Take Out Foreign Asset Baitullah Mehsud

Hamza Gulzar

We should criticize the Swat flogging [if it isn’t fake] without endorsing ‘Asma Jehangirism’. Understand the problem of these terrorists masquerading as ‘Pakistani Taliban’ and you’ll understand enemy from friend in our tribal region.

LAHORE, Pakistan—Flogging a teenage girl in public is utter barbarism. But my criticism is by no means an endorsement of a phenomenon I call ‘Asma Jehangirism’.

That belief depends more upon pleasing enemies of Pakistan who by the way are no better off than we are when it comes to human values, if not worse.

Experts sitting thousands of miles away believe that it is their divine right to tell the world that areas within Pakistan’s areas are being governed by fanatical mullahs who rose from the ashes of the Afghan jihad. They and their defeatist Pakistani counterparts narrate how our country has fallen into the hands of the Taliban.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. After the recent thrashing at the hands of the Pakistani military, Baitullah Mehsud and his supporters in Swat are down to only a few hundred men. The reason why they make headline news is because a positive story about the military clearing up the area gets lesser attention than showing a couple of Taliban behead an American ‘spy’.

Nizam-e-Adal and peace deals negotiated by pro-Pakistani religious elements are fine as long as they don’t resemble another NRO. Individuals, who have slaughtered our troops, terrorized our children and imposed their version of religion deserve to be shot publicly.

I know of a lieutenant who recently embraced martyrdom is Swat while on a mission to engage a small number of the so-called ‘Pakistani Taliban’ [Again, a bunch of thugs and some misguided cohorts who use the word ‘Taliban’ for legitimacy]. As he proceeded with his team of soldiers it turned out that the ‘handful’ of militants were actually in their hundreds. Refusing to lay down their weapons he and his men fought till the end until they were slaughtered. The young man who died for this country with his boots on had told his father of how they had raided RAW’s training camps and recovered dollars from disgusted hairy bodies of militants. Did these people die for nothing?

After seeing the great military successes that we’ve achieved in Bajaur, Waziristan and Swat, our demands to the so called Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, TTP, should be clear: hand over your leadership, lay down your weapons or face the consequences. The Nizam-e-Adal will turn out to be a Nizam-e-Kufr if we let go of these tyrants at a stage when they are still under pressure. During the first two stages of Operation Rah-e-Haq carried out by our military the militants were pushed into the Peochaar valley until our politicians forced a halt to the operations. What transpired was nothing different to what Baitullah Meshud does when he signs a peace agreement: get back, regroup and attack again. The local government, police and paramilitaries all chickened out and the military had to go for Phase 3. Repeated short-term operations followed by a re-emergence of the militants not only lowered the moral of the military but also disheartened the locals who had initially welcomed the operation.

Everybody was ignorant enough to lay the blame on the army. In his recent interview, Sufi Muhammad stated that democracy was in conflict with Islam and that the Pakistan army had broken all peace deals in Swat. Playing dirty to keep both sides happy? The militants violated the peace agreement on the second day of the cease fire in Swat by firing on a military convoy, the next day they fired on an army water tanker. What more does Sufi want?

Those who draw an analogy between the IRA and the TTP in order to propose a peace deal are sadly mistaken. The philosophies of the IRA and TTP are poles apart. The TTP is led by people who are being funded and trained by Pakistan’s enemies to weaken Pakistan to such an extent that we are seen as a failed state incapable of handling our nukes. We cannot enforce the Nizam-e-Adal unless and until Baitullah Meshud and Fazalullah are taken out. The war against the TTP and its affiliates is OUR WAR! A long lasting solution includes fencing and mining the border with Afghanistan, but eliminating these thugs is the call of the hour.