Chief of Army Staff Gen Kayani has called for ‘precision strikes to avoid collateral damage even at the expense of taking risks’ in Swat. But will this strategy work?
Air raids, especially those conducted by coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan almost always cause widespread civilian casualties. Given the chequered history of precision strikes, can it be said that the Pakistan army will do any better? Also, the army chief has said that the overall success of the operations in Swat and adjoining regions depend on three areas: ‘conduct of military operations, minimizing collateral damage and correctly managing IDPs’.
So far the armed forces have claimed killing more than 750 militants, though the figure is yet to be independently verified. The Taliban claim that only 15 of its fighters have lost their lives. Meanwhile, thousands of refugees have been pouring out of the areas affected by the full-scale military operation. According to some estimates, the figure of the Internally Displaced Persons has already crossed a staggering one million.
Dawn.com invites readers to debate the Swat strategy and suggest what’s right or wrong with the ongoing action.
My contention is that the Taliban are not what they appear to be to the world. Those of us who label the Taliban as ‘primitive’ are indeed discrediting the world ‘primitive’.
The strategies resorted to by the Taliban are not stoneage, they are far more modern than most of us are. The ‘primitive’ had a more ecologically friendly way than what the modern does. The ‘primitive’ is associated with free love, as if love can be anything but free.
I am an Indian. I am deeply sadend by what happening in Pakistan. I am sure that the Pak military will defeat taliban. But in post war situation all the five arms of pakistan ie govenment, military, judiciary,media and religious group should honestly work within their juridiction for the welfare of the country. If they try to interfere in each other affairs and getting thigs messed up may create this kind of problem in the future also. A strong, economically vibrant and peaceful pakistan is the interst of India.
Who ever act against Pakistan, take law in its hand, dispute with the country, does not have a right to survive in the country. Such a person, group are rebels and insurgents who wants to destroy the country should not have a right to do live.
Deal was made for the peacefull negotiation but to armed and scattered in other areas. Under such circumstances the crach down is right and correct step. Be stand for PAKISTAN FIRST.
Since when did one part of Pakistan become an independent entity where the Constitution does not apply? Swat and the majority of NWFP has been overrun by a vile and disgusting force, the Taliban. The United States treats New York the same as Juneau, Alaska. Why should Swat be surrendured. Why should some pakistanis be allowed to suffer under this system. Pakistan army should hit them hard and hit them with a vengace. The state should use their powers to dismantle the Taliban structure and arrest figures, just like the FBI did during their battles against the KKK during the 1950s and 1960s. I have full confidence in General Kiyani and the armed forces of Pakistan. Pak fauj zindabad. Pakistan zindabad.
There is no doubt that Pakistan today is fighting the worst war in the history of modern warfare. They are fighting against so many enemies and yet they have difficulties in identifying the true enemy. Let me also say this that killing and be killed is not a easy job, and yes military armies are trained to do just that. But here, today, we are facing something which is way beyond simple killing. The repercussions of this war are not to be ignored.
We need to support our Jawans in this time of great despair. We need to let them know that they have the support of the Nation.
what i think that these taliban dont want to implement shariah actually u they are in actual foreign agents who deliberately want to destablize our country….so they should be washed out soon as to cut the foreign help…
I suppoer the army action; the way taliban cancer is spreading, we will be in civil war from Karachi to Khyber!!! can we afford that as a nation!!! are we a nation?
To Pak Army:
“GREAT JOB”……….just keep it up. Our 100 % support is with you.
Even the asked question is obscene. The ruling elites, Westernized “educated” elites, and a large part of the population of Pakistan have become addicted to the worst form of prostitution, in the service of their imperialist masters-all for dollars and pounds. What is happening in Swat is the worst manifestation of that. Even the military dictator Musharaf did not go that far. Soon, the number of displaced human beings is going to approach 2 million. The ruling thugs want to cash in even on that, begging for more foreign aid, so that they can plunder more of it for themselves. Most of these human beings, though poor, were living in dignity, in harmony with their beautiful natural environment. Now, they have been turned into miserable paupers, forced into unimaginably horrific conditions. These problems must be especially hard for Muslim women.
