Posted on 11/21/2003 7:12:18 AM PST by The Spectator
Najam Sethi's Editorial Last week the government of General Pervez Musharraf announced a ban on three jihadi outfits which were earlier banned by the United States. As if on cue, the police swooped down upon them, "sealed" their offices and detained dozens of their activists. Their bank accounts were ostensibly "frozen". This is supposed to be another historic blow against extremism and terrorism. Rubbish. General Musharraf's thunderous assertions are sounding like a scratched 78 rpm record. Two years ago, we received a blast of the same banalities. The Jaish i Mohammad, Sipah i Sahaba, and Tekrik i Jafaria were "banned" by Pakistan (after they were outlawed by the United Nations Security Council), their offices "sealed", their leaders arrested and their empty bank accounts frozen. Soon thereafter, everyone was released, the three parties renamed themselves as Khuddam ul Islam, Millat i Islamia and Islami Tehrik respectively and were allowed to function, recruit people, collect funds for jihad, publish their journals and give rousing sermons against all infidels. In fact, Maulana Azam Tariq, the leader of the renamed Sipah Sahaba, was encouraged to contest the 2002 general elections and "helped" to become a member of the National Assembly so that he could duly provide "that crucial single vote" enabling Mr Zafarullah Jamali to scrape together a government. Similarly, Allama Sajid Naqvi, leader of the Tehrik i Jafaria, alias Islami Tehrik, was allowed to contest elections and become a respectable member of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal. And Mr Masood Azhar, the leader of the Jaish, alias Khuddam, was encouraged to preach jihad and collect funds all over the country. In fact, in a brazen display of bonhomie with the khakis, he recently preached his doctrine of jihad in a grand mosque in the very heart of Lahore's military cantonment. The pattern has become predictable. Whenever American pressure to clamp down on extremism breaches a threshold noise level, Islamabad is quick to offer a sop. In January 2002, it was President Bush and last week it was Nancy Powell, the American Ambassador to Islamabad. In between these two bans and many meetings of "pious people" drummed up by the government to "tackle religious extremism", we have been subjected to gruesome sectarian killings in Quetta and Karachi which have been squarely laid at the door of one or another such organisation. Meanwhile, the world is increasingly convinced that Pakistan is the original home of radical Islam and terrorism. A recent poll in the EU claimed that 48% of the respondents thought Pakistan was a threat to world peace. This perception hasn't been helped by the fact that the Musharraf government has made no effort to stop local jihadi leaders from their violent tirades against the "West and all infidels". What is so special about these Islamic groups that the Pakistan army cannot countenance an end to them? Why must ordinary, moderate Pakistanis, and the world at large, continue to pay the price for their extremism and radicalism? When will the Pakistani state realise that the price of mollycoddling them has become prohibitively high? The answers are obvious enough. Radical Islam has served to keep the Pakistan army in power (even when it is not in office). It has provided the jihadi cannon fodder for keeping the Kashmir issue alive, which in turn has sustained long-term hostility with India, which in turn remains the raison d'etre of soaring defense expenditures. Radical Islamists have also helped to weaken the thrust of the mainstream, moderate, political parties that have come to challenge the Pakistan's army's self-proclaimed role as the primary motive force of this country. But will this formula work as effectively for its patrons in the future? No. First, radical Islamists are increasingly forging their own national, regional and global long-term agendas that don't square with the short-term imperatives of their military patrons. Indeed, some of them have enormous potential to destabilize their creators - as Mulla Umar did to Musharraf's Pakistan and Osama bin Laden has done to the House of Saud in Arabia. Another major attack by Al Qaeda in the US or in Britain or in Europe would likely unleash dire consequences not just for Muslim peoples all over the world but also for Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Within the region too, the jihadis have enormous potential for destabilization - as we saw when they attacked civilian targets in Kashmir and New Delhi and provoked the Indians in December 2001 to march their army to the border with Pakistan and threaten all-out war. Another such attack could plunge the region into crisis and conflict. Second, the record shows that radical Islam is incompatible with nation-building, democracy, universal human rights and economic development - critical elements of the new world order. It perpetuates a clash of civilizations and is inimical to global stability. If Pakistan continues to harbour radical Islamists in its midst the price will surely become prohibitive. If General Pervez Musharraf can read the writing on the wall and act to uproot extremist "Islamists", he will do himself, the Pakistan army and the Pakistani nation great good. But if he is guided by the same provincial notions of national security, army infallibility and military ascendancy as in the past, then we have all had it.
Another major attack by Al Qaeda in the US or in Britain or in Europe would likely unleash dire consequences not just for Muslim peoples all over the world....
This journalist may have some brains.
One more time on US soil...just one more...and they may reap what they plant. In my opinion, I wouldn't doubt it if many Americans, in more than isolated instances, started taking them all out if it happens again. This journalist fears that I think.
Their silence to their brother's crimes may haunt them.
They better go through the U.N. if they want to do anything, and they better listen to us or we might veto their resolution. ;-)
If General Pervez Musharraf can read the writing on the wall and act to uproot extremist "Islamists", he will do himself, the Pakistan army and the Pakistani nation great good.
He's in a tough spot, it will be very bloody when he has to really crackdown, but he is running out of options.
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