Who wins ?

Growing up, I use to hear the older generation talk about how we are not functioning as we ought to be and as a nation, we have sunk as low as it gets. This not only black humor, but there was a certain optimism one could feel in such discussions. Surely, we have got no infrastructure. Half of our population is illiterate. There is no way to get hold of a doctor if you are injured or sick. Corruption is rife. You can get away with murder. The gap between the haves and the have-nots is getting wider and wider. We crave for democracy to get rid of dictators and when it finally happens, realize the politicians are worse and start craving for a strong handed military man to intervene only to crave for democracy again, all in short cycles of time. It goes on and on but still we were optimistic. The idea being, we have sunk so low, the only way is up. There was hope. And hope as some believe is a very powerful thing. And now it seems we have lost that as well.
For Pakistanis, its now coming to a point where there is fatigue setting in. I get the impression like we have just given up. Like we are just going through our daily business waiting for stuff to happen around us and to us. We stop for a moment and carry on driving by a site of terrorism act like it was just another traffic accident where some dim wit had drove in the back of another vehicle. We have now reached a point where these regular attacks have become part of life. Apart perhaps from those directly affected by such tragedies, nobody seems to feel any pain. Now that is a new low. Slowly but surely, we as a nation are losing ampathy, the ability to feel pain for others. Psychologists would term that as being clinically insane.

There is no other country where foreigners and locals get about killing human beings and throwing them away in dungeons without any legal procedures what so ever, except Pakistan. Even the Iraqis have a procedure regulating the actions of foreign troops on their soil and to some extents, the afghan president seems to make some noises whenever a daisy-cutter rips through a wedding ceremony. But here in our beloved country, the country that is supposedly a nuclear power, has 700,000 trained and paid soldiers armed with modern weapons barely lets rip a whimper. And it is not restricted to the government alone. Even the public are fine with it as long as they are not hit personally.

More and more of us, just don't care anymore.

But of course, it goes deeper than that. I first thought that we don't do anything about it because those in power don't want to. Fact is, we cant do anything about to. We are not allowed to. Anytime someone in charge thinks about taking a stand, they are brought to their knees so mercilessly, an example is made of them for all others to see. one by one they either comply or when they cannot anymore, they are consigned to the history faster than a piece of used toilet paper being flushed down the drain.

Doubt me? Then pay attention.

In the wake of the continued air strikes by the US in Pakistani territories, the gov. protested at first and demanded an immediate halt. It was never going to happen. Then they adopted a more conciliatory approach of claiming they are being discussed, intelligence being shared and all the other bullshit. That was also denied by the US. As a last resolve, the Pakistan defense minister admitted that we not capable of doing anything to stop these cross border attacks. In his words, not even our air force has the means to target these unmanned aircraft which is ridiculous, frankly for anyone who has the tiniest understanding of such matters.

However, during a visit to the IDEAS 2008 defense exhibition in Karachi, the chief of the Pakistan Air Force rubbished these ignorant claims of the Minister stating the force is capable of tracking and shooting down these planes anytime and at any altitude. He also suggested that the decision on the matter was not of military capability but a political one.

I believe these comments might have raised some eye brows from Islamabad to Washington. Just think about the implications of PAF shooting down American planes on Pakistani territory. It is not sane to imagine that Pakistan can afford a direct confrontation with the US but I am safe to believe, neither can the US. Some thing must be done and fast to keep these wandering thoughts in the power circles of Pakistan in check. No one can be allowed to disrupt the systemic destruction of any links or controls that Pakistan Gov. asserts in the tribal belt. Systematic terror attacks across Pakistan are a ploy to keep the police and intelligence agencies spread thin to counter those elements, who term them as Taliban of Pakistan nuder various names and aliases, as there existed no such thing before the US intervention in Afghanistan. These militants are the breed who were trained, funded and armed by not only ISI, who were only the front line (funny how such lables are recycled overtime) but the CIA and other agencies. These were the paople who fught wars, and still do, because they are paid to do so. You only have to see how the largest group of all is setup and commanded by Baitullah Mehsood. Someone who is said to be released from the Guantanamo Bay.

To divert the meager resources of Pak Gov even more and to stretch the armed forces even thinner, to a point where they are tactically unable to function at all, something even more evil was to happen.

So within one week of the remarks by the PAF chief, the targets in Bombay were targeted in a gruesome manner uncharacteristic of what the world has seen so far. These gunmen went about the affairs more like special forces commandos trained in modern urban warfare than some teenagers jumping hurdles at some far flung madrassah supposedly on the Pak-afghan border. The media is fed with stories pointing fingers to Pakistan within a couple of hours of the first shots being fired. Up to this point, not a single gunmen had yet been identified nor had any other evidence been analyzed. This information overflow did its business however and now the two countries, with their troubled history are again odds with each other. Even though I doubt there would be another war, Pakistan will be put under pressure to do even more in the war against terror. Conveniently, they also killed three very important counter terror police officers who investigated and uncovered how extremist híndus and not muslims, supported by ISI, were behind the explosions that brought destruction to teh Samjhota express in 2006 and how the state governement of Gujrat supported teh massacre of muslims on hands of hindus and got away with it. They recently arrested A Colonel and a Major on charges of providing support and training to these groups who admitted plotting these events to frame the indian muslims.

Whenever a major tragedy is brought on humans by other humans, the first question to ask should always be, 'who could profit from it?'. The people of India are angry at Pakistan calling for blood. The people in Pakistan have lost more lives to terrorism than any other country and are as big a victim as any one. So who benefits from all the death and destruction?