Taliban, whatever their shortcomings, at this stage of history, are fighting a war of national liberation, in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, against foreign occupation and aggression. In that, they have incomparably more understanding, insight, GHAIRAT, and bravery than all of the meek apologists and collaborators of imperialism. That is a fundamental truth. Most of the so-called “educated” and “enlightened” (a la Musharaf and Zardari) are glossing over it and ignoring it-hence proving their decadence, meekness, and an ignorance much greater and uglier than that they attribute to Taliban.
ive read the comments of bashir n other guyz who say that pakistan should reconcile… how can u guyz even think of having a dialogue with the talibans who have slaughtered n beheaded innocent people in front of there families? im a resident of swat n u guyz have no idea what they r doing to people.. some days back they shot an ex policeman who retired 10 years ago. he was going to get grocery with his 7 year old daughter.. they not only killed the policeman but shot her 7 year old daughter too who was hugging her dying father n crying her heart out… on other occasion they killed a father and son who resisted to an attack made on them by talibans just cause there shalwar was not above their ankles.. they even tied their dead bodies to a tree and told their family not to cut them loose or they will face the same fate.. there bodies were rotten for dayz… any human who has a family will want the taliban to go extinct from the face of the earth.. n i say to kill them all to the last man n let their bodies rot cause they dont even deserve to be burried..
its heartening to see the opinion of vast majority of people here who are against the Extremist Taliban and want them to be completely destroyed.
its great to see that my extremely patriotic Pakistani brothers & sisters are so concerned about the country and wants to see the Army victorious and these Talibans (yester years ”Mujahideens” & Holy warriors) defeated.
Honestly speaking I also want the same.
but just for a while, some questions start disturbing me and I wanted to share it with you people.
who made these people in first place? from where did it all start? who gave them this ideology of hate and destruction and who unleash them on the Pashtuns social and cultural fabric & Pashtuns way of life?
why is it that its only the blood of Pashtuns that is shed so mercilessly for some quick bucks?
when thirty years ago the Great Pashtun leaders Bacha Khan and Wali Khan were screaming loud that its not Jihad rather a ”Fasaad” and stop this blood shed of innocent Pashtuns, the great Pakistani patriots from Lahore,Karachi Islamabad were calling them traitors and ”ghaddars” of this country and were thirsty for their blood.
Compare the two scenarios of 80’s and 2009. at that time Pashtuns blood was shed in the name of ‘’Jihad’’ in return for dollars and today again it’s the blood of innocent Pashtuns in the name of ‘’war against evil Taliban’’ in return for some ‘’quick reward’’ so that life in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad remain joyous and vibrant.
Spare some thoughts for those innocent Pashtuns who are bleeding for the last thirty years.
I am from karachi, I have seen many of our own beaten up by this army, for once it is good to see others beaten up as well, keep up the good work, thats where the dough is these days.
It could be much better to move confrontation from military to economic field.
The move adopted by our government to finish these terrorists some says islamists, taliban, is alike the one adopted by the WEST. Our government should first check whether this operation will be beneficial or not by going through the condition in afghanistan and iraq that are NATO forces have become successful in finishing up the terrorists even after 7 years or its just a wastage of human life, health, and a full flesh wastage of the state? We must choose another way instead of military action against these terrorists because they are like DARK AGE people who don’t know anything about Islam except for the word itself ‘ISLAM’ and they are more like devastating virus which spreads more rapidly when you disturb so we must be very much careful in tackling with these people. If still some say that military action is fine in affected areas so our government should first took innocent civilians out of the place first safely then took necessary steps. There seems no dexterity in it. I still wish if a peace treaty is signed between our government and these talibans.
May Allah bless our country with HIS MERCY AND PEACE!! AMEEN
People of Pakistan and India are united behind missions being carried out by Pakistan army against talibans. In this battle they are saving people from the entire subcontinent.The displaced persons are also soldiers of peace in this battle whose sacrifice will not go waste.
Insha allah the army will certainly prevail over taliban and a stronger, tolerant and democratic Pakistan will emerge.
Taliban are the biggest enemies of Islam and to extent they damaged Islam no one else can.
Pakistan Military doing right operation, we should support them and i believe that our military is capable of eliminating them,InshAllah Pakistan ‘ll prevail with the help of Allah.all these happenings just because of Zia’s greed and extremism by getting foreign aid and creating militants groups,its better to suffer some casualties now rather then later in large nos. May Allah bless Pakistan, unite and awake our nation now.(Ameen).
I completely support this military action. I am very sad to see whats going on in Pakistan. Religion is a personal thing. Keep it to yourself.
I fully support the military action in Swat and in Buner. Pakistan civil government should learn a lesson from Sri Lanka, how determined the Sri lankan government is in rooting out the tamil tiger the terrorist organization. Pakistan Army is far more superior than Sri Lankan army they only need full backing from the civil government and from the loving people of Pakistan. Pakistan is a Muslim country we never have had any issue with the state religion Islam. I do not understand what these muslim fanatics want, they are simply lunatics and should be rooted out mericlessly. They should not be allowed to reign terror on the innocent citizen of the state to what ever religion they belong. We as Pakistani should stand behind the army and let them finish this job once for all.
