The continuous demand made by the international community from the Pakistani authorities for controlling and ‘destroying’ terrorism is uncalled for in the backdrop of Pakistan’s current political, economic and security dilemma where episodic terror attacks disallow peace to prevail in the society. With thousands of innocent citizens being killed and the highest ever troop casualty rate, Pakistan has seen more than its fair share of this horrid war that it was forced to own.
One of the aims of the Chicago summit with regards to Pakistan, apparently is to make Pakistan see sense to delink itself from the terrorists. This is something that Pakistan has been accused of for a long time now. The President has a very tough job in front of him where he ought to have a very strong case to make Pakistan’s position clear towards militancy and the militants. This, however, needs to be done keeping in mind the sacrifices of our people and security forces.
What we need to ask is that keeping the politico-economic conditions of the country in mind, is it so easy to actually ‘destroy’ any militant structure as it is being repeatedly asked of Pakistan? If so, then why hasn’t the US and Allied soldiers been able to completely obliterate Al-Qaeda or any other terrorist organizations from Afghanistan for that matter? In fact, reports and analysis present the complete opposite. The US failure in Afghanistan becomes certain with every passing day as the US/allied forces are far from reversing the Taliban momentum. Will anyone expose this US duality?
Insurgents in any country have embedded themselves so intricately in the social fabric that to pick and destroy them is not possible for any state or organization through brute force. Apparently, all military solutions have been tried, tested and should be discarded to adopt a peaceful politico-economic solution that disables their functioning. A fact that ought to be realised at a global level.
LUBNA HAMEED
Rawalpindi
