I think there will be many people, who will differ with me, but I am of the firm belief that Pakistan is the base of al-Qaeda.
Actually al-Qaeda is the name of corruption and I believe that Pakistan may be on the top of the list of corrupt countries. This is the country where everyone wants to quench his thirst by drinking the blood of another man.
They have forgotten that thirst is quenched through water not blood.
Rulers of Pakistan have also spoiled the system of tribal areas situated on Pak-Afghan border. All the officials posted by the government of Pakistan have been given instruction to collect money from the tribesmen for themselves, as they have been needing the money. Now the rulers have been trying to create the impression that al-Qaeda exists only in tribal areas, which is totally wrong. The real al-Qaeda is the rulers of Pakistan.
A newspaper comment says that the foreign minister, Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri, said on October 18 that if Pakistan did not take action against the “foreign elements” in the Tribal Areas, the NATO forces deployed in Afghanistan under UN resolution 1373 would decide to extend their operations into Pakistani territory. Reaction to the statement has been predictable, once again advising defiance of the “American policy”, and “dialogue” with the militants with the help of jirgas. There was a strong suggestion, in the criticism, of an official acknowledgment of the “compulsion” to take an action that Islamabad did not think justified.
One doesn’t have to repeat that the government has always asserted that the troops are in the Tribal Areas for Pakistan’s own security. It is enough to see what the warlords of the Tribal Areas are able to do in areas under normal administration, in other words, one can’t ignore the “loss of territory” taking place in areas contiguous to the Tribal Areas, and suicide-bombings as far afield as Islamabad.
It is laughable to assume that merely “talking” to the “independent-minded” tribesmen will make the trouble go away. It is al-Qaeda that Pakistan will have to talk to from a position of strength rather than weakness. As for the NATO response, the UN Charter allows “hot pursuit” — and in Pakistan’s case the offenders to be pursued are located in an area that the state of Pakistan has already lost to warlords owing allegiance to al-Qaeda. So there are no simple solutions. Neither pure appeasement nor pure military reaction will work. We need to formulate a larger national consensus behind a sophisticated politico-religious strategy to neutralise al-Qaeda in the tribal areas.
The End