I am afraid things will get worse before it will get better, but I definitely see a silver lining out of this. It is a terrible tragedy but it is our own making.
Pakistan was created, because many Muslims were afraid of Hindu extremism. My 78 year old mother distinctly remembers the incident when her Brahmin teacher accidently bumped into her and my mother was punished for that. The teacher went home in disgust (to be “cleansed”). These types of behaviors led many Muslims to fight and sacrifice for the creation of Pakistan.
It was India’s good fortune that a Secular and powerful Nehru took control of the country. He knew that for India to survive, he must confront Hindu extremism whereas it was our misfortune that we lost both Jinnah and Liaqat Ali Khan almost immediately.
Living in United States, I can not over emphasize the role of faith in one’s life (especially bringing up children), but everything needs to have a balance. Throughout the history, power hungry people have used religions to control masses. It is the most powerful tool. The religious leaders want the people to “submit” themselves completely to the “ultimate power” and then they claim to be the ‘Authorized Agent” for that power.
It was extremely naive for the Pakistani Government to think that the only thing Taliban leaders wanted was Sharia law in Swat. Of course, they wanted to be the ones who would interpret the laws and be the “Exclusive Authorized Agents.”
We as a nation has flirted with religious bigotry for quite some time and now people are realizing the mistake when our survival is at stake. As an 11 year old child, I was taught in school that Mehmood Ghaznavi was a great hero for demolishing Somnath Mandir. When Babri Masjid was demolished, I was very angry and distraught. Soon after I realized that my ancestors were Hindus and they lived not too far from Somnath Mandir at that time. They must have felt the same way I do now . There were some influential Indian leaders who were behind the demolition of Babri Masjid, but at least the Society as a whole was not condoning it.
Every religion has fundamental differences with every other religion, but that doesn’t mean that a nation should force it’s citizens to sign derogatory statements towards a religious minority before it will issues you a passport or National Identity Card. This is 2009 and we are STILL doing it.
I see that most Pakistanis realize that we have suffered tremendously because of religious bigotry. As a society, we have many faults. You can look at the traffic and it gives a very good indication of the society as a whole. As adults, we have developed many bad habits and it becomes very difficult to change. Now it is a matter of survival. We should teach our children that not everyone will have exactly the same faith as they do but that does not make that “other” child any better or worse than you. They should be taught tolerance and the golden rule of “Treat others the way you want to be treated”, regardless of race, religion creed or gender. I can see that Mullahs have really stretched it this time and have lost significant amount of influence.
ALLAH BLESS PAKISTAN
The decisions about life and death of nations are taken in light of their ideologies and practical implementation programme for the same.
The success of this operation would be to provide the people of Swat & generally the poor & the oppressed that have been deprived of growth for generations by a corrupt Army, its civil administration & a breed of clumsy politicians introduced by the Army from time to time. This is a natural test & if the government & the Army does not show growth & development, this kind of uprising will continue from time to time, till a better system replaces the one in place.
This is just great. Give the army one more thing so they can use it on their own people.
There is no such thing as collateral damage. We are one nation, one people.
We should ask the Army, what if their own families were living there, would they even thing about firing one rocket in the region.
May ALLAH guide all of us on the straight path and bring a peaceful end to this..Ameen
Malik
USA
I had to add one more thing………
For all those people who say allah will help, don’t think its a good idea to involve allah as he didn’t create the mess. Allah helps those who helps themselves……So stop looking up for help and start looking forward and clean the mess up
Talibans are not the future of Pakistan. Minority cannot over rule the judgement of majority. Pakistan Army is doing a wonderful job and I salute our Jawans who are trying their best to keep Pakistan away from the clutches of fanatics who are bent upon to defame Pakistan. Let me assure to our Army’s Jawan’s the people of Pakistan are standing behind you and will fight shoulder to shoulder with you when they are called to save Pakistan.
I still remember in mid 90’s I used to read newspapers from all over the world and developed an understanding that Talibans were the worst people on the earth. I was going to university and when i told my friends about how Talibans treated women and what dangers it possessed to Pakistan, everybody laughed at me, many people got annoyed and gave me names of American and Indian spy. For us Pakistanis, a positive criticism is considered as being a spy of the country. Look at any developed country, the first thing which is taught to critisize yourself and look for role models even if they are from non muslim countries. I met with doctors and lawyers who used to say Talibans are the best people. People who just came from Pakistan to US told me that i don’t know the realities since i don’t live in Pakistan. Whenever i tried to tell that Psychological ideas have no bounderies i was told that i am stupid and hate Pakistan. For 10 long years i tried to convince people online that stop Talibans. I lost my sleeps and my brothers as always said that this is all conspiracy. 9/11 came and people still did not belive that it was done by Muslims. All blame was levid on Jews. In the meanwhile for so long and still now, religious parties made fool of people by telling that this is not Pakistan’s war. Politicians knew that what is happening. For 30 years, FATA was growing home based terrorists and suicide bombers and they kept on ignoring them. Talibans kept on killing and beheading people but we kept on saying they are doing Jihad.
