Daily Times

Terror sweeps through Pakistan once again. Starting from Lahore, then touching down in Peshawar and finally landing at Sehwan, it rips apart the facade of the success of operation Zarb e Azab, the military action launched against the radicals in 2014 and intensified after the Army Public School massacre in January of 2015.

To everyone’s surprise however, within a matter of months after its commencement, Pakistan declared and celebrated its victory against the Jihadists, their network shattered, their hideouts destroyed, their organization broken apart. No one questioned these claims, though, in part because the number of bombings did reduce almost immediately, and in part because people wanted to enjoy the peace that had returned to them after a long time. They did not want to waste time debating the procedural details. They found them to be boring, cumbersome and unnecessary. But was it really as simple? That we decide to take action one day and rub the Aladdin’s lamp, the Genie appearing afterwards and fixing everything for us on the following morning? How can a nation fight terrorism without fighting extremism, the root cause of violence?

There were problems with the way the Zarb e Azab was selectively conducted from day one. We knew about them from day one, the recent events testifying in favor of our concerns. Yet, the bigger problem was that the people who brought up the partiality of the operation to the authorities were either labelled as unpatriotic, enemy agents, or maligned as the people who are hell-bound to hate Pakistani Army at every cost, for every action, for every decision.

So whenever they asked, requested, advised, prompted, or even poked to take on all the culprits, to spare no favorites, to go against every sectarian outfit, they were either pushed back or pushed to the wall, an attitude that says we know better, we know it all. We are the real experts. Who are you? Just a pimp who speaks someone else’s language, the dancer who performs someone else’s music. You need to be picked up, taught a lesson, interrogated or may be investigated under the Blasphemy Law.

So while the critics were being picked up and ‘straightened out,’ we saw the banned organizations and extremist groups roamed across the country holding rallies, protesting, addressing large crowds. Their fearlessness was amazing, their security mind boggling. When asked about their status, the civilian administration pointed fingers at the establishment, the establishment pointed back at the civilians and both towards the people raising concerns. Why were these groups allowed or encouraged to move freely? How could they continue their activities? Their political motives were kept secret, their financiers unknown, their bosses hiding behind the dark curtains. Even worse was the fact that no one was ready to talk about them as if they did not exist at all.

Technically speaking, every operation starts on a specific date and puts a time line when to end it. It sets realistic targets for itself and draws a line on what it can or can’t achieve. These considerations reduce the risk of failure and thus the embarrassment later on. Everlasting operations such as that of Karachi, Swat or Zarb e Azab by any definition cannot be called as an operation at all. They are best referred to as ‘occupation’ which loses its control over time, the reality that we face today. Anyhow, in addition to setting realistic goals within a timeframe, the civilian administration is also included in the decision making process to take up the responsibility as soon as the major combat has ended. The long term success indeed depends on the participation of almost every department of the government. As trivial as it may sound, its participation should begin from the training of the junior most employee in the janitorial services and reach up to the top ranking police officers, all coming on one page, their eyes set on the same target. If left out like what has happened in Karachi, the failure becomes an inevitable reality no matter how strong our military is and how successful its initial assault was on the criminals.

Another problem that causes us to fail every single time deals with our reluctance to bring up the pertinent questions to the responsible authorities when it comes to their operational skills, their interrogatory methods, their high handedness. To be clear, here the question is not why we are sparing some terrorists and going after the others, the question is if we can identify the real threat and then take action against it. In other words, the question is not about the intention, it is about the capacity. It is about: are we getting the correct information? Are we going after the true enemy? What processes are followed before declaring someone as a Jihadi? Who are those one hundred people that we have killed in less than a week? Is there any judicial or legislative oversight on such activities? In short, when a significant number of people do not raise these concerns, the whole system crumbles down as we see it happening today.

The writer is a US-based freelance columnist. He tweets at @KaamranHashmi and can be reached at skamranhashmi@gmail.com