Pakistani army has lately exposed itself to the ultimate lack of respect I never thought was possible.
An explosive-laden car was rammed into a joint convoy of army and paramilitary soldiers that was heading from Bannu to Miramshah, in the restive North Waziristan, on Monday, killing two paramilitary officers and wounding 20 army soldiers. Three army vehicles were damaged in the attack.
Last year, in November, 42 young army recruits were killed and 20 injured when a suicide bomber had ripped through a military camp in Dargai.
It does not matter if it was Baitullah Mehsud, a militant commander, who had vowed to avenge an airstike by Americans/Pakistanis last week in which more than 20 people were killed and eight wounded in South Waziristan; or it was an attack orchestrated by those who are seeing a big danger in peace agreement between tribals and the government and want to derail it. It is the army that is losing its respect and sanctity in which it has been kept for decades by Pakistanis.
Pakistani army is exposing itself to another lethal force too. An American helicopter from across the border fired rockets at a border post in the Shawal region on Monday and killed a paramilitary soldier and wounded two others. A NATO spokeswoman said aircraft had attacked insurgents who had fired on a NATO base near the border. A military spokesman in Islamabad said Pakistan would lodge a strong protest with the United States and demand an investigation.
Pakistan army's khaki that was once an icon, a symbol of respect, has taken a long, very long, time in slipping from the slot it had occupied in Pakistani people's minds. Like all other armies it stumbled and fumbled and got a bloody nose a few times but still it kept a semblence of respect in our eyes. For decades we even did not know that our military had never won a single war even though it had started all of them.
But now it has started losing evrything. Military rule is certainly to be blamed for it but it is the Musharraf's decision to invite the "foreign trouble" that has broken the back of the army camel.
There is no doubt that this is the direct fall-out from the war on terror. How it can be otherwise? If you let Americans come to your country; let them invade your neighbors; kill your own people on their behest; attack religious people; abduct and kidnap Pakistanis and sell them into captivity to be tortured; you can't make peace with your own people because NATO and Americans don't like it; then who else will be atarget other than the army?
It is not the average jawan who has anything to do with this whole mess; it is not him who has made bilions of dollars by selling his own compatriots; it is the military brass who has brought this calamity and affiction on the head of whole army. The jawans are paying the price with their blood; the innocent civilians are being bombed; the people are being abducted and kept incommunicado for months and years. The generals are enjoying their lives and making money on the side.
I am afraid Pakistan is moving to the edge of a abyss if it is not already there. General Musharraf has put whole country in this predicament. But he is so callous that he is busy playing politically treacherous games to keep himself and other generals in power as long as he can, while the average jawan and middle order officers are suffering along with the civilians.
The peace agreement between tribals and government has virtually gone to the wind. I think the next thing to go are the elections. A lot of things are hanging on the "Spring Offensive". Everyone is running scare and preparing for the the "new surge from the east".
Do you think they are satisfied with Musharraf's "performance"? No way. More pressure is being built. Look at the following excerpts from the editorial of the New York Times, ominously headed as From Pakistan, With Jihad published today:
To learn why a resurgent Taliban is fighting American and NATO troops to a military draw in Afghanistan, you have to go to the frontier region on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
...Quetta is an important rear base for the Taliban, and that Pakistani authorities are encouraging and perhaps sponsoring the cross-border insurgency. That is a role that Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, denies. But residents of the border area, opposition figures and Western diplomats point to specific cases of Pakistani involvement. Americans need to know more about this collusion and to demand better answers from General Musharraf.
... But the positive results will be limited as long as Afghanistan’s much more populous and powerful neighbor, Pakistan, provides rear support and sanctuary for the Taliban insurgency.
It is simply impossible to believe that this support takes place without the approval of the Pakistani military, the country’s dominant institution for a half-century.
Pakistan is now the third-largest recipient of American foreign aid. Yet more than five years after 9/11, the Bush administration has still not been able to secure Pakistan’s active and consistent support against the Taliban. The very least Washington should be demanding of President Musharraf is that he enforce an immediate halt on Pakistani military support for the Taliban insurgents who are crossing the border and killing American troops.
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