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| Peshawar Carnage – A Bitter lesson for Pakistan Army . Will it learn ? | | 
By B L Saraf
In a horrendous terror attack on humanity, hundreds of innocent school children lost lives in the bloody alleys of APS Peshawar , Pakistan . The carnage shook international community and evoked worldwide condemnation . P M Narendra Modi and people of India mourned the tragedy , no less .
In ironical sequence, a number of scholarly and well researched books , on the conduct and modus operandi of Pakistan elite and its Army , hit the stands this year : for a perceptible reader to conclude what has happened on the black day of 16th December , 2014 in Peshawar , was , indeed , a “ tragedy waiting to happen .” Poisonous snakes reared in the backyard for the neighbours have , as prophetically noted by Hillary Clinton , raised the hoods and bitten the keeper , in Peshawar .
T V Paul in his book The Warrior State says that Pakistan Army and the elite are obsessed with military balance with India , He writes “ The military elite has attempted continuously to obtain security by striving for strategic parity with its larger neighbour through arms build up … ……….offering home base for transnational terrorist networks , engaging in terrorism on its own and initiating wars and crisis to extract territorial concessions …………..” p 12 . Then , he goes on to say “The Pakistan elite has exhibited a tendency to play double games as way to extract financial resources from its key allies , especially the United States . This is because of a conviction that if the security problem is fully solved then the external ally will shun Pakistan .”p 21
Christine Fair in her book Fighting To The End – Pakistan Army’s Way Of War has raised certain questions , “ Why does Pakistan Army continue to challenge the status –quo in Kashmir ? Why does it support a fleet of jihadi groups despite the fact that some of these have turned against their patrons ? ….” P 2 . She has the answer “ .. ….. because the Army’s concern and preoccupations are ideological as much as military in scope , the Pak Army views its struggle with India in existential terms .For Pakistan’s men on horsebacks , not winning , not even repeatedly , is not the same thing as losing . But simply giving up and accepting status-quo and India’s supremacy is , by definition , defeat . As a former chief of the staff explained to me in 2000, Pakistan’s generals would always prefer to take calculated risks and be defeated than do nothing at all . Pakistan’s Army would insist on action at almost on any cost , even that of presiding over a hollow state . After all , if the Pakistani state are to make such concessions to India it would no longer be a state worth presiding over . By seeing victory as the ability to continue fighting Pakistani Army is able to seize victory even from the jaws of what other observers would deem defeat .” p 7
In a vivid account of what went wrong for U S in Afghanistan , Carlotta Gall has , in her book The Wrong Enemy , brought out the duplicitious role Pak government and its intelligence agencies played in training and protecting the terrorists . What she has narrated about Pakistan’s faith in ‘ Compartmentalization “ of Taliban and other terrorists as ‘ good’ and ‘ bad ‘ becomes germane , as Nawaz Sharief has realised the havoc this policy has played with Pakistan society . She gives details of a meeting of President Musharaf with the political analysts , after 9/11 .
Retired Lieutenant general Talat Massod was one among the invites who told the writer about the meeting , “ Musharaf asked them for advice on what the government should do . Massod told the general that he should cease the support for Taliban , and all the militant groups , including the Pakistan ones who operated in Kashmir .”
Masood told the author “ My advice was that you should completely stop supporting the Taliban and the jihadi forces in Pakistan , in the sense that the government , the state , must follow the policy , completely stopping support . Musharaf agreed that support to Taliban must end but insisted that government would continue its support for the Pakistan groups in Kashmir . The two could be ‘ Compartmentalized’ , he said . Massod , says he warned Musharaf that , from experience , it could not be possible to close one operation down and not the other . Still Musharaff insisted he could do it .” p 62
The duplicity in dealing with the ‘ compartmentalized ‘ terrorists still persists , despite PM Sharief’s ‘ pious’ declarations to discard the theory and treat all terrorists , equally, as enemies of the humanity . Blood stains of the innocent children mowed down by the cowards are still visible and one of the master minds of Mumbai 26 /11 carnage , Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi , gets bailed out , even when the lawyers in Lahore were on strike ,mourning the death of Peshawar children . Sharief brothers ( Nawaz and Shabaz ) pay court to Haffiz Saeed and his co- harts for arranging crowds for their political existence and ensuring their physical safety . Imran Khan , though , did condemn the attack on Peshawar school but refused to name the culprits . Just to look politically correct, for a moment, he did share dais with the PM Nawaz shrief ,to mourn the death of the children . But his discomfiture was palpable : he fumbled for words. He didn’t fumble on the weight of the tragedy but to avoid naming the real culprits . Imran Khan has been an outright supporter of the Taliban and other terrorists . He can’t afford to annoy them because his political existence in P K province and elsewhere in Pakistan is dependent on them . So , denial becomes the rule for all the political forces in Pakistan
We can’t expect much from Pak establishment to curtail militancy in the region . Soon they will have to employ their “ assets “ who will be rendered jobless in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of NATO forces . What better way to employ them than sending to Kashmir to establish “ Gods own country .” Eradication of militancy is not one country’s job in the region . Having seen what has been going on in their ‘ backyard ‘ it is imperative on Pakistan Army and the elite to cooperate, meaningfully , with all the countries in South East Asia to see total elimination of this scourge . Pak government must , in its own interest , realise the gravity of the situation and pay heed to the warning note sounded by Dawn editorial , in aftermath of the Peshawar tragedy , “ Denial will only lead to worse atrocities .”
(The author is Former Principal District & Sessions Judge)
(Opinions expressed in write-ups/articles/Letters are the sole responsibility of the authors and they may not represent the scoopnews.in)
Editor, Scoop News
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