On Thursday, the government announced that eight platoons of paramilitary troops have been sent to Pakistan’s Buner district, which has been infiltrated by the Taliban. Frontier Constabulary platoons have been dispatched to protect government buildings and bridges in Buner. In recent days, Taliban militants have been patrolling the area, snatching and searching vehicles, and ransacking government offices.
After the passage of the Nizam-i-Adl resolution, how will government forces ensure security in Buner and other parts of Malakand? Should Taliban activities in Buner and Shangla be viewed as a violation of the regulation? Are we in for a Swat part deux?
The Americans have admitted they’re involvement on the crisis in Pakistan, but there are 2 more countries that need to admit their mistakes: Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
Our politicians, ISI, clerics and army need to admit and apologize for supporting radicalism in pursuit of our paranoid agenda against India, which cost us more than our so-called enemies. (Remember the illogical strategy given for the Siachen campaign. ‘Its more expensive for India to send their soldiers there’. But of course, India could afford it, while Pakistan was pauper. That is how Pakistan’s money and aid was handled by those in power. Shame).
And why has everyone forgotten Saudi Arabia? Riyals, Madrassahs and export of their Wahabi ideology? Shouldn’t we blame that as well? Why is criticizing Saudi Arabia a taboo? Why do we not hold ourselves and other Muslims to account for wrong-doings?
Seriously, where are all our Muslim brothers (so called) in our time of need? Where is their help and support?
Pakistan was created for Indian Muslims to living freedom and safety. This never happened. We already lost half of the country in 1971. We must aim to evict Taliban as well as US and their allies from Pakistan and make it secure from foreign interference. It will all OK then.
General Kayani and Mr. Gilani are beginning to sound like General Baghdad Bob ! do the Pakistanis remember him. why don’t they be quiet and do their jobs specially the Army, which as been given all these lands and plots and jobs in the civil service at the cost of Pakistani society, all this Aid to fight terrorism that they created, it is time for them to stat action instead of making speeches.
since they day Pakistan came into being, army is eating the resources at its will. we the common people always endured and are still enduring the life of misery so that the army would protect us from external or internal threats. however seems like army has failed in doing so!
6th largest army, having nukes, missles, fighter jets, tanks, ssg and many more weapons, is unable to defeat few thousand thugs ? than what would it do when it has to fight india some day ? sounds frightening..
cant our great and brave army take some lessons from far inferior sri-lankan army ? which is now near to wipe out LTTE ? and LTTE is far more battle hardened and more numbers than the taliban thugs. actually to fight such a menace, a will is required, which sadly the pakistan army does NOT have.
Only 6 or 8 platoons in Buner. Are you guys kidding me?
And you consider this a decisive or positive response when the country is being overrun?
These platoons will either be slaughtered or bullied into retreat or submission, as is evident from the first 2 of them being turned back by the Taliban from Swat.
Tough talk from Kayani. Anything new here? I’m still waiting…
An army of 650,000 men cannot defeat less than 15,000 with vastly inferior weapons. How sad.
General Musharraf once again would like to become President of Pakistan to defeat Taliban in Swat. The question arise: Why could not he eridicate Taliban from the grass root level when he remain President for more than eight years? In case if he once again become the President, his second tenure would be worst than his first tenure.
Munawar Hasan’s comments really aren’t that surprising, excusing the Taliban. His predecessor was even a more obnoxious hypocrite, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, who had denied there was any build up in Swat and it was just a government distraction. Yea, right.
To me they’re closet Wahabi or Salafists. They’re getting their heart’s desire fulfilled by the Taliban.
We’ve legitimized these whimsical illiterate superstitious religious bigots (they’re even on our TV sets, where they say the dumbest things) and are suffering for it.
Poverty and corruption is a big issue. We need leaders not politicians. On the world map we consider as beggars and “beggars can’t be choosers”. We need leaders by deeds not by words. Also, we need to appreciate our heroes by remembering them not by discounted them such as First Noble Prize winner Dr. Abdus Salam and UNO Genral Secretary Sir.Mohammed Zafurallah Khan.
Learn from great civilization like America where you can agree to disagree.
If everything I do in life is triggered as a reaction to what my college or neighbor does for themselves, then I have not identified who I am.
This is the problem with Pakistan.
Pakistan must identify its enemies based on its ground realities. India has nothing to gain from a failed Pakistan in fact it becomes a security issue for India which in turn affects its prosperity. Do not wait to awaken as a country to fight India. It will never happen. The time to awaken is now. Against the US, Saudi and ISI which created the menace in your region.
The real problem existing in Pakistan is unemployment and poverty. It is believed that because of poverty, depression, illiteracy, and unemployment, young people have adopted this fatalistic role of Taliban and their militancy.