Because of Maulana Fazal ur Rehman and Qazi Hussain Ahmed parties who kept on making people fool the govt. could not even take a simple step to stop those terrorists. Take an example of Fazallulah. He was a goon who in the name of Islam started looting and killing people. Govt. could not stop him because it knew that if they tried to nab him, public will stand against it because of Maulana Fazal ur Reham and Qazi’s statements that those people are devoted muslims. They still want to protect those people who wants to divide Pakistan.
Now lets move to Lal Masjid incident. Those terrorists over there should have been nabbed and killed as soon as they took the library and mosque hostage. This was challenging govt. writ. If there was any other country in the world, they would have moved the very same day and get rid of those people. But because of fear of public outcry since public was fooled by religious parties, they kept waiting until after 6 months they made the operation. Public instead of appreciating went after the goverment and they set free the terrorists that they are kids. Those are the same kids who are suicide bombers. The whole world kept telling us to go after those terrorists and religious parties kept making our public fool by saying that those are good people and it is not our war. Thats why govt kept making peace deals with those barbarians who took advantage of weaknesses and kept spreading their network. One of the mastermind of terrorists even wrote a book how to spread their network. In that book he revealed that since after 9/11 it is difficult to penetrate in the western world, so take over the weak countries. In his book he writes start taking small territories. To take a territory, first destroy the govt. machinery which starts with police and judiciary. That is the reason in Waziristan and then in Swat they first wiped off the police and Judiciary. They killed so many policemen that either they quit or moved out of the area. Then they went after MNAs and MPAs so they could not contest in the elections. When the brave Pukhtoons of FATA tried to stood against them, they beheaded the head of the Lashkars to spread terror.
Now when somebody says that govt. signed the Swat deal because people of SWAT wanted Shariah, this is a big lie. In the last election, people of Swat voted for ANP which is a non-religious party. They stood against Talibans. But when Talibans started killing and spread terror, then they said that they wanted Shariah.
Now the problem is that this operations should have been done 5-10 years back, when Talibans started coming from Afghanistan to Pakistan. It was easy as 1-2-3 to eliminate them because they were very few and people did not have any influence. But after so long of preaching hatered, even the kids as young as 5-6 years old have an ideology of hatered. It is very very difficult to control. On the other hand becasue of our religious parties which actually are part of Talibans, are still teaching hatered to our childern. We will get SWAT back Inshallah, but Talibans are every where. They are in Punjab, Balochistan, NWFP. They are sitting in Islamabad. That is the reason we were getting deadlines that govt. is going to collapse in few months, because Talibans were moving in towards Islamabad from outside and Talibans sitting inside Islamabad are ready to start blowing MNAs and MPAs and even the prime minister and president. They are sitting in Karachi, Lahore, Peshaward, Quetta – you name it and they are there waiting for orders or perfect time.
We also know they are so cunning that they are shaving their beard and many Talibans are in the refugee camps after slipping out of SWAT.
Their main objective is to topple govt. and take over Pakistan. If God forbidden that happens Pakistan will split into four countries. That is they want because it is easier for Talibans to run smaller states then run a bigger country.
We would need many more operations then this one. But on top of that, the biggest problem we are facing is with the IDPs. Those people have been forced to get out of their houses. They are angry and many of their relatives have lost lives. So if they are not taken care of properly, they could turn against our own govt. and army and Talibans who slipped out of SWAT will easily make those people Talibans also. So Army will be trapped between Talibans inside SWAT and outside SWAT.
We would have to go very carefully. Like one analyst on ARY TV said, don’t bomb SWAT, use special forces which seperate innocents and kill Talibans with bullets.
After securing SWAT, we would have to concentrate on the kids who have seen voilence as the only way of life and start afresh by providing them education and knowldege of peaceful Islam.
Now is the time for all of Pakistanis to come to help our brothers who are homeless and hungry so that they don’t lose patience and start hating our army.
Lets pray for our army to succeed.
Killing a few terrorists is of no consequence unless you wipe out the ideology and the ideology of all terrorists is the same wherever they may be trained and indoctrinated to go and fight. You can not hope to create one and fight the other. There is a need to rethink the curricullum of hatered tought in Pakistan and replace it with ” All religions and faith are equal and everyone has a freedom to choose his faith”. This is just a battle the war is ahead but for that years of mindset and hatered has to be kept aside.