Daily Times

Pakistan’s prospective ownership of the ‘Afghan-led’ and ‘Afghan-owned’ NATO war reflects a major paradigm shift in our politico-military doctrine. While an essential part of the war operationally, ownership of war did not figure at the level of a grand national strategy.

Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, in his Independence Day message at the Azadi parade at the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) said, “…the fight against extremism and terrorism is our own war and we are right in fighting it…Let there be no doubt about it. Otherwise, we will be divided and taken towards civil war…Our minds should be clear on this.”

This was a bold and forthright statement, worthy of an army chief. He went on to ‘renew’ the military ‘pledge’ to ‘eradicate’ militancy and extremism from the country.

US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta went overboard in welcoming General Kayani’s statement. “Kayani sounded the right themes,” he said in an AP interview. He went on to add that Pakistan was ‘all set’ to launch a military operation named ‘Tight Screw’ in North Waziristan as early as next month (September).

Chairperson of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Martin E Dempsey termed Kayani’s speech as “very significant”.

Such might have been the euphoria generated by Kayani’s PMA speech that a generally sceptical Pentagon hastened to discuss it as “hypothetical”, suggesting Pakistan might be entering Afghanistan in the pursuit of militants under the cover of Operation Tight Screw. By far the most substantive part of General Kayani’s PMA speech, as quoted by a section of the national press, reflected badly on the performance of ‘all the state institutions including the army’.

Mistakes had been made by failing to recognise militancy as the ‘main threat to the country’. No concerted efforts were made to gain public support for the threat. ‘The fight against terrorists and extremists is one of the entire nation and not only of the army.’ ‘It’s our own war and we are right in fighting it. And soon’!

The problem is how to define a terrorist and an extremist. Aren’t the two one and the same in the ultimate analysis? Extremism precedes terrorism. The Soviet Afghan war had been the main engine of extremism drifting into terrorism at the end of the war. It happened after the hasty Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan without the protective institutional cover and apparatus of a transitional government. Many times worse than that has been the US betrayal of Afghanistan. It would not wait to go the Soviet way to create an ideal setting for militant forces to enter.

The former Afghan president, Dr Najibullah, though Soviet-backed, was a true and patriotic Afghan. He might have been the only chance for the US to forge a working relationship and save Afghanistan from the Mujahideen onslaught in 1992. President Najibullah sought sanctuary in the UN compound with his brother. He was the only person who, with the US’s help, could create an element of sanity out of the raging Mujahideen insanity.

Four years later in September 1996, the Taliban under Mullah Umar, marched triumphantly into Kabul to turn it into a firm base for extremism under the banner of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The Taliban were thrown out of Kabul by the US-backed-and-armed Northern Alliance entering Kabul with flying colours. The US Operation Enduring Freedom to get hold of Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda chief, broke all hell loose in Afghanistan without getting him.

The US’s excessive use of air power led by the lethal Daisy Cutters pulverised the Afghan mountains and much of the countryside without locating bin Laden. The Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan fell. However, its ameer, Mullah Umar survived to convert sporadic acts of subversion into terrorism with a dual doctrinaire and operational strategy.

Contextually, therefore, General Kayani’s declaration of war on extremism and its venomous offshoot, terrorism, poses a direct threat to the structured soundness and SOPs (Standard Operational Procedure) of a modern and technically westernised army like the Pakistan army and above all, the morale, discipline, psychological reorientation and motivation of the rank and file. The Tehrik-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan (TTP) is targeting the faith of the soldier based on General Ziaul Haq’s triple motto: Iman, Taqva and Jihad Fi Sibilillah, is targeting the Pakistan army. Along with the regular army, the Frontier Corps, the Rangers, etc, are officered by army regulars. An attack on any one of them at any time is an attack on the Pakistan army itself.

As I write these lines, the TTP has released a grisly video showing the severed heads of Pakistani soldiers, regardless of their parent service — regular or paramilitary. The TTP commander stands triumphantly beside his prized trophy.

How utterly savage, how horribly shocking. Could anything like that be even vaguely conceivable before the infusion of the cult of ‘martyr-ology’ in the military manual? Would it be right routinely to describe a professional soldier killed in action in the line of duty as a shaheed?

Would it be right or proper to equate the professional soldier’s ultimate duty to ‘do or die’ with that of a religiously inspired camp follower, swelling the ranks of a lashkar of the Faithful? If religious inspiration alone were the driving force behind a soldier’s ultimate sacrifice, what then would be the difference between him and a suicide bomber? Both are sworn and set upon the path of martyrdom of their own free will, outside the steel frame of military discipline.

Owning NATO’s Afghan war as our own being fought on our own soil, though belated, is the recognition of a hard physical reality. The point to ponder is: are we not, by glorifying every soldier falling in action as a shaheed, investing a suicide bomber with the dignity of martyrdom too?

The Afghan war is essentially a NATO-US war, without any Islamic motivation. It is their war against terrorists — all Muslims, irrespective of their nationality and country of origin. And the Pakistan army, sworn to the Kalima-e-Tayyaba, remains an ally of the ‘ungodly’ US.

How then should our military leaders convince our soldier of its Islamic orientation?

The writer is a retired brigadier and can be reached at brigsiddiqi@yahoo.co.uk