The government must discover why Taliban do so much violence. Look at the Taliban’s structural circumstances and how they recruit young people (who have already got suicide wishes due to poverty) and prepare them for suicide bombing missions. In order to understand this situational variable we need to understand consequences of poverty which lead to cause depression. Due to depression someone manifest variety of symptoms included helplessness, hopelessness, wish for die, etc now imagine, if our generation unfortunately carrying such kind of mental state over a long period of time (more than 15 years) certainly, it will create horrible results for Pakistan. Unfortunately, due to this ground reality youth (male) of Pakistan are very suitable candidates for Taliban recruitment point of view.
Here, this is the interpretation of the Jihad and every Muslim should know about it very well, but question here is that, whether this is right place for Jihad or killing innocents? Is using poor people on the name of Islam called Jihad? Is it correct to religiously mislead poor and innocents youngsters? These are questions which need to be answered by concern authorities. Religious Scholars can start an open debate to answer these questions for enlightening people in effected parts of Pakistan.
If authorities adopt behavioral modification approach to stop growing talibnization, along with mobilization of Ulema and Mashaikh in Taliban prone areas to change people’s mind sets and educate them on real Islamic concept of Jihad. In fact, this is high time for religious leaders of Pakistan to play effective role in this regard which would be more profitable for Pakistan rather then bloodshed.
Finally, as I mentioned that, the core of the problem is poverty. So, government should launch immediately, some remedial poverty alleviation programs, in affected areas for poor youngsters, fully engage them in productive and rehabilitative activities.
In order to be successful against the Talibans, the following steps should be taken:
1. US has confessed it created the Taliban and now wishes to finish them– good enough.
2. Pakistan should also make one such confession and apologise to the people of Fata, NWFP and Pashtuns for the blood it spilled through its cronies and the dollars it earned through it.
3. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia should also apologize to the Pashtuns for replacing schools with Madaressahs.
4. US should ensure that the funds for Pakistan are spent in the areas destroyed and affected by terrorism.
5. Pakistan should make a constitutional commitment that it will treat its people from all the provinces, ethnic and religious background with equality and justice.
6.Those Pashtuns who were being exploited in the name of religon and have been abondoned now, should also carry out a self assessment and differentiate between good and bad.
Sending only six platoons into Buner is too little and too late. What is wrong with the Army? Shame on you.
There are millions of Muslims in Indonesia and Bangladesh but none of them are looked down upon. We have excellent Pakistanis living and working abroad but only for the acts of the minority gun branded mullahs and their accomplices and suicide bombers, the true Pakistanis suffer in the country and abroad.At one time we were considered intelligent, hard working people-what is our image now? The destroyers of education have overshadowed the real Pakistanis, who are good citizens.
After reading the many comments here, it seems that the English medium educated citizens see the handwriting on the wall, more or less like the rest of the world. Unfortunately these folk are a microscopic minority and lack the critical mass or the institutional conduits to go on to serve the best interests of the majority and render the Taliban useless. It is a modernity deficit that makes the Taliban viable.
The vast majority of citizens have never had the thinking mans education. Even the so called “educated” have been brainwashed to demonize India; thereby justifying the filling of coffers of the leaders of their jawans. Many of them made the ultimate sacrifice for a meaningless struggle that took their gaze away from those that stole their future from them.
The disenfranchised see the young Taliban, as one of them. They are incapable of coping with the notion of crushing the Taliban. Unfortunately they are the only ones that can. For now many of them see only the local presence and stability that the Taliban will bring.
For those that have read history in English! Check Google again. The Taliban social remedies are not much different from Christian ones 1000 years ago. They too had the same zeal for martyrdom at the hands of pagans or Muslims and hoped to get sainthood. Then there was the flogging, amputations, burning of blasphemers at the stake and treating women as something less than cattle.
It is these remedies that modern citizens cannot accept. Unfortunately they do not have the needed critcal mass, to do anything about this. Only the poor and disenfranchised have the critical mass and the Taliban have always known that.
Is there a remedy? Protect and educate the illiterate and poor and the Taliban will have no haven. Greedy political leaders bickering over power, need to be cut loose or chased out of the country to where they hoard their millions. It may take another 30 years! But that’s how other nations did it. For now, decisive and ruthless force may be the only way, until a new dawn of modernity is ushered in.
Read the latest news from Washington and give your honest verdict as to who is the real culprit of creating the monster of Taliban. The confession on part of no less than the Foreign Minister of USA, Hilary Clinton, is a slap in the face of those who call for DO MORE DO MORE from Pakistan. ‘US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who acknowledged that the United States too had a share in creating the problem that plagues Pakistan today. In an appearance before a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee on Thursday, Mrs Clinton explained how the militancy in Pakistan was linked to the US-backed proxy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan.’
Regarding this topic, I heard Ameer Jamat-e-Islami Mr.Munawar Hanan in a talk show on a TV channel. To my surprise, he was supporting talibans on the expense of logic and rationality. As he did not want to accept the truth agisnt taliban, so he was replying questions in the form of irrelavent questions. He was determined that he will not say a single word against talibans. This type of attitude is adding to taliban’s problem.
Lets join hand to fight taliban’s cruel, anti Pakistan and anti Islam behaviour.
