Daily Times

No I am not going to do the usual condemnation, the usual nonsense that people utter to demonstrate their presumed sorrow. As if the perpetrators of terrorist attacks give a hoot about any such condemnations. They perhaps laugh at such hollow and meaningless verbosity; the channels go a step ahead and keep track of who has and who has not demonstrated their hypocrisy by repeating that impotent sentence. Nor am I going to do the analysis of the security failures both at Karachi Airport and for that matter at Taftan. There are plenty of gifted analysts who have done so at length, ‘Monday morning quarterbacking’ on that subject. The fact is that the track record of monstrous failures is way too long and way too depressing. The usual finger pointing is in vogue and yes the usual spin is on. I was out and about with my young one, enjoying a day with him, when I very casually checked my Twitter timeline on a Sunday morning, which was Sunday night back home. The timeline lit up with a barrage of tweets about the rapidly unfolding events. Let us be honest and accept that Twitter is the new age and order in communication. The people inside the terminal, the ones stuck in planes on the runway, the correspondents, the ISPR, their relatives and heck even the terrorists were exchanging tweets. This was one unique operation that was completely reported through twitter, with some murky details, which were expected in such situations.

The blabbermouths are confused as usual, whether it is Twitter or the TV channels. Connections are desperately being made between the terrorists and a ‘neighbouring country’. The facts are to the contrary and it is amusing to hear the bald face ‘subject matter experts’ are now positing the attackers and their clans as agents of the ‘neighbouring country’. Not very long ago, the same people were hogging airtime, pushing for negotiations and in other words ‘Aman ki Asha’ with the same people. While the action was brewing at Karachi Airport, this scribe was guilty of a tweet hinting towards the absurdity to be expected the following day. By the way, the ‘neighbouring country’ has its own share of TV cartoons that do similar histrionics on screen to whip up their ratings. Whether they have any facts or not they sensationalise the rhetoric. The poor public on both ends is subject to such crass and exaggerated nonsense. The bodies buried, the laurels exchanged, the same old promises made, the million dollar question is, what lies ahead? The one penny answer is, no one knows. The people who pretend that they know what they are talking about usually are just pretending. Sounds like a sweeping statement. I am sorry but their track record speaks for itself. The people at the helm of affairs are confused beyond any shadow of a doubt. I have heard “enough is enough” so many times in the past that it is good enough for me to accept that I do not expect anything. The slaughterhouse will remain in business and the offerings will continue onwards. Sounds heartless; I am sorry but so is reality. The reason for such a sweeping statement is the enemy is beyond brilliant. The enemy has been victorious in dividing the nation at every level and instilling a sense of everlasting fear in everyone’s psyche. The enemy is precise and focused. Unfortunately, the nation is clueless. The enemy is aware of this weakness and very cleverly manipulating general opinion in its favour.

The gifted analysts are using the phrase “endgame” and giving long sermons on what is ahead and how these events have tipped the pendulum and so on and so forth. The fact remains that it is an endless game. The folks who are buying the fantasy that a targeted operation in the tribal area would bring everlasting peace will be very unpleasantly surprised. Urban infiltration is what most people are in complete denial about. The lack of proper training to deal with such a ferocious and deeply penetrated hydra-headed and multidimensional enemy has been utterly devastating. A very senior analyst opined on the TV screen that our country faces terrible external threats as we are surrounded by enemies from every direction. The “endgame” is near and so on and so forth. What if I were to make this argument that we have failed diplomatically to reduce the hostility with our neighbours? Considering everything that is in front of us, perhaps it is in the best interests of our country to engage all our neighbours. When the term “targeted operation” is used ad nauseum, most people tend to overlook that our enemies are not only limited within our borders. The endgame for the terrorists will only begin when all neighbouring countries are on the same page. If the so-called ‘proxy wars’ continue, the chances of any major breakthrough are very very slim.

The writer is a Pakistani-American mortgage banker. He blogs at http://dasghar.blogspot.com and can be reached at dasghar@aol.com. He tweets at http://twitter.com/dasghar