Daily Times

Sir: As we congratulate Pakistan’s COAS General Raheel Sharif on receiving the US Legion of Merit medal as a recognition of his leadership and vision to bring stability in a region that is awash with multinational and local terrorists, we should realise that it is not the end of the game, rather the game has just begin. Though the whole region has suffered, it is Pakistan’s society, values and economy that have really paid the price for unwise military doctrines such as ‘strategic depth’ inside Afghanistan and support to jihadists used in pointless proxy wars. Till early this year Pakistan’s religious parties resisted, with the tacit support of their friends in the establishment, any action against terrorists in the tribal areas. They not only justified horrible acts such as the terrorists beheading soldiers and playing football with martyred soldiers’ heads, but also called the dead terrorists ‘martyrs’. One could presume that the darkest phase is over and the army is taking no cues from the religious parties and is determined to eliminate even those terrorists who were once dubbed ‘good Taliban’ but the Prime Minister’s Advisor on Foreign Affairs is still questioning taking action against the so-called ‘good Taliban’. This is a mindset issue, which will take time to change and this mindset will definitely resist the army taking the fight to other parts of the country, where it is believed there are many escaped terrorists hiding. As the army continuesh its crusade against the terrorists, the most important part of it is the fight against the mindset through which a terrorist thinks he or she is better than others and presumes that they have a duty to eliminate those who do not subscribe to their ideology. Fighting against such a mindset is not the job of the army alone but of civil society, educationalists, sociologists, jurists and the media.

MASOOD KHAN

Jubail

Saudi Arabia