After the passage of the Nizam-i-Adl resolution, the government fulfilled the demand of the religious activists. After this all of us were expecting a total peace because the demand of fundamentalists have been fulfilled but as the agenda of the Taliban was very vast as per their leader Muslim Khan’s statement shows. In a recent statement Taliban leader Muslim Khan has openly given invitation to all the world fighters (Terrorists) including al-Qaida, to come to Swat to fight USA. This statement clearly showing that Taliban want to make Swat and Fata the new battle field. Taliban have no interest in peace. They only want to fight to conquer the entire world. Now it is the duty of the entire world to defeat the enemies of peace. The all world should give a full support to the democratic government of Pakistan to crush these enemies of democracy and peace.
The recent statement of the head of Pakistan Army and statements of our President and Prime Minister and Opposition Leader all are very encouraging.
Pakistan is a democratic country. Real democracy means the government of people elected by the people for the people. It is a system of government where each person has equal basic human rights and equal representation within the government. Although in Pakistan there is not real democracy it is a controlled democracy and there are some discriminatory laws which should be amended as early as possible to give equal rights to every Pakistani to give him the confidence and proud to be a Pakistani. Majority of the people of Pakistan are standing and supporting the democratic leaders of Pakistan against talibanization. Now it is the duty of every democratic minded individual to unite to save democracy against the attack of theocracy (Talibanization). Our Government, Opposition, Judiciary, Media and Army all should unite on one point agenda. Save democracy and defeat theocracy.
None of us will allow destroying our schools. None of us will like to keep our mothers and sisters illiterate and prisoners in homes. None of us will like to see flogging of girls by the barbarians. None of us will like to see the hanging dead bodies of human on our trees. None of us will like to be thrown back in a stone age and in a jungle life. Rather than all of us will like to save democracy.
The Nizam-e-Adl was a shameful surrender conducted at gunpoint. It was a victory for militants so why won’t they invade another district ?
The first blunder committed by the Zardari government was to broker a so-called peace deal with the Taliban in Swat. The ostensible justification was that the military was finding it difficult to cope with the militants. I find it baffling that one of the world’s best equipped and most professional armies would find it “difficult” to handle a ragtag militia armed with nothing more lethal than AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades. There is more to this “deal” than meets the eye. Could it be that a substantial contingent of the army is sympathetic to the imposition of Shariat law? Be that as it may, the “deal” was viewed by the Taliban as a sort of weakness, even surrender; and this merely emboldened them to expand their sphere of influence. It is only now, when the army signaled its intention of confronting them with military force – undoubtedly under US pressure – that the Taliban is retreating. One can only hope that the army is not flattering to deceive by putting on a show and then quietly withdrawing when the pressure wears of. As an Indian with family roots in Karachi, I find it strange that the people of Pakistan – the majority of whom frown on Islamic fundamentalism – have not yet woken up to the very real threat to their way of life. One can only hope they do so before it is too late.
Only had every Pakistani paid attention to the Saudi funded Wahabi/Salafi/Deobandi Sunni extremism (instead of illogically blaming ‘RAW’) in the 90’s when SSP and Lashkar-i-Jhangvi were killing the Shia Muslim minority, including Pakistani doctors (to be fair there were Shia militias too, but created in reaction).
We could have stopped them a long time ago. We didn’t. They were banned but still free to spread their hate and filth in public.
Now they’ve joined with the Taliban. Expect massacres and bombings like recent ones in Iraq at Shia places of Worship as well at non-Muslim minorities. This isn’t Sharia, this is madness.
Practice justice and Islam and Pakistan will prevail. Prophet PBUH showed us by his practices what Islam is. Islam is universal and we need to think in broader term. Mullahs have been tarnishing the name of Islam and will keep doing it.
From far away Arizona the march of Taliban accross Pakistan seems surreal, like watching an inevitable train wreck in slow motion. Where in the world is the vounted Pakistani Army which over the years has swallowed billions of Pakistani and American dollars. Have they become a slick parade ground force, a bureaucracy made inert by careerism?
I agree with Deep1. It is a drama staged by the Pak Army, ISI, and the rest of the Establishment. Taliban is doing what the Pakistan Establishment wants them to have. Of course, it is all tacitly done; most of the Taliban even do not know this but their leaders like Fazullah, Baitaullah and even Mullah Omer know it. The US needs to be cautious and ought to demand accountability of the dollars it gives Pakistan.
The COAS praised the army men for continuing to fight under challenging conditions. Challenging conditions? If fighting few tribal people is difficult, you will be whipped when you fight India.
The whole world used to call them freedom fighters, however since 9/11 they have become terrorists. Pakistan as a country always have been used as pawns. This time is no different, 9/11 has been used as pretext attack Iraq and now it’s Pakistan turns. Yes,I do think Talibans shouldn’t have control of any part of Pakistan but they are being used as a scape goats to weaken Pakistan and there are corrupt politicians who will go along to appease external powers. Let’s hope and pray Pakistan stays intact.