Daily Times

There are sane and sympathetic voices out there speaking for Pakistan. One deeply appreciates the understanding and empathy that they show for our men and officers killed by NATO helicopters at Salala Post in Mohmand Agency. One is also very touched by their longing for the outside chance that it had not happened and the brutality of ‘collateral’ deaths during otherwise effective drone attacks. They regret that the Pakistani nation has been sentenced to suffer a relentless political emotional trauma ever since it came into being. These are very charitable notions coming from hearts bleeding for humanity but are few and far between. In any case, such notions are not so fashionable in today’s cutthroat political world and sensation-ridden media. Treachery, manslaughter, massive destruction, spectacular scale of massacre by daisy cutter bombs, surprise destruction behind enemy lines by stealth bombers, the Abbottabad raid and dreadful craters dug out by bunker buster bombs: the world has been turned into a medieval coliseum where decapitation and bloody decimation of captive men by armoured gladiators draws cheerful applause from galleries around the globe. The only difference might be that Caesar sits in Washington and not Rome. It appears that the dogs of war have been unleashed and given a free run.

The invention of terms like ‘friendly fire’ and ‘collateral damage’, particularly the latter, is a stroke of literary genius that even Machiavelli would have failed to come up with. ‘Collateral damage’ is simply a brilliant conception. It is also completely evil and inhuman. But then it is truly reflective of the severely psychopathic bent of mind of those who hide their guilt behind it; at the same time it is a smokescreen that allows them to get away from moral and human responsibility for the homicide that they perpetrate. It also helps them sail over pangs of conscience, if any.

The concept of collateral damage is in the same league as Serb racial cleansing or the extremely despicable ideology of mass killers like OBL and his depraved ilk. The Serbs and the like pretended to serve some kind of a perverse cause, but the disciples of the doctrine of collateral damage kill for the sake of killing only. That is what makes it so much more deplorable. A more worrisome aspect of this wicked doctrine is that a massacre in battle at a given level converts into collateral damage at the next higher level. Therefore, in order to escape direct and incriminating responsibility, execution is allowed to those below and then the matter is pulled two or three steps up and described as collateral damage, misdirected friendly fire or what have you. There could be nothing more duplicitous and heartless. According to literary definition, collateral damage is “unintended damage done to civilian life or property during a military operation”. However, it is being applied in much broader terms to possibly include incidents like the ‘mistaken’ NATO attack on Salala Post in the overall context of the war in Afghanistan.

The Salala attack has a peculiarity. It was neither incidentally collateral nor unintended or misdirected friendly fire. It was coldblooded, premeditated manslaughter, purely driven by hatred, arrogance of superior military power and the perverted glee that those on the receiving end were unprepared, unprotected and under-equipped to retaliate. How does the NATO and ISAF high command explain shooting the rescue party and stretcher-bearers one by one, by returning and hovering all around these absolutely well-marked positions after nearly an hour of the first helicopter attack? This tends to reflect the general animosity towards Pakistani troops that prevails in ISAF/NATO forces across the border, stoked no less by the sinking realisation of the impending failure in Afghanistan and utterly unfortunate remarks by men like Mullen, Panetta, this and that Congressman, journalist, think tank, a stink bug in the State or Treasury Departments, or even a bartender in downtown Miami.

It does not take rocket science to figure out that the coalition forces seem to have reached the edge of the same precipice that saw the inglorious demise of past invaders. Alexander the Great had to eat humble pie for passage through Afghan territory. Persian Imperial forces had to beat repeated retreats, whereas Russia waited more than 130 years on the banks of the Amu Darya to invade and be defeated as the Soviet Union. The mighty British Empire suffered humiliation twice; in one case only one horseman survived to tell the tale of a horrible massacre.

Afghanistan is one of the two roundabouts of history that Toynbee said would affect world events. The other is Syria. Whoever disrespects this edict suffers terribly. It is not a curse but a lesson of history that the US deliberately chose to ignore, albeit at its own cost and peril. No amount of improvisation like long-term Afghan bases for special operations, raising dubious militias in selected parts of the country or propping up dummies here and there will ever work. These fierce men have their own mechanisms, civilised or not, of sorting out their feuds and battles. Their time is elastic and not governed by neatly drawn timelines or imperatives of election schedules elsewhere.

No one is imagining a replay of a scene like the last British soldier trundling back into the Jalalabad Fort after the whole expeditionary force was annihilated nor the last US soldier being lifted by a helicopter from the US embassy roof in Saigon. It could be better, it could be worse, but one thing is sure: the Afghans have begun to smell blood and are perhaps crouching behind the hills for the kill. While the proverbial road to and from Kabul runs through the Khyber Pass, the US has a way of doing things its own way nevertheless. It does not want to learn from others’ mistakes. It must walk into its own blunder before sense prevails. That means more bloodshed, more suffering and more misery. One wishes it was otherwise, but that is not going to be.

The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army. He can be reached at clay.potter@hotmail.com