Daily Times

The armed forces have been put under the weather recently. It is primarily a success of the perception management strategists of the Taliban. The Taliban and al Qaeda groups faced a decisive defeat in Swat and South Waziristan. The army saved the country from near devastation and subversion by al Qaeda/Taliban militants. It hurt them. It hurt them so hard that they did not know how to react for a while. The Pakistan army’s soldiers had literally gone into a hand-to-hand fight, bullet for bullet and body for body. It was now or never. It is estimated that over 5,000 troops laid down their lives to save the country and their homeland from terrorists wearing the garb of a new ‘Islam’. They gave the ultimate sacrifice. The terror network had to scramble, hide, and then hit wherever it could. But they had lost the massive terrorist onslaught capability that had killed over 30,000 Pakistani civilians. Terrorists destroyed happy homes and left bloodstains on the walls, and deep wounds in the psyche of the nation. Such wounds take a long time to heal. The families of the shuhada (martyrs) will courageously hold their heads high in pride and honour and move on with life as time passes. Of course time is a great healer.

All that the soldiers did was in the line of duty and for their homeland. But some ‘friendly fire’ accompanied. The ‘friendly fire’ came from ‘drones’. They spotted the terror leaders with precision, mostly under protection of diehard companions, hit them and killed. In this way they eliminated most of the leadership of terror groups. But these ‘drone’ attacks by the US agency CIA had an inherent danger. It was managed and operated by a foreign power, the US, which is easily exploitable.

That the terror groups are heavily manned by foreigners should never be lost sight of. They are also funded and controlled by foreign groups. In the battle on the ground, the Pakistan Army did a great job and succeeded. Drones helped; they caused some collateral damage in life and property but caused potential damage to the terrorists in the public perception.

In this situation, the remaining terrorist and pro-Taliban groups devised an alternate strategy. What they had lost in the field, they wanted to win in perception. Very cleverly they started with the ‘drones’. American drones hurt them a lot. So the focus of huge publicity was that a ‘foreign’ power was interfering and killing ‘Pakistanis’ through drones. Since the drones were not Pakistani, the label that ‘Pakistanis’ are being killed by ‘foreigners’ stuck. The Pakistanis are an emotional people and get easily carried away in the name of ‘honour’. They kill their kith and kin and particularly their women if their ‘honour’ is perceived to be at stake. Therefore, a strong popular sentiment against drone strikes developed. The strategists of ‘psy-war’ were getting close to what they wanted. The usual gallery of rightists, plus Imran Khan and Mian sahib joined the chorus, because the rightists are part of their vote bank. The number of people ‘soft’ on the Taliban is large and if they are diverted from the memory of the killings by the terrorists, then they end up in supporting action. They feel that they are perhaps doing some ‘service’ to Islam, and in this particular case, also to the national honour.

In reality, the terrorists or no different from one another anywhere. They work for the hegemony of a group. Historically, the Aryans have done it, Christians have done it, Jews have done it and Hindus have done it, and Muslims have done it too. But all such people violated the peaceful teaching of their religion and exploited religious and national sentiments to expand their influence. Desire for money, sex, power — all human weaknesses are exploited, no holds barred.

In our case, the magic combination was ‘honour’, ‘sovereignty’, and ‘religious sentiment’. It was fully exploited and funded by mysterious sources. Everyone suddenly became patriotic and did not want ‘foreign interference’. On top of it, the Osama episode occurred. Osama was lost to the terrorists but the intrusion by American helicopters and the so-called inability of our armed forces to check them provided the ‘psy-war’ machine with a wealth of data to exploit. They used it against the army to the hilt. The Pakistan Army being the only real barrier against a terrorist onslaught is indeed the most significant of the terrorists’ targets.

The terror ‘psy-war’ specialists made the majority of Pakistanis overlook the fact that 30,000 civilians and 5,000 army men were also killed because of the interference of the ‘terrorist foreigners’. It is hard to give them a recognisable face like the ‘Americans’. The ‘terrorist foreigner’ is a combination put together and made faceless except in cases where they grow unkempt beards to camouflage themselves. In this ‘psy-war’, all the sleeper cells have been activated even within the army and the rest of the establishment. The height of their achievement is that in the Mehran terror attack, the only thing that was highlighted was the air force-navy ‘negligence’, disregarding the efficacy of the Eurasian terrorists.

It is the ‘psy-war’ that we need to fight and make a counter-attack. We can win it; it is not too late if we plan now and use the real data. We have to recognise and expose the foreign hand convincingly; no use being modest or shy. After all, it is a war. We need to watch the enemy within, even those whose minds were influenced in Zia’s regime of terror. Thinking people need to take a step back and introspect. Most importantly, politicians need to realise that this is not the time to buy votes at any price. I request them to please expose the terror framework and stop calling it somebody else’s war. It has been our blood on the soil.

The writer is a culture and media management specialist, a researcher, author, director and actor