Posted on 12/30/2007 4:44:18 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
Reaping the whirlwind
Saturday, December 29, 2007 10:07 IST
Some years ago, India had clamoured to get Pakistan named as a ‘terrorist state’. Pakistan was where many jihadis, who were inflicting wounds on the Indian body politic, were based and that country’s ruling establishment, overtly and covertly, was supporting them.
India took its case to the world and especially to the United States, Pakistan’s best friend and ally in a bid to bring Pakistan’s perfidy out into the open.
Naturally this plea did not go very far. Sovereign states are not just branded this way and least of all by powerful countries which support them. Besides, while India was a target of cross-border terrorism, it wasn’t anyone else’s immediate problem. The world could only sympathise.
Then 9/11 happened. America and the world sat up and took notice of this new scourge. In the several high-profile incidents of terrorism that followed, the common thread was fanatic Islamist elements and often they had Pakistan connections.
Now it is almost a truism to suggest what India said all along, that Pakistan is a hotbed of terrorist activity. And that every kind of fanatical terrorist, armed and dangerous, thrives, often under the patronage of the establishment. As long as this continues, no amount of American pressure will make any difference.
Just recently US media reported that billions of dollars meant for the Pakistani government to fight terrorism found its way to extremists.
But Frankenstein’s monsters can turn on their masters too. In recent years, Pervez Musharraf and Pakistan’s establishment have discovered the truth of this.
The monsters they created — to trouble India, to foment problems in Afghanistan, to feed their own religious fanaticism — are now striking back. Pakistan is itself now the target of terrorism. Not a day passes without some atrocity or the other where innocent citizens are killed.
Musharraf himself has felt the heat. There have been many attempts on his life by angry jihadis who feel he has cosied up too much with the Americans and is letting down his own side. He has a disillusioned Army which is not convinced about the war on terror and which feels humiliated that the Americans are driving their country’s policies.
Pakistan civil society too resents the fact that the world is pointing fingers at them as the epicentre of terrorism.
And now Benazir Bhutto, who could have inserted a modicum of civilian control into a military state, has been killed. Whether it was directly by a terrorist or by some shadowy force who controls them is not known, but it shows how deeply this virus has entered the nation. But this is not something transplanted by outsiders — the crop is homegrown and nurtured. And now the bitter fruit is being reaped.
Times sure have changed. I used to go months on end before I hear something about hidden perfidy.
India needs to send all of its internal Jihadists to Pakistan for increased targeting efficiency.
Most of the ones in India come over after completing their MBA(Master in Bomb Assembly) in Pakistan.
There is no jihadist without the support of some government. When these governments come under attack by their Frankenstein monster the jihad will cease.
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