The Pakistani Spectator

On September 15 and 16, I stayed at Marriot Islamabad. On September 17,  came to Makkah to perform Umrah. While in Madinah Munawwara, I  heard  with deep shock and anguish that there was huge blast at Marriot Islamabad and the resultant loss of innocent lives, maiming of hundreds. The deep sense of grief engulfed me.

The staff at Security Check point, the Reception, the Concierge Desk, Lifts Deck, House Keeping, the Air Lines Facilitation Desk, the Car Rental Kiosk, the staff at Coffee shop, the Durbans, the Guests and the hustle and bustle keep popping up in my mind like video clips.

I can confidently say that mostly these people were fasting and performing their duties with smile on their face. Innocent Human beings.

Many many gone, martyred at the Altar of War on Terror,  War for Islam, Jihad or US hegemonistic designs, politics, Egos, Vanity, Just, unjust Holy War, Crusade or any other brand name, one may choose to give. This is the out come of our policies of yester years and failure to correct the course by the incumbent democratic dispensation. 911 is still News, Marriot Islamabad, for the International Media is already History.

The human tragedy is being conveniently used to score  point against Pakistan to make us do more on US WAR on terror, by making it our WAR on Terror. I did not see any one saying even few words for those innocent victims. They were Pakistanis, Muslims or Christians or Hindus,  not aliens or sub-humans.They were human beings  like all those who went in 911 and since then in Afghanistan, Iraq and now Pakistan, Spain, UK, Turkey, Tunisia and elsewhere on Planet Earth, that’s home to Humanity.

The point to ponder and reflect upon is; have policies of BUSH, BLAIR, MUSHARRAF, GORDON, KARAZAI made Mother Earth safer or dangerous? WILL the policies of OBAMA/MACAIN/ZARDARI/KARAZAI/ZALMAY KHALILZAD or
TOM/DICK/ZAID/BAKAR, if you may, make any difference? I think not. The indifference to human cost of War, the s-ocalled Collatoral Damage fed the reactionaries in all these places and it will continue to do so.

The west has to understand that the Millitants or Mujahideen have no time or space bound complusions, as conventional Guerrila Wars used to be, for liberating a given Country or Terretory. This is unique and different, in that the Taliban abdicated Power in Kabul in the face of Massive Air Raids by US and conserved their menpower and resources, also saved people of Afghanistan becoming collatoral damage and did not alienate the people of Afghanistan at that point in time in 2002. Taliban and Al-Qaeeda had a bigger agenda, the Ouster of USA from Saudi Arabia, the Gulf, rather the liberation of Muslim World and revival of Kaliphate. Which still remains unchanged.

If they had remained in Kabul as traditional  Rulers,  the blame for  destruction of Afhanistan and its people would have been Taliban’s Portion, not US ISAF NATO NA and KARAZAI. It was very well thought tactical decision. Six years down the road, they have consolidated their men and material, rather augmented these. They also have a larger spread in side Pakistan,s border region, have people’s support,  gifted to Taliban and Al-Qaeda by US, via Aerial and Missile attacks killing innocent people, who are joining ranks with Taliban, in both side of Pak Afghan borders.

There is no denying the fact that the Taliban are, taking on Pakistan,s Security appratus for quite some time. Taliban are certainly taking their war a notch up, by forcing and ensnaring the desperate and frustrated US Administration, to walk into the decoy set up by them inside Pakistan’s Afghan Border Regionn in what may be termed a  repeat  strategy, to bog US down, in our side of the border, as they have done in Afghanistan. They seriously aim for even worse, to ignite a conflict between Pakistan and USA.

It’s obvious that Taliban/TTP/AQ. are on the brink of attaining that objective. It may be useful to take a look at this Article; carried by  Time in it’s issue of Sep. 17, 2008:

” Washington Is Risking War with Pakistan”

By Robert Baer.
a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East, who is TIME.com’s intelligence columnist. He is the author of’ See No Evil’ and, most recently, the novel  ’Blow the House Down.’

He wrote;

“As Wall Street collapsed with a bang, almost no one noticed that we’re on the brink of war with Pakistan. And, unfortunately, that’s not too much of an exaggeration. On Tuesday, the Pakistan’s military ordered its forces along the Afghan border to repulse all future American military incursions into Pakistan. The story has been subsequently downplayed, and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Mike Mullen, flew to Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, to try to ease tensions. But the fact remains that American forces have and are violating Pakistani sovereignty.

You have to wonder whether the Bush administration understands what it is getting into. In case anyone has forgotten, Pakistan has a hundred plus nuclear weapons. It’s a country on the edge of civil war.
Its political leadership is bitterly divided. In other words, it’s the perfect recipe for a catastrophe.

All of which begs the question, is it worth the ghost hunt we’ve been on since September 11?

There has not been a credible sighting of Osama bin Laden since he escaped from Tora Bora in October 2001. As for al-Qaeda, there are few signs it’s even still alive, other than a dispersed leadership taking refuge with the Taliban. Al-Qaeda couldn’t even manage to post a statement on the Internet marking September 11, let alone set off a bomb.

U.S. forces have been entering Pakistan for the last six years. But it was always very quietly, usually no more than a hundred yards in, and usually to meet a friendly tribal chieftain. Pakistan knew about these crossings, but it turned a blind eye because it was never splashed across the front page of the country’s newspapers. This has all changed in the last month, as the Administration stepped up Predator missile attacks. And then, after the New York Times ran an article that U.S. forces were officially given the go-ahead to enter Pakistan without prior Pakistani permission, Pakistan had no choice but to react.

On another level the Bush Administration’ s decision to step up attacks in Pakistan is fatally reckless, because the cross-border operations’ chances of capturing or killing al Qaeda’s leadership are slim. American intelligence isn’t good enough for precision raids like this. Pakistan’s tribal regions are a black hole that even Pakistani operatives can’t enter and come back alive. Overhead surveillance and intercepts do little good in tracking down people in a backward, rural part of the world like this.

On top of it, is al-Qaeda worth the candle? Yes, some deadender in New York or London could blow himself up in the subway and leave behind a video claiming the attack in the name of al-Qaeda. But our going into Pakistan, risking a full-fledged war with a nuclear power, isn’t going to stop him.

Finally, there is Pakistan itself, a country that truly is on the edge of civil war. Should we be adding to the force of chaos?
By indiscriminately bombing the tribal areas along the Afghan border, we in effect are going to war with Pakistan’s ethnic Pashtuns. They make up 15% of Pakistan’s 167 million people. They are well armed and among the most fierce and xenophobic people in the world. It is not beyond their military capabilities to cross the Indus and take Islamabad.

Before it is too late, someone needs to sit the President down and give him the bad news that Pakistan is a bridge too far in the “war on terror.”

A peep into incumbent US Administration’s policies and actions since 911, would reveal, that this advise by Robert Baer, is going to fall on deaf ears, as right now Bush Administration needs and going to heed to Hawks not the Doves.

It has to be kept in view that the Leadership of Taliban/TTP/AQ are not bound by consequtive four years’, terms in office, they have all the time at their disposal.

It could safely be said, that, if US comes to Pakistan to fight, the Islamists will fight them here and also take the war deeper in the Sub-Continent (read India) and may be beyond.
On another note, even if the good sense prevailed for now and catsthrope is avoided, Taliban and Al-Qaeda will force the same out come.

Only time, which binds the West not the Islamists, will tell.