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| This is our war |
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Friday, May 15, 2009
The newly-anointed amir of the JI, Syed Munawar Hasan, says that the Pakistan army is fighting America's war in Swat. He couldn't be more wrong. No, Mr Hasan, this is not America's war, this is very much Pakistan's war. If somebody hurls a grenade at an FC checkpost, attacks hotels and kills innocent Pakistanis, attack a visiting cricket team, attacks police training centres or sends suicide attackers into mosques where army soldiers offer prayers, it can hardly be called America's war. Imagine if all of the above was carried out by Indians, what would have been our response? The point is that it doesn't matter who is behind the attacks as much as what our response to them is.
Let me tell Mr Hasan that the war that was fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s was surely an American war. But right now the Pakistani nation is trying to clean the debris of that folly and it is Pakistan's war. And this is precisely why ordinary Pakistanis loath the clergy -- because of their hypocritical stands. Our security forces which are battling the Taliban need morale-boosting statements, not accusations and double-speak of the kind being vented by the likes of the JI chief.
Everybody should be clear that chemistry of the Pakistani nation is not based on a jihadi culture or mindset. Pakistan was nurtured as a modern state -- we cannot and should not allow any barbarian to destroy our academic institutions or flog poor and helpless girls. Those who think that these are ways of Islam should better join their ranks and abandon all the modern facilities that they enjoy by virtue of progress Pakistan archived by its sheer merit and industrious people. We don't need parasites which will bite the hand that feeds them.
Bahadar Ali Khan
Markham, ON, Canada
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Recently Qazi Husain Ahmed equivocally demanded that the military operation in Swat should be halted because he claimed it was killing our 'own people' just to 'earn dollars'. I respectfully ask him if those who beheaded security personnel, treated women worse than animals, abused human rights and wanted to force their rigid interpretation of religion on everybody else are our own people. Should we hand over this country to these 'own people'? What our country needs right now is national unity if we want to be an integrated and sovereign state. We should join hands with our armed forces to flush out these anti-state elements.
Salman Gondal
Karachi
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